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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-28075

Asked by: Stuart McMillan, MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 June 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 18 June 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of any benefits to (a) public expenditure and (b) patients’ wellbeing of an increase in the deployment of combined cataract and glaucoma procedures.

The Scottish Government is committed to fully harnessing the potential of research-proven technological and scientific innovations through their rapid national adoption. The Accelerated National Innovation Adoption (ANIA) pathway, led by the Centre for Sustainable Delivery and drawing on the expertise of NHS National Services Scotland, Healthcare Improvement Scotland, Public Health Scotland, and NHS Education for Scotland, has been established to provide a once for Scotland approach to:

• identifying innovations the Scottish Government should consider for national adoption within the NHS through a quarterly horizon scan report

• producing robust value cases around clinical and financial impact

• their national adoption at pace, if approved

The ANIA pathway is governed by an Innovation Design Authority (IDA). This brings together senior Scottish Government and NHS leadership to support improved partnership working, provide system leadership and take joint decisions on the progression of innovations through ANIA stage gates.

Combined cataract and glaucoma procedures will be considered through the ANIA pathway. Scottish Ministers would then consider investment in this programme following any recommendation by the IDA.

Question reference: S6W-28095

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 10 June 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 18 June 2024

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of Public Petition PE2101, what its plans are for providing all primary and secondary schools with automated external defibrillators.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-14642 on 6 March 2023 , funding for local authorities is provided through the annual block grant settlement from the Scottish Government. Local authorities should use funding resources allocated to them in the manner which they believe will best meet local needs and circumstances within their respective areas. 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 .

Therefore, decisions on the installation and maintenance of defibrillators in schools is a matter for local authorities to consider at the local level.

A number of organisations provide advice and support for the purchasing and maintenance of defibrillators. This includes:

The British Heart Foundation: Defibrillators - BHF

St Johns Scotland Public Access Community Defibrillators | St John Scotland

Question reference: S6W-28005

Asked by: Jeremy Balfour, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 June 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 18 June 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will implement a Scottish version of the UK Government's national school breakfast club programme, specifically with a view to tackling child poverty.

The Scottish Government is committed to developing plans to deliver free breakfasts to all primary and special school children.

Breakfasts are being provided across Scotland by a range of service providers including public, private and third sector. We are working with Local Authorities and key stakeholders to better understand and map existing provision. This work is ongoing and alongside learning from other approaches across the UK, will inform the development of a delivery strategy for breakfast provision, including how a future offer can support the Government's mission to eradicate child poverty.

Question reference: S6W-28073

Asked by: Stuart McMillan, MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 June 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 18 June 2024

To ask the Scottish Government which emerging medical technologies it considers to have the most potential to improve the treatment of glaucoma over the next five years.

The Scottish Government is investing £250,000 including VAT, in a Small Business Research Initiative focused on Home Glaucoma Monitoring. The innovation challenge is to develop and validate the tools needed for home (or near-patient) glaucoma assessment, including home tonometry and home assessment of visual function, and potentially even optic disc imaging.

Priority areas:

? Development and validation of an affordable tool for home perimetry for monitoring glaucoma.

? Development and validation of an affordable tool for home perimetry for detecting glaucoma.

? Development of method of secure data storage, analysis, and transfer (or integration) with NHS electronic patient records.

? Development of tools for home tonometry and /or home optic disc / retinal imaging, in addition to methods for integrating results from these tests with NHS electronic patient records.

The challenge was launched in 2022 and attracted a high number of applications. Three companies successfully completed 4-month Phase One feasibility projects in June 2023. Following a competitive application, two companies have embarked on their Phase 2 prototyping and validation projects.

Question reference: S6W-28074

Asked by: Stuart McMillan, MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 06 June 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 18 June 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the current deployment of combined cataract and glaucoma procedures.

Question reference: S6W-27569

Asked by: Fulton MacGregor, MSP for Coatbridge and Chryston, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 10 June 2024
Current Status: Answered by Siobhian Brown on 18 June 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will commit to amending Regulation 15 of the Civil Legal Aid (Scotland) Regulations 2002 to (a) broaden the scope of legal aid to include community groups and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and (b) ensure that legal aid is available in public interest litigation on environmental matters, in order to comply with access to justice requirements under Article 9(4) of the Aarhus Convention, before the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee’s deadline of 1 October 2024.

The Scottish Government is committed to strengthening compliance with the requirements of the Aarhus Convention. We also remain committed to retaining a demand-led and sustainable system of legal aid, with legal aid funding to remain available to support individuals with the most need. Legal aid can be made available, at present, to individuals whose litigation engages matters of wider public interest, provided it can be demonstrated to the Scottish Legal Aid Board that the outcome of the case will have a direct tangible benefit to them. Our “Vision for Justice in Scotland: three year delivery plan” contains an action to engage with key stakeholders to inform and shape future legislative proposals in relation to the reform of legal aid. Discussions on legal aid reform will take place this year and will include environmental stakeholders.

Question reference: S6W-28016

Asked by: Ash Regan, MSP for Edinburgh Eastern, Alba Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 June 2024
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 18 June 2024

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-27511 by Ivan McKee on 30 May 2024, whether it will release the correspondence from its (a) ministers and (b) officials with the (i) chairs and (ii) chief executives mentioned.

My recent letter to chairs and chief executives of public bodies can be viewed at www.gov.scot/publications/making-the-most-of-resources-letter-to-public-bodies/ .

Contact by Scottish Government officials took the form of routine informal engagement between public body sponsor teams and staff in the organisations they sponsor. There was no formal correspondence from officials to chairs or chief executives.

As I have stated in other PQ replies (including S6W-27509 and S6W-27510 on

30 May 2024), it is for each public body to ensure that it fulfils all statutory duties to which it is subject, and to answer for its actions.

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-28096

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Monday, 10 June 2024
Current Status: Answered by Siobhian Brown on 18 June 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what training packages are in place for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service in relation to environmental (a) legislation and (b) crime.

Question reference: S6W-27420

Asked by: Jeremy Balfour, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 June 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 18 June 2024

To ask the Scottish Government on what date its Statistics Public Benefit and Privacy Panel (SPBPP) reportedly granted a request by the University of Strathclyde to access data gathered from 134,0000 children in the Health and Wellbeing Census, and whether it will provide any documentation that shows for what reason any such request was granted, in light of the Information Commissioner's Office advice to the Scottish Government in August 2023 that the arrangements for processing the data did not meet requirements of Article 4(5) of the UK GDPR around pseudonymisation, and Article 25 around Data Protection by Design and Default, which created "serious risks" and put children at risk of "potential harms".

The Scottish Government has a robust process in place when it receives access requests to its data for statistics and research purposes: Scottish Government statistics: request our data - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

This web page includes a list of projects that have been approved by the Statistics Public Benefit and Privacy Panel (SPBPP).

The request by the University of Strathclyde to access data gathered in the 2021-22 Health and Wellbeing Census did not progress to final approval and as such this data access request does not feature in the list of approved projects.

Question reference: S6W-28019

Asked by: Ash Regan, MSP for Edinburgh Eastern, Alba Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 June 2024
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 18 June 2024

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-27514 by Ivan McKee on 30 May 2024, whether it plans to publish the findings of the internal review and the report provided to ministers, and when it expects ministers to respond.