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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-04246

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 January 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 23 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the report, Economic Impacts of Short-term Lets in Scotland, specifically in relation to the Scottish Borders.

Question reference: S6O-04232

Asked by: Annabelle Ewing, MSP for Cowdenbeath, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 January 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 22 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government when it last met the chief executive of NHS Fife, and what was discussed.

Question reference: S6O-04224

Asked by: John Mason, MSP for Glasgow Shettleston, Independent
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 January 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 22 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether NatureScot’s proposal to mandate advance written notification to landowners for schedule 1 bird monitoring could discourage the identification of raptor crimes on managed land.

Question reference: S6W-32820

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 06 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Siobhian Brown on 15 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason there has reportedly been a 24% decrease in solicitors registered for children's legal aid since 2020, what analysis it is undertaking to understand any issues caused by this, and what action it will take to address those issues, including reversing the reported decrease in numbers.

The Legal Services (Scotland) Act 2010 gave the Scottish Legal Aid Board the function of monitoring the availability and accessibility of legal services in Scotland, and it has arrangements in place to monitor legal services. However, any assessment of registered solicitor numbers does not offer an accurate measure of the provision or supply of legal aid. This is because there is a large number of registered solicitors who are inactive, so the reduction in the number of registered solicitors, doesn’t necessarily equate to the same size of reduction in active solicitors. Therefore, registered solicitor numbers should not be viewed in the same context as active solicitors. The relevant measure of supply is active solicitors.

However, fluctuations in the numbers of Children’s solicitors occur for various reasons, these are:

Children’s legal assistance volumes are directly related to the numbers of children’s hearings taking place. The volume of hearings is in turn related to the number of Compulsory Supervision Orders (CSOs) being made or reviewed.

There are fewer Compulsory Supervision Orders and therefore less business for solicitors in this field.

At 31 March 2024, 6,490 children were subject to Compulsory Supervision Orders. In 2019-20, the number was 8,875 – a reduction of 27%.

The number of children subject to Compulsory Supervision Orders has decreased for a fourteenth consecutive year.

The Scottish Government recognises that reform is needed to the legal aid system, which is why we are currently developing a legal aid action plan for reform which will be published in early 2025.

Question reference: S6W-32511

Asked by: Michael Matheson, MSP for Falkirk West, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Dorothy Bain on 15 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how often the Lord Advocate’s instructions have been used to protect victims of human trafficking and exploitation since the commencement of the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015.

The Lord Advocate’s instructions for non-prosecution of victims of human trafficking | COPFS were first published in May 2016 and the manual collation of data commenced at that stage.

As of 6 January 2025, proceedings involving 188 individuals, who were reported to the National Lead Prosecutor for Human Trafficking in accordance with the instructions, were not raised or were discontinued on the basis that the two-part test in the Lord Advocate’s instructions was satisfied.

The information is provided under the caveats that:

?A decision to discontinue proceedings can be taken at any time during a proceeding. Therefore, although the National Lead Prosecutor has not discontinued proceedings against an accused person, that may not be the final decision. Should further information become available, such as a positive Conclusive Grounds Decision, the National Lead Prosecutor may decide to discontinue proceedings on receipt of that information.

The data is manually collated and so whilst the data is as accurate as it can be, full accuracy cannot be guaranteed.
The data changes constantly depending on when new information is received.

Question reference: S6W-32328

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Dorothy Bain on 15 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many criminal prosecutions the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) has handled in each of the last 10 years.

The following table shows the number of criminal cases reported to COPFS with a first substantive marking for court proceedings.

Number of accused in criminal cases reported to COPFS with a
First Substantive Marking for court proceedings

Financial Year	Total
2014-15	126,349
2015-16	117,588
2016-17	112,388
2017-18	102,745
2018-19	97,016
2019-20	104,356
2020-21	89,553
2021-22	82,232
2022-23	85,364
2023-24	94,588

Question reference: S6W-32339

Asked by: Douglas Lumsden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 19 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Dorothy Bain on 15 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what percentage of cases have been referred to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) by Police Scotland in each of the last five years.

Question reference: S6W-32789

Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 03 January 2025
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 15 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many of the 12 actions in Scotland’s Fisheries Management Strategy 2020-2030 Delivery Plan have been achieved to date.

Scotland’s Fisheries Management Strategy is a ten year strategy and most of the actions relate to the ongoing delivery of our management functions. The progress being made with these will help ensure a stable context for fishing businesses to operate within. We intend to publish an updated Future Fisheries Management Delivery Plan in the coming months, which will provide information on the progress made for each of the 12 actions.

Question reference: S6W-32712

Asked by: Foysol Choudhury, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 20 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Siobhian Brown on 15 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what progress it has made towards implementing the recommendations made by the Cross-Party Group on Tackling Islamophobia in its report, Scotland’s Islamophobia - Update 2023.

Tackling religious or race-based intolerance, including Islamophobia, is a priority for the Scottish Government. The Cross-Party Group’s report, Scotland’s Islamophobia - Update 2023, attributes three recommendations to the Scottish Government:

1. Integrate an understanding of Islamophobia into compulsory components of the Scottish education curricula and all teacher training education.

Curriculum for Excellence purposefully does not mandate curriculum content. However, this recommendation and the wider report will be considered in the context of the Curriculum Improvement Cycle. The Cycle commenced in early 2024 and involves the review and update of each curricular area within Scotland’s curriculum.

In terms of teacher training, teachers in Scotland are required to meet the General Teaching Council for Scotland’s Standard for Full Registration, found at: Document > The Standard for Full Registration- a commitment to the professional values of social justice, trust and respect and integrity is at the heart of this. The Standard recognises that our increasingly interconnected and rapidly changing world faces many social challenges, and an effective, responsive and inclusive education system is vital if we are to address these. The Standard also explicitly states that social justice is the view that everyone deserves equal economic, political and social rights and opportunities now and in the future.

2. The Scottish Government should ensure that the Public Sector Equality Duty is enforced in schools and provide additional training so that this can be better implemented and enforced.

Enforcement of the Public Sector Equality Duty is the responsibility of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), not the Scottish Government. The EHRC rightly operates independently. The Scottish Government does however encourage all organisations to appropriately implement the Public Sector Equality Duty. The guiding principles of our Learning Estate Strategy, which was co-produced with COSLA and other partners, also makes clear that learning environments should support the wellbeing of all learners.

3. The Scottish Government should fund and support organisations and initiatives that support social cohesion and integration, particularly for Muslim women.

The Scottish Government is committed to building resilient communities within which divisive narratives will not resonate. We work cooperatively with a wide range of organisations throughout the country to support social cohesion and integration, tackle hatred and promote inclusion. Turning specifically to Muslim women, the Scottish Government has provided over £150,000 in the current financial year to Amina, The Muslim Women’s Resource Centre to deliver a range of ambitions which address a number of issues including: violence against women and girls; children, young people and families’ intervention; adult learning and empowering communities.

Question reference: S6W-32765

Asked by: Fulton MacGregor, MSP for Coatbridge and Chryston, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 20 December 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 15 January 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what protections it will provide to non-medical aesthetic practitioners, in light of its proposed regulations for the sector.

The Scottish Government launched a consultation on 20th December 2024, to seek views on how best to further regulate non-surgical cosmetics procedures.

The consultation has been informed by extensive work with a range of stakeholders, including beauty industry representatives, among others, but it is important we receive further feedback before the Scottish Government commits to any proposals.

In taking forward work on any potential new regulations, we will continue to seek views from, and consider the impact on, existing businesses.

Our proposals aim to be both robust and proportionate, protecting the public and supporting reputable business to operate safely.

Criminal cases reported to COPFS
- grouped by financial year reported
		Financial year reported
Of all criminal cases received:-	2019-20	2020-21	2021-22	2022-23	2023-24
percentage reported by Police Scotland	92%	97%	95%	94%	93%