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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-24094

Asked by: Meghan Gallacher, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 December 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 10 January 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to make it a requirement for schools to provide single-sex toilets for pupils aged eight and over.

Question reference: S6W-23863

Asked by: Graham Simpson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 14 December 2023
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 10 January 2024

To ask the Scottish Government which local authorities currently operate Demand Responsive Travel schemes, and how it monitors the success rate of any such schemes.

Question reference: S6W-23905

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 14 December 2023
Current Status: Answered by Paul McLennan on 10 January 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many buildings currently remain in the Single Building Assessment pilot, and how many have been (a) completed and (b) removed from the pilot.

Question reference: S6W-23860

Asked by: Graham Simpson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 14 December 2023
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 10 January 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to systematically monitor bus ticket prices.

Question reference: S6W-23861

Asked by: Graham Simpson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 14 December 2023
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 10 January 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how it (a) monitors passenger numbers on local bus services and (b) assesses whether any local bus service routes are at risk due to low passenger numbers, particularly in light of any changes in passenger numbers since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Department for Transport publishes data and statistics about the local bus sector in Great Britain, which includes passenger journey numbers. This is used in the Scottish Transport Statistics publication, and the Scottish Government currently has no plans for further monitoring of passenger numbers.

The Scottish Government does not assess the commercial viability of individual bus service routes, Local authorities have a duty to identify where there is a social need for particular bus services and can seek additional information from bus operators to support that identification in cases where services have been varied or withdrawn.

Question reference: S6W-23850

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 December 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 10 January 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many eye patients in NHS (a) Lothian, (b) Borders and (c) Fife have had to receive treatment in Glasgow due to a reported lack of theatre capacity at the Princess Alexandra Eye Pavilion in Edinburgh.

This information is not held centrally. We do not hold the information that would allow us to identify the reason for an ophthalmology patient to receive treatment in Glasgow.

The table below provides information on the number of inpatient and daycase hospital admissions to NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde for patients residents in NHS Lothian, NHS Borders and NHS Fife and for the specialty of ophthalmology only, for the past three financial years.

Table 1: Number of inpatient and daycase hospital admissions to NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde for patients residents in NHS Lothian, NHS Borders and NHS Fife and for the specialty of ophthalmology only, from April 2020 to March 2023.

Health Board of Residence	2020-21	2021-22	2022-23
NHS Borders*	17
NHS Fife	11	14	15
NHS Lothian	20	22	18

Source: SMR01, Public Health Scotland, extract: 15 December 2023.

These figures are based solely on admissions to hospital for acute care as an inpatient or day case. Figures related to ophthalmology treatments carried out in other healthcare settings, such as accident and emergency department, out of hours, outpatient or general practice services, are not included here.

Please note that figures include the period of Scotland going into emergency measures due to COVID-19. During this pandemic, NHS boards, hospitals and healthcare providers have been required to change their normal way of working to allow them to focus their efforts locally on their COVID-19 response. As such, this is directly impacting on the volume of hospital activity and trends observed over the past three years.

Data included in this table are provisional as NHS Boards update their current and historical data monthly. This may result in changes in the recent data, and, on a much smaller scale, in older years data. For details on known data issues please refer to the Data Issues and Completeness document:

https://publichealthscotland.scot/media/22221/data-issues-and-completeness-sep23.pdf

*Please note that NHS Borders figures for the three financial years have been aggregated to protect patient confidentiality, in accordance with our PHS Statistical Disclosure Protocol

Question reference: S6W-24095

Asked by: Meghan Gallacher, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 December 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 10 January 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to make it a requirement for boarding and residential accommodation at schools to include single-sex sleeping arrangements.

Question reference: S6W-24097

Asked by: Meghan Gallacher, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 December 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 10 January 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to make it a requirement for pupils to be segregated by sex when participating in physical education and sporting activities.

Question reference: S6W-23768

Asked by: Paul Sweeney, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 15 December 2023
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 10 January 2024

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the number of ferry breakdowns in the last year, what processes and procedures are being put in place in the next 12 months to ensure that CalMac can maintain continuous ferry services to communities, and how this will be managed and improved upon in the future.

While delivery of investments in new vessels and port infrastructure is being progressed, this Government has authorised a six month extension to the current charter of MV Alfred. The primary focus of the vessel MV Alfred is for resilience purposes. However, this will help mitigate the impact of disruption or where certain islands are reduced to single vessel service.

Delivering six new major vessels to serve Scotland’s ferry network by end 2026, is a priority for this government of which four are for Islay and the Little Minch routes and two are for the Ardrossan-Brodick/Campbeltown route.

Transport Scotland is also working with CMAL and CalMac on further vessel projects and programmes including the Small Vessel Replacement Programme.

Additional funding has been committed for enhanced maintenance of vessels and CMAL and the operators continue to work to identify potential additional second hand tonnage to support the fleet.

As is the case at present and within the remit of the current contract, there are measures to which we hold the operator accountable for and apply performance measures where applicable.

Question reference: S6W-23862

Asked by: Graham Simpson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 14 December 2023
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 10 January 2024

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the bus industry receiving funding of £329 million from local and central government in 2021-22, what its response is to the Scottish Transport Statistics 2022, which show that, aside from the COVID-19 pandemic years, a historic low of 234 million journeys were made by bus in 2021-22.

Bus travel in Scotland and the UK was profoundly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, with emergency funding to support the industry continuing in 2021-22. Although lockdown measures had eased, restrictions on travel and daily activity remained in Scotland for large parts of 2021-22. This is evident from the Scottish Transport Statistics 2022 which show the lower number of passenger journeys taken over the period.