- Asked by: Audrey Nicoll, MSP for Aberdeen South and North Kincardine, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 June 2025
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Current Status:
Taken in the Chamber on 18 June 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how its Marine Fund Scotland 2025-26 will support businesses and organisations in coastal communities.
Answer
Taken in the Chamber on 18 June 2025
- Asked by: Keith Brown, MSP for Clackmannanshire and Dunblane, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 30 May 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Kate Forbes on 11 June 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how much private sector investment has been leveraged as a result of the Stirling and Clackmannanshire City Region Deal, and how this is spread between the two local authority areas.
Answer
Funding for the Deal is awarded to the Stirling and Clackmannanshire region rather than individual council areas, including joint projects between the three main Deal partners, Stirling Council, Clackmannanshire Council and University of Stirling. The Stirling and Clackmannanshire City Region Deal private sector investment total secured to date is £476,000, with this investment coming through the University of Stirling’s Scotland’s International Environment Centre (SIEC Phase 1) as commissioned work.
All other secured and leveraged investment in the Deal is from the public sector, including academia, or third sector.
- Asked by: Brian Whittle, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 02 June 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 11 June 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what patient-facing features will be available to people piloting the national Digital Front Door app within NHS Lanarkshire later in 2025.
Answer
The initial users in NHS Lanarkshire will be patients accessing dermatology outpatient services. They will have the following features:
- Secure login using a unique ID through Scot Account.
- Receive digital letters from the dermatology team
- View dermatology appointments
- Access personal health information, including demographics, medications and allergies.
- Use a national service finder to locate health and care services.
- Asked by: Stuart McMillan, MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde, Scottish National Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 02 June 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 11 June 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the First Minister's speech on improving public services and NHS renewal, which was published on 27 January 2025, what proportion of the additional 10,000 procedures planned across the National Treatment Centres will be in ophthalmology, and how this compares with previous years.
Answer
In total over 16,000 cataract procedures at National Treatment Centres (NTCs) have been allocated to health boards across Scotland in 2025-2026 (44.9% of the total NTC allocation). This is compared to over 13,500 cataract cases allotted to NTCs in 2024-2025 which made up 36.5% of total NTC capacity allocated last year. This activity is split between NTC Highland and the Eye Centre at the Golden Jubilee University National Hospital. Please note that some activity performed by NTC Highland is a re-provision of core activity for NHS Highland.
Health Boards are also delivering additional ophthalmology activity in 2025-26 as part of the £106M funding to reduce waiting times and improve capacity and the wider £21.7bn investment we are making in health and social care services this year.
- Asked by: Ash Regan, MSP for Edinburgh Eastern, Alba Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 02 June 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Angus Robertson on 11 June 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, as part of its work to further the case for Scottish independence, and in light of its series of papers, Building a New Scotland, which aimed to form a prospectus for an independent Scotland, what its policy is for what the weekly state pension entitlement would be in an independent Scotland.
Answer
The Scottish Government believes that full powers over social security and state pensions would enable Scotland to build on the existing approach for those benefits that are under devolved control, based on dignity and respect, and with access to social security as a human right.
The Scottish Government will publish a final overview paper on the Building a New Scotland series in due course.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 30 May 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Kate Forbes on 11 June 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what value-for-money assessments it has carried out in relation to public inquiries since 2007.
Answer
The Finance and Public Administration Committee is currently conducting an inquiry into the cost effectiveness of Scottish Public Inquiries. I wrote to the Committee on 30 May 2025 providing a detailed response to their request for information from Scottish Government in relation to its role as sponsor of current and previous public inquiries. This response noted that Section 17 of the Inquiries Act 2005 confers responsibility for the procedure and conduct of an inquiry on its Chair, independent of Ministers, and that this includes a statutory requirement for a Chair to act 'with regard to the need to avoid any unnecessary cost (whether to public funds or to witnesses or others)'.
Assessment of value for money would therefore be a matter for a Chair of an inquiry to consider as they deem appropriate within the overall duty to avoid unnecessary cost, and those inquiries which are currently ongoing have responded independently to the call for evidence received from the Committee on costs. Responses are published on the Committee pages of the Scottish Parliament website.
The findings and conclusions of the Committee's inquiry will be considered once known.
- Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 June 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 11 June 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how many fishing vessels registered in Scotland participated in the squid fishery in each of the five years up to 2024.
Answer
Under the landing obligation all Scottish vessels are required to report all catch.
The number of vessels that have reported squid catch or bycatch in the five years up to 2024 are set out in the following table.
year | Number of vessels landing squid catch or bycatch, including under 10metre and over 10metre |
2020 | 258 |
2021 | 231 |
2022 | 228 |
2023 | 226 |
2024 | 204 |
- Asked by: Jamie Halcro Johnston, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 June 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 11 June 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-36787 by Mairi Gougeon on 22 April 2025, what the membership is of the co-management group established to develop a squid fishing trial.
Answer
The Squid Co-management Group was established for the purpose of bringing industry and eNGOs together to work collaboratively with Scottish Government officials to support a longer-term policy decision on fishing for squid under the North Sea Cod Avoidance Plan (NCAP).
Stakeholder nominations for membership of the Squid Co-development Group were provided by the co-management stakeholder forum Fisheries Management and Conservation Group (FMAC). The first stakeholder Squid Co-management Group meeting took place 1 November 2024.
- Asked by: Paul Sweeney, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 06 June 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Neil Gray on 11 June 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what timeline has been set for the next review of the Charter of Patient Rights and Responsibilities.
Answer
As required under the Patient Rights (Scotland) Act 2011, the Charter must be reviewed at least once every 5 years. The Charter was last published in October 2022 and is scheduled to be reviewed in 2027.
- Asked by: Willie Rennie, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 11 June 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how many applications for Carer Support Payment that were completed in each month since it was launched took (a) 51 to 60, (b) 61 to 70, (c) 71 to 80, (d) 81 to 90, (e) 91 to 100, (f) 101 to 110, (g) 111 to 120 and (h) 121 or more working days to process, expressed as a (i) total number and (ii) percentage.
Answer
Social Security Scotland routinely publishes information on application processing times for Carer Support Payment as part of official statistics releases.
The latest statistics covering the period to 31 March 2025 were published on Tuesday 13 May and can be found at https://www.socialsecurity.gov.scot/publications/statistics.
Supplementary analysis, based on the latest published statistics, is provided in the following tables.
Table 1 - The number of applications processed for Carer Support Payment by financial year and processing time .
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Total applications processed | | | |
Applications processed in 41-50 working days | | | |
Applications processed in 51-60 working days | | | |
Applications processed in 61-70 working days | | | |
Applications processed in 71-80 working days | | | |
Applications processed in 81-90 working days | | | |
Applications processed in 91-100 working days | | | |
Applications processed in 101-110 working days | | | |
Applications processed in 111-120 working days | | | |
Applications processed in 121 or more working days | | | |
Table 2 - The percentage of applications processed for Carer Support Payment by financial year and processing time.
| | | |
Total applications processed | | | |
Applications processed in 41-50 working days | | | |
Applications processed in 51-60 working days | | | |
Applications processed in 61-70 working days | | | |
Applications processed in 71-80 working days | | | |
Applications processed in 81-90 working days | | | |
Applications processed in 91-100 working days | | | |
Applications processed in 101-110 working days | | | |
Applications processed in 111-120 working days | | | |
Applications processed in 121 or more working days | | | |
