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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: S6O-04745

Asked by: Emma Harper, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 May 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 4 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to modernise family law and ensure the efficient functioning of the civil court system.

Question reference: S6O-04679

Current Status: Withdrawn

Question reference: S6W-37418

Asked by: Emma Harper, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 May 2025
Current Status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Neil Gray on 2 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the activity delivered through the additional £30 million allocated in 2024-25 to reduce NHS waiting times.

NHS Boards have exceeded the commitment to deliver 64,000 appointments and procedures in 2024-25, funded through our additional investment of £30 million to drive action to address the longest waits.

In 2024-25, Boards were required to provide regular management information to the Scottish Government on activity being delivered as a result of additional funding provided. Boards have reported delivery of 105,500 appointments and procedures, as follows:

Over 15,800 new outpatient appointments;

almost 10,700 surgeries; and

almost 79,000 diagnostic procedures delivered.

This total is around 30,000 more than reported to the end of January in the answer to question S6W-35115 on 20 February 2025.

Funding was targeted in specialties including Diagnostics, Ophthalmology, Orthopaedics, Urology, and Cancer. Since April 2024, Scottish Government has been closely monitoring progress and impact. The volume of diagnostic procedures is almost double those originally planned for.

Across Scotland, the latest published data in the PHS Stage of Treatment Statistics show that, between October 2024 and December 2024, compared to the same period in 2023, there has been an 2.0% increase in activity for inpatient/daycase procedures and 1.6% increase for new outpatients appointments. Additionally, in relation to diagnostics, at the end of December 2024, the diagnostic waiting list had reduced by over 18,000 compared to end of April 2024. Since December 2022 the diagnostic waiting list has reduced by over 14,870. While changes to overall activity and waiting times cannot be solely attributed to the £30 million additional investment, we are confident that it has supported increased throughput.

At Board level, we have seen reductions in waiting times across a number of specialities where funding has been targeted, as set out in the following table:

NHS Board	Activity Type	Speciality	% Change in list size between March 2024 to December 2024
NHS Ayrshire & Arran	Diagnostic	Endoscopy	-71%
NHS Fife	Diagnostic	Imaging	-52%
NHS Ayrshire & Arran	Diagnostic	Imaging	-43%
NHS Forth Valley	Diagnostic	Imaging	-39%
NHS Grampian	Diagnostic	Imaging	-35%
NHS Tayside	Diagnostic	Imaging	-29%
NHS Great Glasgow & Clyde	Diagnostic	Endoscopy	-28%
NHS Lothian	TTG	Ophthalmology	-28%
NHS Ayrshire & Arran	TTG	Ophthalmology	-27%
NHS Lanarkshire	NOP	Urology	-23%
NHS Grampian	Diagnostic	Endoscopy	-20%
NHS Lanarkshire	TTG	Ophthalmology	-19%
NHS Lanarkshire	Diagnostic	Imaging	-18%
NHS Highland	TTG	Ophthalmology	-18%
NHS Lothian	TTG	Urology	-16%
NHS Lanarkshire	Diagnostic	Endoscopy	-13%
NHS Fife	TTG	Orthopaedics	-13%
NHS Lothian	TTG	Orthopaedics	-12%
NHS Highland	NOP	Ophthalmology	-11%
NHS Fife	NOP	Orthopaedics	-10%
NHS Highland	NOP	Orthopaedics	-10%

Source: PHS

Following the budget announcement in December 2024 to invest a further
£100 million to reduce waiting times, we will continue to build on progress to ensure that no one is waiting over 52 weeks by March 2026.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Question reference: S6O-04614

Asked by: Emma Harper, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 April 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 7 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions the rural affairs secretary has had with ministerial colleagues regarding whether anaerobic digestion facilities can support the decarbonisation of the agricultural sector by providing low-carbon fertiliser and the creation of biogas.

Question reference: S6W-36604

Asked by: Emma Harper, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 30 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what costs have been incurred by the R100 broadband upgrade programme in the (a) Dumfries and Galloway and (b) Scottish Borders local authority area, and what assessment it has made of potential further R100 spend in this area.

The Scottish Government does not hold information regarding the cost of delivering connectivity to individual Local Authorities through the R100 contracts. Costs for delivery of the R100 contracts are collected at contractual level and, as such, it is not possible to break that figure down for Dumfries and Galloway and the Scottish Borders only.

As of the end of March 2025, payments totalling £99.1 million have been made to our contract delivery partner Openreach for work to deliver infrastructure through the R100 South contract, including 6,741 connections in Dumfries and Galloway and 6,234 in the Scottish Borders.

The R100 Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme is also part of the R100 programme. As of the end of March 2025, payments totalling £12.8 million have been made to registered suppliers for a total of 5,073 connections across Scotland, including 244 in Dumfries and Galloway and 313 in the Scottish Borders.

Question reference: S6W-36428

Asked by: Emma Harper, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 22 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the impact of the introduction of baby boxes on parents in (a) Dumfries and Galloway and (b) the Scottish Borders.

Between the introduction of the Baby Box in August 2017 and 31 March 2025, 7,916 Baby Boxes have been delivered to families in NHS Dumfries and Galloway, and 5,948 in the Scottish Borders. Over the past six years, the uptake rate has been over 91%. The Baby Box is offered to all parents in Scotland and provides essential items for the first 6 months of a baby’s life worth around £400.

In 2021, Scottish Government commissioned an evaluation of the Baby Box by Ipsos MORI and a link to the report can be found here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/baby-box-evaluation/

The evaluation highlighted the positive impact of the scheme on families, particularly for first-time, younger and low-income parents.

Question reference: S6W-36607

Asked by: Emma Harper, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 22 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what costs have been incurred through the discretionary housing payments that were aimed at mitigating the so-called bedroom tax in the (a) Dumfries and Galloway and (b) Scottish Borders local authority area since 2013.

The Scottish Government became responsible for funding discretionary housing payments in 2017 and only holds data on costs from April 2017 onwards. Data prior to this has been obtained from the UK Government website: Discretionary Housing Payments statistics - GOV.UK.

Since 2013, a total of £17.16 million has been invested in Dumfries and Galloway and £10.81 million in Scottish Borders to support these local authorities to mitigate the UK Government’s bedroom tax policy.

Tables 1 and 2 provide a breakdown of spending (or funding) in the past 13 years, including the current financial year.

Table 1 – bedroom tax mitigation spending (or funding) from 2013 onwards, broken down by financial year in Dumfries and Galloway

2013-14	2014-2015	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20
£0.78m	£0.90m	£0.95m	£0.97m	£0.98m	£1.07m	£1.40m
2020-21	2021-22	2022-23	2023-24	2024-25*	2025-26**	TOTAL
£1.37m	£1.66m	£1.62m	£1.68m	£1.80m	£1.98m	£17.16m

*This reflects allocated or forecasted funding, spending data is not yet available.
**As above.

Table 2 – bedroom tax mitigation spending (or funding) from 2013 onwards, broken down by financial year in Scottish Borders

2013-14	2014-2015	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18	2018-19	2019-20
£0.37m	£0.56m	£0.51m	£0.57m	£0.66m	£0.72m	£0.70m
2020-21	2021-22	2022-23	2023-24	2024-25*	2025-26**	TOTAL
£0.88m	£1.09m	£1.05m	£1.13m	£1.23m	£1.34m	£10.81m

*This reflects allocated or forecasted funding, spending data is not yet available.
**As above.

Overall, £712 million has been invested by the Scottish Government in discretionary housing payments since they were devolved in 2017, helping to reduce poverty, safeguard tenancies and prevent homelessness.

Question reference: S6W-36605

Asked by: Emma Harper, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 22 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many P1-5 pupils in the (a) Dumfries and Galloway and (b) Scottish Borders local authority area are eligible for universal free school meals.

All children in Primaries 1 to 5 across Scotland are eligible for Free School Meals, including children living in Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders.

The following table sets out the number of eligible pupils by year group and local authority area.

	Dumfries and Galloway	Scottish Borders

Primary 1	1,215	953
Primary 2	1,210	1,025
Primary 3	1,415	1,079
Primary 4	1,363	1,070
Primary 5	1,405	1,045

Total	6,608	5,172

This information is also available within the Pupil Census Supplementary Statistics. The latest Pupil Census Supplementary Statistics was published on the Scottish Government’s website on 25 March 2025 and is available through the following web link: Pupil census supplementary statistics - gov.scot.

Question reference: S6W-36606

Asked by: Emma Harper, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 April 2025
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 11 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on the amount saved by (a) visitors, (b) patients and (c) staff in the NHS (i) Dumfries and Galloway and (ii) Borders area since the abolition of car parking charges at NHS premises in 2008.

Question reference: S6W-36427

Asked by: Emma Harper, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 11 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many baby boxes have been issued in the NHS (a) Dumfries and Galloway and (b) Borders area since (i) their introduction and (ii) 31 March 2024.

Scotland’s universal Baby Box programme opened for registration on 15 June 2017, and delivery of Baby Boxes nationwide began on 15 August 2017 for all babies born and resident in Scotland.

The total number of Baby Boxes issued since the introduction of the Baby Box programme up to 31 March 2025 is 335,775.

The Scottish Government records the number of Baby Boxes distributed by Health Board areas. Since the start of the programme the following number of Baby Boxes have been distributed in NHS Dumfries and Galloway and NHS Borders:

Health Board	15 August 2017 to 31 March 2025	31 March 2024 – 31 March 2025
NHS Dumfries and Galloway	7,916	869
NHS Borders	5,948	689