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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.

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Question reference: S6W-44008

Asked by: Fulton MacGregor, MSP for Coatbridge and Chryston, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 March 2026
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 9 March 2026

To ask the Scottish Government what the reason is for the reported exclusion of children and young people’s services from the current strategic work to develop its Long Term Conditions Framework, including from recent governance and scoping events, and what steps it will take to ensure that children and young people are structurally included in the design of governance, advisory arrangements and strategic priorities at the current stage of the process, in line with its commitments under the Disability Equality Plan, the National Transitions to Adulthood Strategy for Young Disabled People (2025–2030), and its duties under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024.

Question reference: S6W-44009

Asked by: Fulton MacGregor, MSP for Coatbridge and Chryston, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 March 2026
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 9 March 2026

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will commit to ensuring that children and young people with long-term conditions are structurally and meaningfully included in governance, prioritisation and strategic design decisions regarding its Long Term Conditions Framework, including through the development of a parallel children and young people’s long-term conditions framework to run concurrently with the adult framework.

Question reference: S6O-05609

Current Status: Withdrawn

Question reference: S6O-05534

Asked by: Fulton MacGregor, MSP for Coatbridge and Chryston, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 February 2026
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 19 February 2026

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to increase the identification of deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism in primary care.

Question reference: S6W-43389

Asked by: Fulton MacGregor, MSP for Coatbridge and Chryston, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 January 2026
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 10 February 2026

To ask the Scottish Government what support is in place for people with postural tachycardia syndrome (PoTS).

Support for people with postural tachycardia syndrome (PoTS) is provided by NHS Boards, and the Scottish Government expects Boards to deliver high-quality, safe and effective, person-centred care. Support is often provided in primary care, with referral to secondary care if required to rule out other causes of symptoms or to provide management care.

NHS Inform also provides accessible public information on PoTS, including symptoms, causes, diagnosis and approaches to management, helping patients and families to better understand the condition and support self-management alongside clinical care: Postural tachycardia syndrome (PoTS) - NHS.

PoTS UK offers information and advice on managing and living with PoTS, including self-management, mental health support and medication guidance. Their resources are available at: Managing PoTS - PoTS UK.

STARS (the Heart Rhythm Alliance) also provides information and resources to support patients and families living with PoTS: Postural Tachycardia Syndrome (PoTS) – STARS – UK (heartrhythmalliance.org).

Question reference: S6W-43361

Asked by: Fulton MacGregor, MSP for Coatbridge and Chryston, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 27 January 2026
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 3 February 2026

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to review the transplant pathways for people who have received the Fontan procedure and/or who are complex congenital heart disease patients, and what steps it is taking to help ensure that they do not need to travel outside Scotland to access what can be life-saving care.

The Scottish Government is working to increase the number of organ transplants for Scottish patients, to reduce waiting times, and to provide the best possible outcomes for patients.

Heart transplantation for adults and children who have received the Fontan procedure, and/or who have complex congenital heart disease, is a highly complex operation that requires specific skill sets for the heart transplant teams looking after these patients. As a result, complex congenital heart transplantation is undertaken at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle for the whole of the UK. This arrangement is supported by the NHS Blood and Transplant Cardiothoracic Advisory Group in order to concentrate this relatively uncommon activity in one centre to ensure adequate volume and maintenance of requisite skills for the team.

The Scottish Government is content that this arrangement provides patients with complex congenital heart disease requiring transplantation in Scotland with the best possible service and the lowest clinical risk. Accordingly, there are no current plans to review the transplant pathways for these operations.

Question reference: S6W-43233

Asked by: Fulton MacGregor, MSP for Coatbridge and Chryston, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 January 2026
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 29 January 2026

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to address the impact of local authority budget decisions on dementia and community care services, including care at home, respite, day care and post-diagnostic support, to ensure that people living with dementia continue to receive the support that they need.

The Scottish Government remains committed to ensuring that people living with dementia and their families have access to consistent, high-quality care and support throughout every stage of their condition.

To support these ambitions, the 2026-27 budget includes record funding of £22.5 billion to health and social care, including supporting the pay uplift for our valued adult social care workforce. The budget also delivers a real terms increase of £700m in the Local Government Settlement between 2025-26 and 2026-27, taking this to over £15.7 billion. This includes an investment of over £2.3 billion for social care, exceeding our commitment to increase funding by 25% by the end of this Parliament.

As part of the national Dementia Strategy and first two-year Delivery Plan, which is jointly being taken forward with COSLA, the voices of lived experience, local and national delivery partners, we have prioritised efforts to ensure the right supports are available in our communities. This helps people living with dementia to access care in the setting of their choice and helps reduce the need for more intensive health and social care interventions for any longer than is clinically necessary. To support these ambitions, we have invested across the lifetime of the Delivery Plan around £1.45 million to increase direct support to dementia community groups and settings nationally, and £7 million via Health and Social Care Partnerships to increase the number of people who benefit from our commitment to a minimum of 12 months’ Post-Diagnostic Support.

The Scottish Government also recognises the invaluable role of care partners and unpaid carers, including those supporting people living with dementia. To help sustain and improve the health and wellbeing of carers across Scotland, we are progressing the Carers Act to further enhance and extend the rights of adult and young carers by investing £88.4 million per year in local carer support through Carers (Scotland) Act 2016 funding; £600,000 in 2025-26 for local carers centres in addition to local authority funding; and £13 million this year for the voluntary Short Breaks Fund.

While the commissioning of local services appropriately sit with local authorities, so that they can best respond to and meet local need, we are focused on wider social care reform and the National Care Service to improve people’s lives. The Care Reform (Scotland) Act 2025 and the new National Care Service Advisory Board, alongside other national programmes including GIRFE, Coming Home, the Self-directed support improvement plan and Support in the Right Direction funding, are all playing a part to improve services across Scotland and will be vital pillars in the National Care Service going forward. These programmes all work towards ensuring that people living with dementia receive the support they need.

Question reference: S6O-05419

Asked by: Fulton MacGregor, MSP for Coatbridge and Chryston, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 January 2026
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 28 January 2026

To ask the Scottish Government what support it provides to the Outdoor Arts, Circus and Spectacle sector.

Question reference: S6W-42854

Asked by: Fulton MacGregor, MSP for Coatbridge and Chryston, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 January 2026
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 21 January 2026

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on the most recent figures for the average Council Tax Band D bill in Scotland, and how that compares with (a) England and (b) Wales.

The 2025-26 average Band D Council Tax rates are published at the following locations:

Council tax datasets - gov.scot (Council Tax by Band 2025-26, Scotland)
Council Tax levels set by local authorities in England 2025 to 2026 (revised) - GOV.UK (England)
Council Tax levels: April 2025 to March 2026 [HTML] | GOV.WALES (Wales)

A summary table is as follows:

	2025-26 average Band D Council Tax rates
Scotland	£1,543
England	£2,280
Wales	£2,170

It should be noted that approaches to Council Tax differ across the nations, so full coherence is not possible and caution should be taken when making statistical comparisons. Property prices differ across the nations and have diverged since the 1991 valuations. The Council Tax bill in England contains additional elements, and special factors are taken into account when setting Council Tax levels. Properties in Wales have undergone a more recent revaluation than the other nations, and there will usually be other authorities levying Council Tax in addition to local councils. These are all factors which are likely to affect comparability in the statistics. Further details can be found in this paper:

Council Tax Rates: Comparing Scotland to other UK nations - gov.scot

Question reference: S6W-42915

Asked by: Fulton MacGregor, MSP for Coatbridge and Chryston, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 08 January 2026
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 20 January 2026

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of one in three men in Scotland reportedly being diagnosed with prostate cancer at a late stage, whether it will commit to exploring alternative interventions to support earlier identification of the condition, irrespective of the final recommendation from the UK National Screening Committee on it.

The Scottish Government, along with all other UK nations, takes advice from the UK NSC, an independent expert advisory group that informs screening policy across the UK. The Scottish Government will consider this guidance regarding any screening interventions.

We continue to take action to diagnose prostate cancer earlier. A clinical refresh of the Scottish Referral Guidelines for Suspected Cancer was published in August 2025. For this first time this now includes guidelines for key groups who should consider speaking to their GP about PSA testing from age 45. These are:

Men with a family history of prostate cancer,
Black men, who are around three times more likely to develop prostate cancer than white men, and may develop it up to five years earlier
and those with a genetic predisposition, such as BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations.

The guidelines now also explicitly mentions the prostate cancer risk management pathway, noting that GPs should have an informed conversation with anyone regardless of age if the individual is concerned about prostate cancer.

The primary care cancer education platform – Gateway C – supported by NHS Education for Scotland (NES) is providing innovative, and tailored information to support earlier cancer diagnosis efforts and enable effective decision-making. This resource includes specific modules on prostate cancer to support GPs.