Seòmar agus comataidhean

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

Criathragan Hide all filters

Displaying 45752 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S6W-40447

Asked by: Paul Sweeney, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 23 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason a stroke thrombectomy service is not currently available in Glasgow on a 24/7 basis.

The Scottish Government remains committed to implementing a high quality and clinically safe thrombectomy service. We have invested over £51 million to date on expanding access to thrombectomy. While we continue to face significant financial challenges, we are committed to further expanding the service, ensuring access is as equitable as possible.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde operate their service: Monday to Friday 8am to 8pm for patients arriving directly at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital. Monday to Friday 8am to 5pm for patients arriving at West of Scotland spoke hospitals.

Whilst the Scottish Government cannot currently provide a timeline for expanding the service, Scottish Government officials and NHS planners have been asked to work at pace on developing a plan for the next steps for service expansion.

We have provided funding for thrombectomy nurse posts in spoke sites with high rates of ischaemic stroke, including NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, and this will support maximising access to thrombectomy across Scotland

Procurement of a national artificial intelligence imaging tool is underway and, once implemented, this will help delivery of the service by improving detection of patients with strokes suitable for thrombectomy.

Question reference: S6W-40446

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 23 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, following the removal of ScotRail peak fares, whether it will review the proposed reduction in season ticket discounts to ensure that regular rail users are not financially disadvantaged.

Question reference: S6W-40258

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 23 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what advice it has received regarding the compatibility of large-scale emergency prisoner release with victims’ rights legislation, also broken down by who provided this advice.

Legislation does not require Scottish Ministers to consult before using the Emergency Early Release (EER) power contained within the Prisoners and Criminal Proceedings (Scotland) Act 1993 (as inserted by Section 11 of the Bail & Release from Custody Act 2023) due to its emergency function.

Its use in June-July 2024 in relation to the EER for prison population overcrowding was accepted by the Parliament Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee as within the limits of the relevant legislation.

Individuals registered for the Victims Notification Scheme (VNS) were notified if the prisoner related to their case was to be released early under the EER process.

Engagement with Victim Support Organisations (VSOs) was part of the development of the EER, specifically, arrangements were made to prescribe a number of VSOs under section 14 of the 2023 Act to enable them to request specified information from the SPS on behalf of victims (who have confirmed that they wish the VSO to do so).

Question reference: S6W-40400

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 23 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what advice it has issued to (a) landlords and (b) tenants regarding any risks associated with Large Panel System concrete.

Question reference: S6W-40266

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 23 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how it will respond to the reported claims by the British Dental Association that the current NHS Scotland dentistry model is “flawed” and causing widening oral health inequalities.

Scottish Government maintains a regular dialogue with BDA Scotland; and is committed to addressing oral health inequalities.

The latest Public Health Scotland statistics to June 2025 show that NHS patient registration in SIMD 1 areas is higher than the Scotland-wide average. This report also indicates that children and adults from the most deprived areas were less likely to have had contact with NHS primary dental care than those living in more affluent areas.

The latest National Dental Inspection Programme results show that the gap between P1 children with no obvious tooth decay, living in the most and least deprived areas, is at its lowest on record – decreasing from 32.2 percentage points in 2010 to 23.5 percentage points in 2024.

Question reference: S6W-40448

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 23 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on aiming to ensure that all NHS Scotland dental practices can see patients within three months of an appointment request.

I don't recognise the member's timeframe of 3 months. As Independent Contractors, it is the responsibility of NHS dentists to manage their patient lists in line with clinical guidelines.

However, I can advise that the Scottish Government is taking several steps to improve access to NHS dental services across Scotland.

Public Health Scotland statistics published in August show that over 7 million courses of NHS dental treatment have been delivered to patients since the introduction of payment reform in November 2023, demonstrating that our policy is delivering on our aims to sustain NHS dental services. The 2025/26 Budget reinforces our commitment to NHS dentistry, with an increase of almost 15% in funding for primary care dental services agreed - taking total funding to over half a billion pounds for the first time.

Furthermore, our recently published Operational Improvement Plan sets out a package of funded actions to bolster the NHS dental workforce and support increased access now and into the future. Within this we will:

support the dental workforce pipeline through i) the immediate expansion of domestic dental student numbers and ii) the development of an innovative new training package to support international dentists in joining the NHS Scotland workforce; and
support the ongoing sustainability of practices through revision of our existing allowances to secure and improve access in Scotland’s most rural communities.

Question reference: S6W-40249

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 09 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 23 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the number of people in Scotland likely to have been exposed in utero, or otherwise, to the pregnancy medication, stilbestrol (DES), and how this estimate has been derived.

The number of women and their offspring who were exposed to diethylstilbesterol (DES) during pregnancy between the 1940s and 1970s in the UK is unknown because there was no central system for recording which medicines were prescribed for individuals at that time and individual paper medical records from this period are unlikely to be retrievable. It is therefore only possible to estimate the number of women exposed. However, DES was not routinely prescribed in the UK.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) uses the findings of a survey conducted by the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (RCOG) which was published in 1974 and this suggested around 7,500 women in the UK were treated with DES during pregnancy in the interval 1940-1971, mostly during the 1950s.

Question reference: S6T-02680

Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 22 September 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 23 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the recommendation made by the Commission on School Reform report, Behaviour in Schools, that teachers should be able to suspend or exclude pupils who exhibit persistent behaviour issues.

Question reference: S6T-02674

Asked by: Alexander Stewart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 22 September 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 23 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that more than 1,000 Scottish charities are closing every year.

Question reference: S6F-04336

Asked by: Foysol Choudhury, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 22 September 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 25 September 2025

To ask the First Minister what urgent action the Scottish Government is taking in light of Public Health Scotland's estimate that dementia in Scotland is set to rise by more than 50% by 2044.