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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-26970

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 April 2024
Current Status: Answer expected on 8 May 2024

To ask the Scottish Government when it plans to next update the Prevalence-Service Utilisation Ratio for people who are dependent on alcohol in Scotland, in light of the reported 40% reduction in the number of people accessing specialist alcohol treatment.

Question reference: S6W-26971

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 April 2024
Current Status: Answer expected on 8 May 2024

To ask the Scottish Government when Public Health Scotland will report on its investigation into the reasons behind the reported 40% reduction in the number of people accessing specialist alcohol treatment.

Question reference: S6W-26976

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 April 2024
Current Status: Answer expected on 8 May 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it can provide an estimate of how many jobs in (a) wind turbine manufacturing and (b) the supply-chain based in Scotland will be provided by the recently announced Green Volt project.

Question reference: S6W-26840

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 15 April 2024
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 23 April 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the findings and recommendations of LGBT Youth Scotland's Life in Scotland for LGBT Young People: Trans Report 2024.

The Scottish Government acknowledges this report which serves as a clear message that trans young people in Scotland are experiencing difficult and tangible challenges in their day to day lives.

Trans people continue to suffer poorer outcomes relative to the wider population, and this needs to change.

The Scottish Government are providing funding of over £1.1 million to LGBTQI+ organisations in 2024-25 to enable them to take forward a range of activities to advance equality and tackle discrimination.

We are taking forward our commitment to introduce legislation to end conversion practices in Scotland and responses to the public consultation, which closed on the 2 April, will be analysed and considered to inform the Bill the Scottish Government will introduce into Parliament. We have also funded a dedicated conversion practices helpline and are continuing to develop non-legislative measures to support victims and survivors of conversion practices.

We have published a Non-Binary Equality Action Plan to improve equality and wellbeing for non-binary people, established and funded organisations dedicated to stopping LGBTI-related bullying and discrimination, and published a new Hate Crime Strategy for Scotland, which sets out a vision for a Scotland that lives free from hatred and prejudice and where our communities are empowered, inclusive and safe.

It is essential that we continue to listen to people with lived experience and continue to strive for equality and inclusion to improve the lives of LGBTQI+ people in Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-26679

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 April 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 23 April 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of waiting times for clinical assessment for suspected hernias in NHS Lanarkshire.

Excessively long waits are, of course, unacceptable. We are working hard to drive down the longest waits, which have been exacerbated by the impacts of the global pandemic, to ensure all people receive the treatment they need as soon as possible.

The commitments set out in our £1bn NHS Recovery Plan support an increase in inpatient, day-case, and outpatient activity through the implementation of sustainable improvements and new models of care, and NHS Scotland’s Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) is working with Health Boards to ensure that they are able to continually identify new ways to increase capacity, and to respond to demand through service innovation and redesign.

CfSD programmes have developed strong clinically-led Specialty Delivery Groups (SDG), including one for General Surgery which is currently focused on Inguinal Hernia, Biliary Disease, and Emergency Laparoscopic and Laparotomy Scottish Audit (ELLSA) pathways.

SDGs promote multidisciplinary team working, and support local adoption of service improvement programmes and have supported several new and innovative pathway developments, many of which are now being successfully scaled up across Scotland, including Active Clinical Referral Triage (ACRT).

The NHS Golden Jubilee also continues to provide Health Boards, including NHS Lanarkshire, with capacity for key elective services, such as General Surgery, with patients treated on the basis of their clinical priority and length of wait.

Question reference: S6W-26499

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 March 2024
Current Status: Answered by Natalie Don on 23 April 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what action is being taken in response to the reported statistics that 42% of parents are spending more than a quarter of their entire household income on childcare.

The Scottish Government recognises that childcare costs can be a challenge for many parents and carers, particularly those experiencing poverty. Data from the nationally-representative Scottish Household Survey in 2022 showed that of households with at least one child aged 0-11 years 14% found it difficult or very difficult to afford childcare, although 53% of households found it very easy or easy. Across the full year, almost three quarters of households (73%) had no childcare costs, with around a fifth (19%) spending less than 10% of their average monthly income. A further 5% spent between 10 and 20% of their income on childcare.

The Scottish Government is continuing to invest nearly £1 billion a year in high-quality, funded early learning and childcare. Scotland is the only part of the UK to offer 1,140 hours a year of funded ELC to all three and four-year-olds and eligible two-year-olds. This offer has been in place since 2021 and, if families paid for this themselves, it would cost them around £5,800 per eligible child per year. We also remain committed to designing and building a system of School Age Childcare that supports parents, particularly on low incomes, to have secure and stable employment. This is why, over the next year, we will work with Local Government and other partners to develop the infrastructure and services needed to provide childcare in specific communities in six local authority areas: Shetland, Fife, Clackmannanshire, Inverclyde, Glasgow and Dundee. This work will enable us to begin to create and test, for the first time, what an all-age childcare system will look like for Scotland. We are taking a person-centred and place-based approach to designing this system – that means involving children, parents and providers in co-designing services to meet their needs.

Question reference: S6W-26500

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 March 2024
Current Status: Answered by Natalie Don on 23 April 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what action is being taken in response to the reported statistics that 41% of parents have had to rely on some form of debt or withdraw money from their savings to pay for childcare.

Question reference: S6W-26957

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 22 April 2024
Current Status: Answer expected on 7 May 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to conduct an assessment of the potential impact of its ban on industrial sandeel fishing in Scottish waters on puffin populations, and, if so, when it will report any findings resulting from such an assessment to Parliament.

Question reference: S6W-26954

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 22 April 2024
Current Status: Answer expected on 7 May 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has assessed the potential impact on its commitment to ban single-use vapes in the event that the UK Government's Tobacco and Vapes Bill is not passed by the UK Parliament, and what discussions the Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity has had with the UK Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, or any other UK Government ministers, regarding this Bill.

Question reference: S6W-26956

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 22 April 2024
Current Status: Answer expected on 7 May 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of any threat of wildfires in national parks ahead of the summer season, and what the outcome was of any such assessment.