Chamber and committees

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: S6W-19216

Asked by: Sharon Dowey, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 15 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 27 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the Climate Justice Fund, including details of what the money dedicated to this fund is being spent on.

Through Scottish Government’s commitment of £36 Million over this parliamentary term, The Climate Justice Fund [CJF] continues to focus on supporting communities being impacted first and worst by the climate crisis.

£7 Million of this has been committed to be spent on Loss and Damage over this parliament (to March 31 2026). £1.7 Million has already been delivered through grants. For details of expenditure I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-13351 on 10 January 2023. In addition, once the selection process and delivery mechanism for the £5 Million funding for non-economic loss and damage is finalised, initiatives can begin to be funded through this programme on the otherwise underfunded and undervalued area of addressing non-economic and slow-onset loss and damage.

Scottish Government is expanding its Human Rights Defendership Fellowship programme to include two £50,000 Gender and Environment fellowships. The fellowship will allow human rights defenders from other countries to spend several months in Scotland to develop their work, skills and extend their networks in a safe place.

A further £24 Million will be awarded through the Climate Just Communities programme over three years. This will be split across Malawi, Rwanda and Zambia to build more inclusive communities that are resilient to the material and social effects of climate change.

Officials are developing options for Cabinet Secretary consideration for allocation of the as yet uncommitted funding.

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-19018

Asked by: Sharon Dowey, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 12 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 23 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the progress of the National Treatment Centre for orthopaedics at Carrick Glen.

Question reference: S6W-19040

Asked by: Sharon Dowey, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 12 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 22 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what plans are in place to ensure that women from the most deprived areas in Ayrshire and Arran attend their cervical screening appointment, in light of reported evidence suggesting that they are less likely to attend compared with those from the least deprived areas.

The Scottish Government remains committed to reducing inequalities across all screening programmes. That is why we have supported the Equity in Screening strategy, which will give direction and focus to tackling this issue across all screening programmes. However, we also recognise that Health Boards are most often best placed to find solutions that meet the needs of their populations, and we have allocated inequalities funding since 2021-22 to support local initiatives.

This funding has played a part in a programme of work in Ayrshire and Arran to tackle inequalities of uptake in cervical screening. In particular the Health Board has developed a targeted Health Board cervical screening clinic for women who have experienced sexual violence, or who have physical disabilities; They have also run additional Saturday clinics, particularly in areas of deprivation, to increase access to screening outside working hours.

In addition, Primary Care staff have directly contacted patients who have not taken up their screening invitations to offer appointments. Further work is underway with primary care to consider outreach work for 23/24, which will specifically take into account the needs of areas with highest depravation within the Health Board.

Question reference: S6W-19041

Asked by: Sharon Dowey, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 12 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 22 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to increase the number of women attending their cervical screening appointments in NHS Ayrshire and Arran.

Question reference: S6W-18835

Asked by: Sharon Dowey, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angus Robertson on 21 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-11285 by Keith Brown on 25 October 2022, whether it will provide an update on its plans to create a Peace Institute by 2022, and what the (a) location, (b) cost and (c) remit of this body will be.

Question reference: S6W-18723

Asked by: Sharon Dowey, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 20 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether a Scottish Education Exchange Programme is on course to be delivered within the current parliamentary session.

Question reference: S6W-18722

Asked by: Sharon Dowey, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 June 2023
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 20 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether the delivery of a Scottish Education Exchange Programme within the current parliamentary session would mean that students will be on mobility programmes in the 2025-26 academic year.

Question reference: S6O-02387

Asked by: Sharon Dowey, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 June 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 15 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the final report of the independent review of the skills delivery landscape.

Question reference: S6W-18203

Asked by: Sharon Dowey, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 22 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 6 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its innovation strategy.

The Scottish Government has been engaging with stakeholders across the country from industry, academia and the public sector to develop a National Innovation Strategy for Scotland, which will set out a roadmap to transform Scotland's economy over the next decade by placing innovation at the heart of our economic growth and societal prosperity and wellbeing. The Scottish Government intends to publish its National Innovation Strategy this month.

Question reference: S6W-18257

Asked by: Sharon Dowey, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 May 2023
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 2 June 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how many (a) core beds there are and (b) additional beds were brought in for COVID-19, across NHS Ayrshire and Arran, broken down by NHS facility.

Public Health Scotland publish Acute hospital activity and NHS beds information which shows the number of available staffed beds and percentage occupancy (Table 4) by financial year (2012-13 to 2021-22) and by quarter (2020 Q2 to 2022 Q1), by NHS Board and hospital location. In addition, PHS produce a quarterly publication which provides similar beds information up to and including the quarter ending 30 September 2022. Data for the quarter ending 31 December 2022 was published on 30 May 2023. The PHS statistics do not provide specific information on COVID beds. NHS Boards reconfigured parts of hospitals during the pandemic, with, in particular, significant increases in critical care capacity, and this should be taken in to account when interpreting the annual bed statistics.

Public Health Scotland also publish statistics on the number of patients in hospital with COVID-19 which is available in the Weekly national respiratory infection and COVID-19 statistical report with Health Board level data available through the Open Data Platform: COVID-19 Statistical Data in Scotland - Daily Case Trends by Health Board - Scottish Health and Social Care Open Data (nhs.scot) . Until 7 May 2023, this also included the number of patients with COVID-19 in ICU.