Questions and answers

Question reference: S6W-41329

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 14 October 2025
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 17 October 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many of the Marine Directorate’s (a) protection and (b) research vessels are currently out of service.

The Marine Directorate currently has three Marine Protection Vessels (Hirta, Jura and Minna) in service. None of these large protection vessels are presently out of service, although individual rigid-inflatable boats (RIBs) that support them are subject to routine maintenance and rotation. At present, one RIB (RIB7) is undergoing repair at McKay Marine in Aberdeen, and one other (RIB9) is held in reserve awaiting redeployment.

Of the Marine Research Vessels, Scotia and Alba na Mara are both operational, supported by four smaller survey craft (Dignity, Temora, Kit Kat and Teip Dearg), all of which are in service.

Question reference: S6W-41030

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 06 October 2025
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 17 October 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what support is available for Scottish businesses that are seeking to reshore their manufacturing to Scotland.

We want a strong manufacturing sector to help drive Scotland's economic growth and resilience. Our significant investment of £75m in the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS) lies at the heart of our ambitions. At the same time, we are developing a Skills Action Plan for Manufacturing to help ensure a steady flow of talent into the sector. This package includes the £2m already committed to Glasgow City Region to support the development of engineering skills programmes in the area and through delivery of the Scottish Manufacturing Advisory Service (SMAS) we are helping businesses drive sustainable change by investing in productivity, performance, and people.

Question reference: S6W-40951

Asked by: Brian Whittle, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 October 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 17 October 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is regarding whether all NHS workers working on night shift should be entitled to at least one hot meal per shift.

The Scottish Government recognises that access to a hot meal during shifts plays an important role in supporting the health and wellbeing of NHS staff.

The provision of healthy food or out-of-hours catering for NHS staff working night shifts is currently managed by individual Health Boards, who are best placed to determine local needs and allocate resources within their respective budgets.

NHS employers are encouraged to ensure, wherever possible, that staff have access to nutritious food, out-of-hours catering and appropriate rest spaces.

Scottish Government have undertaken scoping work to identify potential opportunities for collaboration with Health Boards to expand wellbeing initiatives for all staff working shifts. This will be looked at universally across NHSScotland.

Question reference: S6W-41104

Asked by: Sharon Dowey, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 October 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 17 October 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on Police Scotland’s decision to withdraw from the Stonewall Diversity Champions scheme.

Question reference: S6W-40963

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 October 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 17 October 2025

To ask the Scottish Government which NHS boards are currently unable to link outpatient and inpatient data in order to provide a complete record of patient pathways from referral to treatment.

The Scottish Government is not aware of any NHS Scotland Health Board that is unable to link outpatient and inpatient data in order to provide a complete record of patient pathways from referral to treatment.

As stated in my response to question S6W-40967 on 14 October 2025, Public Health Scotland’s decision to pause the 18 weeks referral-to-treatment standard publication reflects the need to release capacity to focus on new priorities. This has not changed the expectation of Health Boards to continue to collect these data at a local level to support performance monitoring.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

Question reference: S6W-40965

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 October 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 17 October 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether the Treatment Time Guarantee can be meaningfully enforced in cases where NHS boards are unable to measure full patient pathways, and what assessment it has made of compliance under such circumstances.

I refer the member to the answers for questions S6W-40963 and S6W-40964 on 17 October 2025.

The Patient Rights (Scotland) Act 2011 legislates that an eligible patient is to start to receive agreed inpatient or day case treatment within a 12-week Treatment Time Guarantee (TTG). This guarantee is based on completed waits where a patient is removed from the list after being admitted for treatment and does not include periods of waiting pre-decision to treat. Health Boards must take all reasonable steps to ensure they comply with this standard.

To support the above guarantee, 95% of new outpatients should wait no longer than 12 weeks from referral to being seen at a consultant-led clinic. This includes all referral sources.

We have seen progress in inpatient and day-case admissions, with 57% taking place within 12 weeks, up from the previous quarter, while a third of those still waiting had done so for less than 12 weeks. We expect NHS Boards to focus on these individual targets for each part of the patient journey, and we have routinely performance managed Boards on this basis since the implementation of the Patient Rights (Scotland) Act 2011.

In addition, the Scottish Government’s NHS Scotland Waiting Times Guidance was updated in November 2023 to provide guidance for Health Boards to assist them in the delivery of the national waiting times standards. This guidance replaces the previous 2012 publication and continues to ensure that patients who are waiting for an appointment, diagnostic test or treatment are managed fairly and consistently across NHS Scotland. The changes made align to our commitment to deliver sustained improvements and reductions to waiting times through service redesign, as well as enhanced regional and national working across NHS Scotland.

Finally, our Budget is providing more than £110 million to Health Boards this year to support reductions to the longest waits for appointments and procedures.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

Question reference: S6W-40953

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 October 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 17 October 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an an update on its public consultation on the role of Permitted Development Rights in delivering more high-quality homes.

The Scottish Government launched a public consultation on Permitted development rights to support the provision of new homes on 3 September 2025. The consultation closes on 27 October 2025. The consultation sets out a range of options to simplify planning processes and encourage the provision of new homes in rural areas and town and city centres.

The consultation responses will inform the formation and refinement of any proposals for new or amended permitted development rights. A statutory instrument containing any changes stemming from the consultation would likely be laid in the Scottish Parliament in early 2026.

A summary of the consultation responses will be published in due course. Individual responses will be published where consent has been given.

Question reference: S6W-40964

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 02 October 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 17 October 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to ensure that all NHS boards can accurately measure total patient waiting times for treatment and what the timeline is for implementing systems that allow full patient data linkage.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-40963 on 17 October 2025.

The Scottish Government is not aware of any NHS Scotland Health Board that cannot accurately measure total patient waiting times for treatment.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

Question reference: S6W-41384

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 October 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 13 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide information on the number of veterans it has helped secure accommodation since November 2018, broken down by financial year.

Question reference: S6W-41392

Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 October 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 13 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a detailed breakdown of the types of combustible façade material used on the estimated 1,020 to 1,200 residential buildings with a height of 11 to 18m that have been identified as possibly requiring remedial work, in light of it having provided a breakdown of the type of work required, namely remediation, partial remediation or mitigation.

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