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Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

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Question reference: S6W-36134

Asked by: Neil Bibby, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 17 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how the hospice care sector will be factored into the structural processes around the Agenda for Change and medical pay awards agreed in its Budget for 2025-26 to ensure that they can achieve ongoing pay parity with NHS levels.

Officials are undertaking work with the chair of the Scottish Hospice Leadership Group and Hospice UK to fully understand the requirements to provide pay parity to those delivering frontline services in line with NHS Agenda for Change levels. Officials are also continuing to explore the mechanisms for providing this funding, while respecting local commissioning arrangements.

This funding does not bring hospice staff under AfC terms and conditions and is only intended to provide pay parity with NHS Agenda for Change levels. Independent hospices will have their own terms and conditions for the staff they employ.

Question reference: S6O-04571

Asked by: Neil Bibby, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 April 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of three-year-old children receive free early learning and childcare in the week after their third birthday.

Question reference: S6O-04521

Asked by: Neil Bibby, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 March 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 2 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the progress of action 42 in the Cancer Action Plan 2023 to 2026 to carry out a clinically led review on cancer waiting times.

Question reference: S6O-04493

Asked by: Neil Bibby, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 March 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 26 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has allocated in its Budget for revenue and capital funding for Strathclyde Partnership for Transport for 2025-26.

Question reference: S6W-35396

Asked by: Neil Bibby, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angus Robertson on 18 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how it is supporting human rights defenders in its partner countries, as part of its work through its International Development Fund.

Through its International Development Fund, the Scottish Government has over the last year, following work with our partner countries, launched new programmes with a heavier focus on investment in health, education, equalities, and renewables, underpinned by and guided by our core Principles. We also launched two new major Climate Justice Fund programmes in 2023.

The Scottish Government separately provides funding to support Human Rights Defenders. The Scottish Government established the Scottish Human Rights Defender Fellowship in 2018 as a temporary relocation programme to support international human rights defenders at risk as a direct result of their work. The Fellowship – and Scotland – has welcomed 19 human rights defenders from 16 different countries, two of whom have been from our partner countries Malawi and Zambia.

Question reference: S6W-35395

Asked by: Neil Bibby, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angus Robertson on 18 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it has taken to implement its policy on taking a feminist approach to international relations.

Since the November 2023 publication of the Scottish Government’s position paper, Taking a Feminist Approach to International Relations, officials have taken forward a range of activities as part of our commitment to mainstream a feminist approach across key policy areas, including international development, climate justice, trade, and peace & security.

This includes working to embed gender equality throughout our international development work as well as developing specific gender equality programmes. In seeking to equalise power in our international development activities, we work directly with organisations in our partner countries of Malawi, Rwanda and Zambia and have established a Global South Advisory Panel. On trade, the Scottish Government is committed to addressing the gender export gap in Scotland, confirmed by the findings in the recent Gender Export Gap research report. We will be working with our delivery agencies and stakeholders in implementing the report’s recommendations, providing tailored advice, assistance, and international market access opportunities to help women-led businesses succeed on the global stage.

Question reference: S6W-35394

Asked by: Neil Bibby, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angus Robertson on 18 March 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many times it has raised human rights concerns, including individual cases, with representatives of international governments since January 2023.

Question reference: S6O-04203

Asked by: Neil Bibby, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 January 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 16 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what estimate it has made of the number of children and young people leaving school unable to swim.

Question reference: S6O-04109

Asked by: Neil Bibby, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 December 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 12 December 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how it determines what constitutes a major service change in the NHS.

Question reference: S6W-30340

Asked by: Neil Bibby, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 October 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 30 October 2024

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-29611 by Jenny Gilruth on 20 September 2024, what evaluation it has carried out regarding the impact on educational performance of providing around 280,000 free digital devices and 14,000 connectivity packages to learners, and for what reason it did not provide this information in its answer.

The Scottish Government provision of devices and connectivity packages during the pandemic was an emergency response to ensure disadvantaged learners could remain in contact with schools, teachers and learning during the periods when schools were closed.

The remainder of the devices have been funded, procured and distributed by local authorities themselves, in line with local learning strategies. Local authorities are ultimately responsible for delivery of education, including decisions around how, when and why to deploy any technology. Therefore, it would be for local authorities to undertake any evaluation of local device rollout programmes.