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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.

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Question reference: S6O-00777

Asked by: Rona Mackay, MSP for Strathkelvin and Bearsden, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 February 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the development of the Scottish Education Exchange Programme.

Question reference: S6O-00764

Asked by: Stephanie Callaghan, MSP for Uddingston and Bellshill, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 February 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 23 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what impact the recent funding of £754,000 to The Coalfields Regeneration Trust will have on community-led regeneration in former coalfield communities across Scotland, including in the Uddingston and Bellshill constituency.

Question reference: S6O-00756

Asked by: Pam Gosal, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 February 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 23 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how it is supporting local police forces to respond to mental health-related incidents.

Question reference: S6O-00778

Asked by: Dean Lockhart, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 February 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its plans for a flexible skills and education system that can help meet net zero targets, as referred to in its Programme for Government 2021-22.

Question reference: S6O-00763

Asked by: Liz Smith, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 February 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 23 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what plans it has to introduce legislation to support veterans during this parliamentary session.

Question reference: S6O-00765

Asked by: Paul McLennan, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 February 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 23 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what analysis has been undertaken of the impact of Brexit on exports from Scotland to the European Union.

Question reference: S6W-06240

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 16 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many years of funding are in place to pay for the free school meals programme in its entirety, and whether this funding is sufficient to ensure that local authorities will not need to use their funding to deliver the policy.

The 2022-23 draft budget provides £42.2 million to provide universal free school lunches to all children in primaries 4, 5 and special schools to 5 during school term-time. This is in addition to the £53 million per year for universal provision for pupils in primary 1 to 3 which has been in place since 2015. The 2022-23 draft budget includes a £30 million capital allocation for initial investment in school kitchens ahead of roll-out of free lunches to all primary school children (P1-P7) later in the parliamentary term. We will continue to work with our partners in local authorities to plan for the further expansion of free school lunch provision over the next academic year.

The draft budget also provides £21.75 million to provide support to free school meals eligible families during the school holidays.

Question reference: S6W-06217

Asked by: Sandesh Gulhane, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 February 2022
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 16 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how it will support the wider roll-out of the Glasgow-based OPERA study on heart failure diagnosis across all NHS boards.

The Heart Disease Action Plan outlines our commitment to exploring innovative models of care for cardiac diagnosis. Through the Heart Disease Action Plan Funding call in 2021, we provided funding for a second NHS board to implement aspects of the OPERA study within its local service provision.

The learning from this will be fed into ongoing work by the Centre for Sustainable Delivery to better understand the opportunities for implementation of OPERA in other NHS Boards, through pathfinder work via the new Accelerated National Innovation Adoption pathway.

Question reference: S6W-06219

Asked by: Sandesh Gulhane, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 February 2022
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 16 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how it will adopt the recommendations in the Heart Valve Voice report, State of the Nation, on reducing variation in heart valve disease treatment and waiting times for heart valve disease detection, diagnosis and treatment.

Key recommendations in the Heart Valve Voice report State of the Nation included:

1) collecting standardised data for HVD.

2) focus on HVD in campaigns to raise awareness of disease in women.

3) developing an optimal patient pathway for HVD.

4) improving access to echocardiography.

1) The Heart Disease Action Plan (2021) clearly sets out our priority for the effective use of high-quality, standardised data to support clinical decision-making, understand patient outcomes and enable better service-planning. In April 2021, we commissioned Public Health Scotland to develop the Scottish Cardiac Audit Programme. We have committed more than £1.5m over five years to support this transformative change in access to, and use of, data to drive improvement in cardiac services.

2) We have made clear commitments to tackling the inequalities faced by women with heart disease in our Women’s Health Plan, including the launch of an information campaign on women’s heart health. Future development of work in this area will be informed by the lived experience of women with heart disease.

3) Priority 2 within the Heart Disease Action Plan makes clear our commitment to developing nationally agreed pathways of care for all cardiac conditions. This work is underway.

4) We recognise the importance of improving access to echocardiography and are taking action to address this. Through the Heart Disease Action Plan funding call in 2021, we provided funding for a project exploring how to improve access to echocardiography.

Question reference: S6W-06241

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 16 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what investigation it has undertaken to understand the average cost per child to deliver the free school meals programme, and whether this investigation included consideration of any need for additional (a) capital works where there are insufficient eating spaces and (b) serving and cleaning staff, in addition to the cost of the additional meals.

The Scottish Government has been working in partnership with the Association of Directors of Education, COSLA and partners to establish the full delivery and financial requirements in support of the expansion of free school meals. Through this engagement, it has been confirmed that there is a requirement for capital and resource investment in order to support the expansion, including for catering and dining.

In addition to £53 million per year for universal provision in primary 1-3, the 2022-23 budget includes £42.2 million of revenue funding for the expansion of primary 4, 5 and special schools, and £30 million capital allocation for initial investment in school kitchens ahead of roll-out of free lunches to all primary school children during in the parliamentary term.

The Scottish Government will continue to work with partners in local authorities to plan for the expansion of free school lunch provision over the next academic year. This work will ensure the expansion can be delivered equitably across all schools, in all areas, whilst maintaining high quality lunch provision for pupils.