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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: S6F-04200

Asked by: Audrey Nicoll, MSP for Aberdeen South and North Kincardine, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 16 June 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 19 June 2025

To ask the First Minister whether he will provide an update on the Scottish Government’s latest engagement with the UK Government regarding funding and timescales for the development of the Acorn carbon capture and storage project.

Question reference: S6F-04188

Asked by: Anas Sarwar, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 16 June 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 19 June 2025

Question to be taken in Chamber.

Question reference: S6F-04201

Asked by: Pam Duncan-Glancy, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 16 June 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 19 June 2025

To ask the First Minister whether he will provide an update on the Scottish Government’s position on the funding of Scotland’s higher education institutions.

Question reference: S6F-04189

Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Monday, 16 June 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 19 June 2025

Question to be taken in Chamber.

Question reference: S6F-04195

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 16 June 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 19 June 2025

To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government's response is to reports that up to 100 truckloads of Scotland's waste will be moved each day to England as a result of the landfill ban on biodegradable waste.

Question reference: S6W-38298

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 16 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions have taken place between the finance and workforce sections of its health directorate regarding the allocation of funding to ensure pay parity for hospice staff.

The Scottish budget for 2025-26 includes £5 million of investment to support independent hospices to provide pay parity with NHS levels. Officials are working with a variety of colleagues across the health directorates to explore mechanisms for providing this funding to hospices, while respecting existing commissioning arrangements with Integration Joint Boards (IJBs).

Most recently, policy officials have been working closely with health finance officials to ensure that the relevant governance and approval procedures are correctly followed to ensure this funding can be provided as soon as practically possible. We look forward to engaging further with Scottish hospices as we conclude this work.

Question reference: S6W-38377

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 16 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many new event duration monitors have been fitted to sewage overflows in 2025, and how many monitors in total have been installed as a part of the Improving Urban Waters Route Map.

As this is an operational matter for Scottish Water, I have asked them to respond. Their reply is as follows:

Scottish Water has already installed 1,000 event duration monitors to meet the commitment set out within its Improving Urban Waters Routemap. Scottish Water plans to go beyond this commitment and install a further 700 this year, aiming to cover around 50% of overflows. Scottish Water has installed 135 of these further monitors in 2025.

Question reference: S6W-38301

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 04 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 16 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to ensure that people with palliative care needs, who do not want to die in hospital, are not admitted to hospital unnecessarily.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that everyone who needs it can access high-quality palliative care that is right for their circumstances.

Through our upcoming palliative care strategy, we will promote person-centred future care planning. Future care planning is important for people of all ages living with long-term conditions, disabilities, frailty in older age or rare conditions, as well as people with life shortening conditions. A future care plan summarises what matters to the individual and has key information for staff providing urgent or emergency care about the person, their health and care. Planning ahead can help people manage or avoid crisis situations and improve experiences of urgent or emergency health and social care, as well as avoiding unnecessary hospital admissions.

The strategy will be published alongside a delivery plan, which will set out our approach to ensuring that everyone who needs it can access timely palliative care and care around dying.

Question reference: S6W-38483

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Monday, 09 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jim Fairlie on 16 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what actions it is taking to increase the number of breeding (a) cattle and (b) sheep.

The Scottish Government does not set targets for the number of breeding cattle or sheep in Scotland. Livestock numbers are primarily driven by market conditions and individual business decisions.

However, we are committed to supporting a resilient and sustainable livestock sector. This includes continued investment in schemes such as the Scottish Suckler Beef Support Scheme, which provides £40 million annually to support beef producers and encourage improvements in herd efficiency, and the Scottish Upland Sheep Support Scheme to provide support to breeding hill flocks.

We also provide broader direct support to sheep and cattle producers through the Basic Payment Scheme and Less Favoured Areas Support Scheme payments – in stark contrast to the UK Government approach.

Through our Vision for Agriculture and ongoing reform programme, we will continue to work with farmers and crofters to ensure future support enables productive, sustainable farming.

We remain concerned that recent UK trade deals, agreed without meaningful consultation with the Scottish Government, risk undermining domestic livestock production by allowing imports produced to lower environmental and welfare standards—potentially increasing global emissions and undercutting Scotland’s high-quality producers.

Question reference: S6W-38523

Asked by: Sharon Dowey, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 09 June 2025
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 16 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has considered any legislative or policy options to address the reported legal and regulatory challenges posed by "ownerless" contaminated sites like Tarbolton Moss landfill site.

Scottish Government officials continue to consider the issue of ownership at Tarbolton Moss, engaging with partners, including South Ayrshire Council and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA).

There are provisions in the Pollution Prevention and Control (Scotland) Regulations 2012 and the Landfill (Scotland) Regulations 2003 to require companies to make adequate financial provisions for landfill aftercare, and this requirement will also be included in the Environmental Authorisations (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2025. However, in the case of Tarbolton Moss the company was dissolved without any such funds remaining.

Officials continue to work with SEPA to understand how this occurred to ensure that the risk for similar future scenarios is minimised.

Furthermore, to minimise risk of further site abandonment, we continue to work closely with local authorities and commercial operators to examine challenges faced before the commencement of the ban on landfilling biodegradable municipal waste on 31 December 2025.