Chamber and committees

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

Filter your results Hide all filters

Displaying 1330 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S6W-22482

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 7 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-21841 by Richard Lochhead on 25 October 2023, who does have a remit to intervene should a broadband provider choose not to proceed with their commercial build plans.

The decision on whether or not to proceed with planned commercial rollout of broadband infrastructure is a matter solely for the relevant broadband infrastructure provider and their own internal governance. However, the Scottish Government is working to incentivise further commercial build through the series of pledges that comprise our Full Fibre Charter, and I am encouraged by discussions that took place with suppliers at last month’s Charter Forum.

Any homes or businesses not in a supplier’s commercial build plans, and which cannot access a superfast connection, are being supported to access a minimum of a superfast service through the Scottish Government’s R100 programme.

Question reference: S6W-22157

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 7 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment or review it has undertaken of any processes for sharing briefings and information during circumstances that challenge the usual methods of communication.

The Civil Contingencies Act (2004) places a statutory duty on responders to cooperate and share information.

There are several technical layers of fallback capabilities in place for communication during circumstances that challenge the usual methods of communication. However, work continues to review current arrangements and ensure they are resilient to a wide range of risks. The existing resilient telecommunications plan for Scotland is currently under review, led by Police Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-22310

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 6 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it can confirm the membership of the network of menopause specialists, including the representative of NHS Grampian.

Question reference: S6W-22150

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 6 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether Scottish Water has reviewed its emergency generator contingency plans in (a) general and (b) relation to pumping stations.

As this is an operational matter for Scottish Water, I have asked its Chief Executive to respond. His response is as follows:

Scottish Water regularly reviews its generator strategy across the country for all water and wastewater treatment works to minimise disruption in the event of wide scale power outages. Significant work has also been undertaken to understand the medium to long term investment needs. This has identified additional sites that will receive a standby generator, or a hook up, to allow quicker deployment of temporary generators at pumping stations when needed.

Question reference: S6O-02695

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 November 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 8 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made on eliminating long waiting times for NHS patients.

Question reference: S6W-22163

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 October 2023
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 31 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has reviewed the current distribution and transmission network infrastructure standards and guidance, including those for vegetation management and overhead line designs, to identify any economic and efficiency improvements that could increase network resilience to severe weather events.

The Energy sector is reserved to the UK Government and therefore the resilience of the UK’s energy network is the responsibility of the UK lead Government department, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

The Scottish Government contributed to the Storm Arwen Ofgem review and supported the recommendation that work is undertaken by the Energy Emergencies Executive Committee (E3C) to review current distribution and transmission network infrastructure standards and guidance, including those for vegetation management and overhead line designs, to identify economic and efficient improvements that could increase network resilience to severe weather events.

Any further information relating to progress of this recommendation is a matter for Ofgem.

Question reference: S6W-22155

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 30 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the work that it has done to review and expand the materials and training available to support the establishment and operation of local Community Resilience Groups during times of severe weather.

Our emergency planning portal; ready.scot, was updated in June 2022 to include a new ‘Learn’ section to support the public, community groups and Voluntary Sector partners, by raising awareness of emergency resilience structures and processes, and to strengthen understanding of how they might participate in an effective and joined-up response to an emergency. Between March and April 2023 a series of four online community resilience workshops took place, joined by approximately 240 participants. We will continue to work with the sector, and in particular Local Authorities who have the lead role on engaging with local communities, to understand their training needs and to provide any additional resources required.

Question reference: S6W-22159

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 30 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what review it has undertaken of any arrangements for an emergency that involves the loss of both power and telecoms, and engagement with utilities companies and local planning where required to ensure linkage with national developments.

The Scottish Government’s Storm Arwen Review provided a detailed review of such a situation, and our two follow-up reports made clear that the organisations who are responsible for emergency planning and response in Scotland had formally incorporated those recommendations into their workplans.

The Scottish Government regularly engages with UK Government Departments and the utilities operators in Scotland, as well as our own emergency responders, to ensure that information relevant to emergency planning is shared between the two.

Question reference: S6W-22151

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 30 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what engagement it has undertaken on improving resilience plans to enable the strategic coordination of door-to-door welfare checks.

The Scottish Government continues to work closely with categorised responders, who are responsible under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 for assessing the risk of an emergency occurring, maintaining plans to ensure they can continue to perform their functions in case of an emergency, and considering whether an assessment makes it necessary or expedient to add or modify plans. Scottish Government are not however responsible for, or the owners of, any of these plans.

In relation to door-to-door welfare checks specifically, our follow-up report on Storm Arwen in October 2022 confirmed that “The capability to deliver this type of large-scale response relies on a number of the issues, for example swift activation of resilience arrangements, the ability to quickly assess the impact on the ground, strong mutual aid arrangements and links to community and voluntary groups, and agile public communications plans. Resilience partnerships are however also aware that deploying a large number of people to travel on foot to carry out door-to-door checks could itself create a risk for those involved, for example if the weather conditions remain challenging. As such, these checks should always be considered as part of a range of ‘care for people’ considerations and measures which are rolled out in response to any major incident, which might also for example include the provision of rest centres.”

The Scottish Government is also supporting partners in the development of the Persons at Risk Distribution (PARD) resource which enables the swift identification of, and support to, those most at risk during an incident.

Question reference: S6W-22161

Asked by: Alexander Burnett, MSP for Aberdeenshire West, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 October 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 30 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what improvements it will make in relation to increasing the amount of weather-related advice and information that it shares.

The Scottish Government, via its Ready Scotland digital channels, runs a year-long communications campaign with a specific focus on severe weather.

The aims of the campaign are: to highlight risks associated with particular severe weather conditions and recommend actions people can take to minimise the negative knock-on effects; to promote responsible behaviours; and to raise awareness of information, advice and guidance about what to do in advance to prepare for, respond to and recover from severe weather emergencies.

Since 2022 each campaign burst has been complemented with a bespoke digital toolkit. They contain pre-made social media content providing the most important and relevant weather-related practical advice, signposting users to the Ready Scotland and partner websites where they may find further guidance. The toolkits are shared with partner organisations, who we understand regularly promote this Scottish Government-branded content from their official social media accounts, therefore assisting in maximising the reach of this key messaging.