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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-04957

Asked by: Oliver Mundell, MSP for Dumfriesshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 September 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 18 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to ensure that pupils attending smaller rural schools are receiving the additional support for learning that they need.

Question reference: S6O-04956

Asked by: Richard Leonard, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 September 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 18 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what interventions it has made to end the current dispute over jobs and cuts in the higher education sector.

Question reference: S6O-04931

Asked by: Daniel Johnson, MSP for Edinburgh Southern, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 September 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 17 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the work of the Creative Industries Leadership Group.

Question reference: S6O-04933

Asked by: Roz McCall, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 September 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 17 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it is planning to make any changes to Historic Environment Scotland.

Question reference: S6O-04955

Asked by: Emma Roddick, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 September 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 18 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason the Children (Withdrawal from Religious Education and Amendment of UNCRC Compatibility Duty) (Scotland) Bill aims to give school pupils an independent right to opt in, but not opt out, of religious observance.

Question reference: S6O-04942

Asked by: Sue Webber, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 September 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 17 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what actions it is taking to address the illegal use of off-road bikes, e-bikes and e-scooters.

Question reference: S6W-40325

Asked by: Paul Sweeney, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 03 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Kaukab Stewart on 10 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how it promotes a higher birth rate, in light of reports that the number of births in Scotland in 2024 dropped to its lowest number in 169 years.

Falling birth rates are a trend across many high-income countries, with significant implications for our economies, communities and public services. It is not for government to dictate or influence whether an individual should have children, which is rightly a matter for individuals and couples.

Our 2021 Population Strategy sets out our ambition that Scotland is the ideal place to raise a family, and that people are enabled to have the number of children they wish to. In December 2024, the Ministerial Population Taskforce considered potential lessons from family friendly policy interventions internationally, and officials are currently exploring next steps in the Scottish context, including scoping further research into the role of parental leave uptake on decisions to have children.

Question reference: S6W-40115

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 25 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 10 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government when it will publish the new Scottish Life Sciences Strategy.

Question reference: S6W-39956

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 August 2025
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 10 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the average waiting time for households applying to the Warmer Homes Scotland Scheme to move from initial application to installation, broken down by local authority area in each year since 2018.

The Warmer Homes Scotland scheme has a key performance indicator (KPI) recording the percentage of customer journeys, from referral by the Energy Saving Trust to completion of installation for full jobs, completed within 65 working days.

We do not have analysis of average customer journey times by region but instead use this KPI, to record the numbers of jobs completed within the specified target time. This KPI is performance based and linked to payment. A reduction in the KPI performance will automatically result in a reduced payment to Warmworks thereby continually incentivising a consistent performance standard.

Warmworks submit a monthly performance report and scorecard, detailing delivery volumes and performance against KPIs and service levels across six regions. One key target is for 95% of installations to be completed within the 65-day timeframe. While performance is tracked regionally, data is not broken down by individual local authorities but a table showing which local authorities are represented by each area is included in this response.

It is important to note that performance in 2020-21 and 2021-22 was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. More recently, the 2023-24 and 2024/25 periods have seen extended waiting times due to a high volume of referrals following the launch of the new WHS2 scheme in October 2023. This surge in demand and the resulting delays were anticipated and communicated to customers in advance.

The tables below show Warmworks' performance for the referral to completion (RTC) KPI from April 2017-18 to 2025-26 (to end of July 2025), The dates requested cover both Warmer Homes Scotland phase 1 (WHS1) and 2 (WHS 2) and were reported on separately for the period of 2023-24.

RTC - WHS1		2018-19	2019-20	2020-21	2021-22	2022-23	2023-24
South West	96%	99%	98%	89%	94%	97%	89%
South East	96%	99%	98%	93%	91%	97%	94%
Strathclyde and Central	98%	99%	98%	93%	95%	99%	95%
North East	95%	97%	95%	89%	88%	94%	91%
Highlands	93%	96%	98%	83%	91%	95%	96%
Islands	91%	93%	97%	81%	70%	94%	94%
Total	96%	98%	98%	91%	92%	97%	93%

RTC - WHS2	2023-24	2024-25	25-26 (July 25)
South West	49%	75%	98%
South East	65%	81%	98%
Strathclyde and Central	66%	74%	98%
North East	62%	86%	95%
Highlands	38%	90%	95%
Islands	29%	97%	95%
Total	62%	79%	98%

The following table outlines which Local Authorities map to each KPI region:

KPI Region	Local Authorities
South West	North Ayrshire (excluding islands) East Ayrshire South Ayrshire Dumfries and Galloway
South East	Fife Edinburgh Midlothian East Lothian West Lothian Scottish Borders
Strathclyde and Central	Glasgow Renfrewshire East Renfrewshire Inverclyde East Dunbartonshire West Dunbartonshire Clackmannanshire North Lanarkshire South Lanarkshire Stirling Falkirk
North East	Moray Aberdeen City Aberdeenshire Perth and Kinross Angus Dundee City
Highlands	Argyll and Bute (excluding islands) Highland (excluding islands)
Islands	Eilean Siar (Western Isles) Shetland Islands Orkney Islands (and all other islands: Skye, Arran, Bute etc)

Question reference: S6W-37444

Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Monday, 28 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 10 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of its 2014 public procurement policy note regarding illegal settlements, what action it has taken to prevent public funds being used for activities related to illegal Israeli settlements.

Any action which the Scottish Government takes on public procurement must comply with obligations in applicable international agreements.

It has been the consistently expressed view of the Scottish Government that the exploitation of assets in illegally occupied territories is likely to constitute grave professional misconduct for the purposes of public procurement law. This would give rise to grounds to exclude a bidder engaged in such conduct from procurement processes. Any decision to exclude such a bidder, is however, one for the contracting authority awarding the contract in question, and must be taken following assessment of available evidence. I have asked officials to refresh our guidance to public bodies on this point.

Following the publication in 2020 of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights' database of companies believed to be active in listed activity in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the Scottish Government wrote to all Scottish public bodies, asking them to identify any companies on the database with whom they had a relevant and ongoing relationship.

As Minister for Business, Trade, Tourism and Enterprise, I wrote to those identified companies in June 2022, asking them to explain what they were doing to cease the specific activities which had led to their inclusion in that database.

Last year, the Minister for Business wrote to Scottish public bodies in October, advising them that the database had been updated, and that it should be used as part of their due diligence processes.

On 3 September, the First Minister outlined a range of measures which the Scottish Government is taking in response to the situation in Gaza. This includes pausing the payment of new business grants to, or investment in, companies involved in the design, production, supply, and support of military equipment, technologies and services, whose products or services are provided to specific identified countries, where there is plausible evidence of genocide being committed by that country.

The First Minister also called on the UK Government to prohibit the import of goods produced in Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.