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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-11650

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 21 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 8 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many applications (a) it has received and (b) have been successful to join its National Care Service Lived Experience Expert Panel.

Question reference: S6W-11651

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 21 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 8 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government when it expects the first meeting of its National Care Service Lived Experience Experts Panel to be held.

The Lived Experience Experts Panel doesn’t reflect traditional policy panels, which meet together on a regular basis. It is most similar to the Experience Panel in place for Social Security. It functions as a pool of people with lived experience who can be called upon to take part in co-design and research to support service development.

This means that the panel don’t have meetings together, although members will often attend group sessions with a small number of other people in the panel.

Panel members are currently being invited to introductory sessions to support their participation in co-design sessions. The first introductory session is scheduled for15 November, with up to 20 of the panel attending. We expect the co-design sessions to begin shortly after that.

Question reference: S6W-11734

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 4 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether there are any plans for (a) ministers and (b) official delegations to visit Qatar during the 2022 World Cup.

Question reference: S6O-01493

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 October 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 3 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what action it is taking to address the discharge of sewage into rivers, lochs and waterways.

Question reference: S6F-01442

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 24 October 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 27 October 2022

To ask the First Minister when the Cabinet will next meet.

Question reference: S6W-11374

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 14 October 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-09151 by Kevin Stewart on 23 June 2022, and in light of the publication of the NHS Recovery Plan: Annual progress update, whether it is the case that it remains committed to meeting the standard that 90% of patients start treatment for CAMHS and Psychological Therapies within 18 weeks of referral by March 2023.

Improving mental health is a priority for the Scottish Government and we remain committed to meet the standard that 90% of patients start treatment within 18 weeks of referral by March 2023.

Public Health Scotland’s statistical release providing Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and Psychological Services waiting times for the quarter ending 31 March 2023 will be available on 6 June 2023.

Question reference: S6W-11053

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 22 September 2022
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 7 October 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-10195 by Jenny Gilruth on 7 September 2022, whether it will publish copies of any notes or minutes from the meetings that took place on 20 April and 10 October 2017.

Question reference: S6W-10231

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 August 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 22 September 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on how many Afghan refugees are currently in (a) permanent and (b) temporary accommodation in Scotland, broken down by local authority.

Under current constitutional arrangements in the United Kingdom immigration, including the Afghan resettlement schemes, are reserved to the UK Government and handled by the Home Office.

The UK Government has published statistics on the number of people who have arrived in the UK under the Afghan resettlement schemes since 2021. This does not currently include a breakdown of Afghan refugees in temporary and permanent accommodation by local authority, however, the Home Office have committed to providing more detailed data in their quarterly immigration statistics going forward. Afghan Resettlement Programme: operational data - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

The latest published data (25 August) shows that across the UK 9,667 people are in temporary accommodation and 7,385 people are in settled accommodation. This does not include people who have made their own accommodation arrangements.

Question reference: S6O-01394

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 September 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 28 September 2022

To ask the Scottish Government when it last met Sanjeev Gupta.

Question reference: S6W-10824

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 02 September 2022
Current Status: Answered by Ash Regan on 21 September 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what powers it has to ensure that owners of aggressive dogs maintain control of their pets in public places.

The power to deal with the owners of aggressive dogs rests with local authorities and Police Scotland. The two main pieces of legislation in relation to dog control are the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 (“the 1991 Act”) and the Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2010 (“the 2010 Act”).

The 1991 Act makes it a criminal offence for anyone in charge of a dog to allow it to be ‘dangerously out of control’. A dog is regarded as being dangerously out of control if there are grounds for reasonable apprehension that it will injure a person or assistance dog, whether or not it actually does so. For any given incident it is for Police Scotland to determine whether a crime has been committed.

The 1991 Act also gives power to any constable or authorised local authority officer (i.e. dog warden) to seize any dog they believe to be prohibited and/or a dog which appears to them to be dangerously out of control when it is in a public place.

The 2010 Act provides for a civil regime in respect of dog owners who allow their dogs to be ‘out of control’. The 2010 Act introduced the Dog Control Notice (DCN) regime. Local authority dog wardens are able to issue a DCN on dog owners. The DCN is a civil notice which can contain a number of conditions, such as requiring a dog to be kept on a lead when in public, muzzling the dog when in public, and undertaking training to modify/control the dog’s behaviour. A breach of a DCN is a criminal offence.

Scottish Government Guidance on the 2010 Act, published in December 2020, is available at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/updated-guidance-control-dogs-scotland-act-2010/

Local authorities can also consider byelaw making powers to address a specific problem. For example, if there is an area where dogs are often a nuisance, the matter can be raised for consideration by the council who have powers to make appropriate bye-laws, i.e. to keep dogs on leads in particular areas.