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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-04446

Asked by: Ariane Burgess, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Monday, 10 November 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 13 November 2025

To ask the First Minister whether the Scottish Government is still on track to restore 250,000 hectares of peatland by 2030.

Question reference: S6F-04434

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 10 November 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 13 November 2025

Question to be taken in Chamber.

Question reference: S6F-04432

Asked by: Russell Findlay, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 10 November 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 13 November 2025

Question to be taken in Chamber.

Question reference: S6F-04452

Asked by: Kevin Stewart, MSP for Aberdeen Central, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 10 November 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 13 November 2025

To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government's response is to the report on regional economic growth by former University of Glasgow principal, Professor Sir Anton Muscatelli.

Question reference: S6F-04433

Asked by: Anas Sarwar, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 10 November 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 13 November 2025

Question to be taken in Chamber.

Question reference: S6W-41260

Asked by: Martin Whitfield, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 13 October 2025
Current Status: Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 10 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of kinship carers have reported that the financial allowance they receive does not cover the full cost of care since May 2021.

According to the most recent Children’s Social Work Statistics, there are around 4,000 children in kinship care in Scotland. In a recent review of the Scottish Recommended Allowance for Foster and Kinship carers (SRA), of the 131 kinship carers who responded, 41% agreed that the financial support given to carers was fairer since the SRA was introduced, 37% said it had improved their finances, and 22% said it was sufficient to meet the full costs of looking after children in their care.

Since the review, we have committed an additional £1.9 million to uprate the SRA, with increased weekly rates backdated to 1 April 2025. We plan to publish a national vision for kinship care by the end of the year, and it will set out what further action we are taking to support kinship carers.

Question reference: S6W-41298

Asked by: Jackson Carlaw, MSP for Eastwood, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 13 October 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 10 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, for each of the 21 recommendations in the report Transvaginal Mesh Case Record Review that it decided not to accept, what the reasons were in each case for the decision not to implement the recommendation.

Question reference: S6W-41503

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 27 October 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 10 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-28353 by Jenni Minto on 15 July 2024, whether it will provide an update on how many people have (a) been eligible for and (b) received a respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccination since the new programme was announced, broken down by NHS board area.

Scotland’s Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccination programme for older adults and an RSV vaccination programme for pregnant women, providing protection to newborn babies, launched on 12 August 2024.

RSV Vaccination is currently offered every year to those turning 75 years of age:

In 2024-25 this included invites for all those turning 75 between 1 August 24 – 31 July 25.
In 2025-26 this includes invites for all those turning 75 between 1 August 25 – 31 July 26.

In 2024-25 there was also a catch-up programme and all those aged 75 to 80 years (i.e. 79 years + 364 days) as of 1 August 24 were invited forward.

Those eligible in previous years of the programme, who did not come forward at the time, remain eligible indefinitely and can come forward at any point in the future, should they request vaccination.

The Public Health Scotland Vaccination Surveillance Dashboard includes data on the number of RSV vaccinations administered for both the pregnancy and older adult programmes. The dashboard can be found at https://scotland.shinyapps.io/phs-vaccination-surveillance/.

The data for older adults does not display how many people have been eligible to receive the vaccine, but it does include a percentage uptake figure and the number of vaccinations administered. The data published is available at national and Health Board level, for both 2024-25 and 2025-26.

The data published for the maternal programme is only available at a national level.

Question reference: S6W-41484

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 27 October 2025
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 10 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-18275 by Gillian Martin on 1 June 2023, on how many occasions the organisations that were awarded funding from the Hydrogen Innovation Scheme in the 2023 round failed to complete key project milestones.

Question reference: S6W-41477

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 27 October 2025
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 10 November 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to reduce the burning of recyclable materials at incineration sites.

Incineration permit conditions required by the Pollution Prevention and Control (Scotland) Regulations 2012 prevent the incineration of separately collected recyclable waste.

The Scottish Government is supporting diversion of recyclable material from residual waste. We are making one of the biggest investments in a generation to modernise recycling in Scotland through the Recycling Improvement Fund. A total of £66.6 million has now been allocated to 27 local authorities for 48 projects to increase the quantity and quality of recycling across Scotland. We are funding a range of improvements, including more frequent recycling collections, the extension of food and garden waste collections, and boosting Scotland’s capacity to recycle problematic materials like plastic films. The household waste recycling rate increased from 43.5% in 2023 to 44.3% in 2024.

Local authorities in Scotland will also see around £150 million per year in funding to support collection of household packaging waste through extended producer responsibility (EPR) for packaging. These payments will start from November 2025.

Our plans to co-design a new household recycling Code of Practice are set out in the Circular Economy & Waste Route Map. The new, statutory Code of Practice will increase consistency, making the right choices the easier choices for households to maximise diversion of recyclable waste from disposal. This is alongside giving local authorities more powers to tackle persistent, deliberate contamination of recycling and waste bines, mirroring powers that are already available to local authorities in England and Wales, to ensure that recyclable material is correctly disposed of.