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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-40850

Asked by: Paul Sweeney, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 29 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 14 October 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether the opportunity for rail freight diversion from the east and west coast main lines will be a factor in the business case for extending the Borders Railway to Carlisle.

Question reference: S6W-40840

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 29 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 14 October 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it is aware of any NHS boards that have stopped providing specialist podiatry care for people with diabetes.

Question reference: S6W-40979

Asked by: Brian Whittle, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 October 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 14 October 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what functionality and specific services the MyCare.scot app will have and provide in April 2026.

Question reference: S6W-40976

Asked by: Brian Whittle, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 October 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 14 October 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what engagement and collaboration it has had with (a) integration joint boards and (b) health and social care partnerships in the development of the MyCare.scot app.

Scottish Government commissioned NHS Education Scotland (NES) as a lead partner for the delivery of the Digital Front Door (DFD) Programme, including MyCare.scot, and NES are engaging with a range of stakeholders in the development of MyCare.scot and DFD. That engagement includes working in partnership with COSLA to support national implementation. Ongoing and future work will include NES and Scottish Government engaging with integration joint boards, health and social care partnerships and Local Authorities.

A high-level Rollout Summary, published on 26 September, for MyCare.scot is available at:https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/strategy-plan/2025/09/health-social-care-app-mycare-scot-national-rollout-high-level-summary/documents/health-social-care-app-mycare-scot/health-social-care-app-mycare-scot/govscot%3Adocument/health-social-care-app-mycare-scot.pdf.

COSLA and the Scottish Government are working together to deliver MyCare.scot.

Question reference: S6W-40977

Asked by: Brian Whittle, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 October 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 14 October 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what engagement and collaboration it has had with the social work sector in the development of the MyCare.scot app.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-40976 on 14 October 2025. NHS Education Scotland (NES) who have been commissioned by Scottish Government as a lead partner for MyCare.scot, are engaging with a range of stakeholders. I can confirm this also includes NES’ ongoing facilitation of collaborative workshops with key attendees including the social work sector.

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: S6W-40898

Asked by: Mercedes Villalba, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 October 2025
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 14 October 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the impact of (a) the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, (b) the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2016, (c) the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 and (d) concentrated land ownership on (i) local economic development, (ii) local sustainable development, (iii) community wealth building, (iv) community ownership and (v) an inclusive economy.

The Scottish Government is proud of the positive impacts of these three pieces of legislation.

The Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 introduced the community right to buy and the crofting right to buy. There have been over 275 applications under the various rights (including those introduced in 2015 and 2018). It also created a legal framework for the right to responsible access for land.

The Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2016 built upon this success by establishing the Scottish Land Commission, ensuring we now have a permanent public body providing independent research and analysis and supporting Land Reform objectives. It also put the Land Rights and Responsibilities Statement on a statutory footing, supported transparency of land ownership through the creation of the Register of Persons Holding a Controlled Interest in Land and promoted community engagement.

The Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 created new rights for community bodies and placed new duties on public authorities contributing to significant progress in supporting the empowerment of communities across Scotland. The Act has also encouraged greater numbers of public service providers to engage with their communities on a range of matters to help improve local service delivery. In relation to Asset Transfer in the Act, it is the first of its kind in the UK and around 500 asset transfer requests have been made since 2017. Community organisations have taken ownership or lease of forests, parks, woodlands, sports and recreational facilities and community hubs.

The Scottish Government has undertaken a variety of work related to this legislation. The Scottish Government regularly commissions research including ongoing work through the Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture (ENRA) Strategic Research Programme:

The Scottish Government has commissioned research on the impact of diversity of land ownership:

Each of the three pieces of legislation in the question cover numerous different policy issues. Different parts have been reviewed through different work programmes over time, across various research projects, reports, and evidence reviews, in particular:

(a) The Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 contains four policy parts, introducing legal powers aimed at improving public access and enabling community land ownership.

As part of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003, specifically part 1, there was a review of the whole Act by the Land Reform Review Group published in 2014 - The land of Scotland and the common good: report - gov.scot.

In 2012 - Overview of Evidence on Land Reform in Scotland - gov.scot provided an overview of the evidence available on the implementation and progress of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003.

The Scottish Government is also currently undertaking a review of Community Right to Buy due to complete by the end of 2025.

(b) The Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 Act has 11 policy parts. On 31 March 2025, the Scottish Government published the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015: update and findings report which provides in-depth reviews of Part 3: Participation Requests and Part 5: Asset Transfer, an assessment of the implementation of Part 2: Community Planning and an update on all the other parts of the Act.

(c) The Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2016 contains 12 policy parts, introducing different legal powers and responsibilities.

The Scottish Land Commission provides evidence-based advice to inform land policy in Scotland. They provide independent oversight and strategic advice on matters relating to land in Scotland, and the Land Commissioners’ functions includes reviewing the impact and effectiveness of laws and policies and recommending changes. More information about their work can be found on their website.

(d) In reference to concentrated land ownership, please see my response S6W-40547.

Question reference: S6W-41079

Asked by: Sandesh Gulhane, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 October 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 14 October 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will introduce "Jess’s Rule" in Scotland for patients who present three times with the same symptoms or concerns.

The Scottish Government does not know at this juncture, what the rolling out of Jess’s Rule will require in terms of implementation either by GPs or NHS England. We will be in a position to consider the benefits of the rule when we know more.

However, the Scottish Government understands that the RCGP learning resource which supports “Jess’s Rule” is available to GPs who are members in Scotland as well as in England. We would encourage GPs to make use of this resource.

Question reference: S6W-40967

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 October 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 14 October 2025

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason Public Health Scotland has paused the 18 weeks referral-to-treatment standard reporting, and what steps are being taken to address any underlying data quality issues.

The 18 weeks Referral to Treatment (RTT) standard is one of a number of targets set by the Scottish Government for access to hospital services.

The decision by Public Health Scotland (PHS) to pause RTT collection and reporting is consistent with the Scottish Government’s Chief Statistician letter to the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) in October 2024 which set out the importance of statisticians having the authority to take decisions to improve their statistics to service a wide range of users.

It is for each individual analytical area in Scottish Government and the agencies, including PHS, to determine the approach they want to take to deliver on the priorities. Critical to that delivery is the ability for statisticians to properly resource the work to develop their priorities and this means that some publications may need to be scaled back or paused to make space for transformative work and deliver on the Statistical Strategic Priorities for Scotland.

PHS’s decision reflects the need to release capacity to focus on new priorities, such as expanding the diagnostic activity statistics for the eight key diagnostic tests. Developing these statistics will contribute to the measurement of progress towards the Scottish Government’s Operational Improvement Plan commitments in the financial year 2025-26.

Furthermore, PHS publishes a wide range of statistics about waiting times for different services and in recent years the focus of NHS boards and Scottish Government has been directed to individual targets for each part of the patient journey such as 12-week Treatment Time Guarantee (TTG) and New Outpatient Standard.

In line with the principles in the Code of Practice for Statistics, PHS informed users of the pause on 18 March 2025 and invited feedback from users to assess the impact of this decision. This information will help inform future plans or PHS’s waiting times statistics.

Question reference: S6W-41078

Asked by: Sandesh Gulhane, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 October 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 14 October 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will mirror changes to the GP contract that are equivalent to those being applied in England from 1 October 2025 that will require GP practices to keep their online consultation tool open throughout core hours for non-urgent requests and queries.

The Scottish Government are listening carefully to the views of Scotland’s GPs. Negotiations are ongoing with the BMA around further investment to support general practice.

This investment will build on the new £15 million investment this financial year to support workforce retention and recruitment, build service capacity and support the day to day running of GP services.

GP services should be delivered – equitably, sensitively, reasonably and appropriately, making the most effective use of resources and systems currently available.

Question reference: S6W-41295

Asked by: Paul Sweeney, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 13 October 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 10 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what work it is undertaking to encourage organisations to buy from Scotland's social enterprises.