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-27768

Asked by: Foysol Choudhury, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 May 2024
Current Status: Answered by Kaukab Stewart on 5 June 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made towards meeting its target of disabled people representing 19% of its workforce, as set out in its 2019 Recruitment and Retention Plan for Disabled People.

The 2019 recruitment and retention Action plan for Disabled People has been superseded by the Diversity and Inclusion Employer Strategy for Scottish Government published April 2024. Having a workforce more representative of the people of Scotland it serves, remains one of our Employer Equality Outcomes. We have higher levels of disabled staff than ever before but still have further progress to make. The overall proportion of disabled people working in the Scottish Government has more than doubled over the last ten years, rising from 6.4% in 2013 to 14.1% in 2023.

Question reference: S6W-27769

Asked by: Foysol Choudhury, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 May 2024
Current Status: Answered by Kaukab Stewart on 5 June 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it has made towards meeting its target of 25% of its external recruits being disabled people by 2025, as set out in its 2019 Recruitment and Retention Plan for Disabled People.

The 2019 recruitment and retention Action plan for Disabled People has been superseded by the Diversity and Inclusion Employer Strategy for Scottish Government published April 2024. Having a workforce more representative of the people of Scotland it serves, remains one of our Employer Equality Outcomes. The Scottish Government has made excellent progress towards meeting the target of 25% of external recruits declaring a disability. Latest figures show 35% of successful applicants declared a disability, exceeding the 25% target.

Question reference: S6W-27619

Asked by: Foysol Choudhury, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 May 2024
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 4 June 2024

To ask the Scottish Government when it first became aware of any dangers of aging reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC).

Question reference: S6W-27622

Asked by: Foysol Choudhury, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 May 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 4 June 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what medical advice it had received, regarding any risks of blood clots, prior to its decision to suspend the use of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for under-30s in April 2021.

The Scottish Government’s decision-making throughout all COVID-19 vaccination programmes has been guided by the expert clinical advice of both the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

Scotland has three representatives that attend the JCVI, including its COVID-19 committee and subcommittee; one co-opted member, an invited observer from Scottish Government and another invited observer from Public Health Scotland.

The MHRA’s pharmacovigilance process, alongside wider global data, identified reports of extremely rare adverse events of concurrent thrombosis and thrombocytopenia following vaccination with the first dose of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine.

As reports of extremely rare adverse event of concurrent thrombosis (blood clots) and thrombocytopenia (low platelet count) following vaccination with the first dose of the AstraZeneca (AZ) COVID-19 vaccine emerged in spring 2021, both the MHRA and the JCVI met to assess the data and the relative balance of benefits and risks.

The minutes from the JCVI COVID-19 Committee on 16 March 2021 and 18 March 2021 show that there was discussion of the topic and that the MHRA was working with international and European colleagues to share data and assess the risk.

The JCVI met again on the 6 April and on 7 April and published advice for the four UK health departments recommending that for adults aged under 30 years of age, without underlying health conditions that put them at higher risk of severe COVID-19 disease, there should be a preference for an alternative to the AstraZeneca vaccine, if available.

The following day on 8 April, Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer (CMO) issued a letter to the Scottish system stating the changes in the use of AstraZeneca vaccine and advising that Health Boards should now offer those under 30 years of age, without underlying health conditions, an alternative to the AstraZeneca vaccine. We also amended our patient information leaflets to reflect this new advice.

Question reference: S6O-03539

Asked by: Foysol Choudhury, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 29 May 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 6 June 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide further details of how it is working to ensure free music tuition to pupils in schools across Scotland.

Question reference: S6T-02009

Asked by: Foysol Choudhury, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 May 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 28 May 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how it is working to build resilience to flooding, in light of reports that heavy rain and flooding caused drivers to be stranded on the Edinburgh City Bypass for hours.

Question reference: S6W-27458

Asked by: Foysol Choudhury, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 13 May 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jim Fairlie on 28 May 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what work it has undertaken to understand the cause of the e-gate outage at Scottish airports on 7 May 2024, and what it is doing to ensure that such an incident does not occur during the upcoming summer tourist season.

Question reference: S6W-27383

Asked by: Foysol Choudhury, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 May 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 23 May 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what measures it is taking to promote coordination between schools and mental health services.

The mental health and wellbeing of children and young people is a top priority for the Scottish Government.

We continue to provide £16 million a year to ensure that every secondary school has access to school counselling services. Our guidance makes clear that local authorities should consider how links between schools, and their local community health and social services, and relevant third-sector organisations can be made to ensure a holistic child-centred approach.

The Scottish Government is also providing local authorities with £15 million per annum to deliver community-based mental health and wellbeing supports and services for children and young people. Our supporting Framework for this funding advocates a whole-system approach and makes clear that community supports and services should work closely with schools to ensure that there are clear and streamlined pathways to support for children and young people, and that local partnerships should be explicit about how different services should work together.

It is a matter for local authorities to decide how services work together in individual areas.

Question reference: S6O-03485

Asked by: Foysol Choudhury, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 May 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 29 May 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what forms of community engagement the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill mandates in relation to the creation of a land management plan for large land holdings.

Question reference: S6W-27347

Asked by: Foysol Choudhury, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 09 May 2024
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 22 May 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has assessed the impact of the reductions in the number of police officers since 2008 on the force’s ability to respond to reports of a crime.

Police Scotland implemented the THRIVE approach as part of the roll out of its Contact Assessment Model (CAM) across 2019/20. THRIVE is used to ensure a consistent response to an incident report by evaluating threat, harm, risk, investigation, vulnerability and engagement. That places the needs of the individual at the centre of the police’s decisions while ensuring that effective prioritisation is in place.

It is vitally important that the Chief Constable has the flexibility to develop her workforce in a way that responds to the challenges she faces by ensuring the right workforce mix. She confirmed to the Criminal Justice Committee on 20 December that the extra £75.7m of resource funding provided by Scottish Government in 2024-25 will enable Police Scotland to bring officer numbers up to around 16,500-16,600. With plans in place to bring in over 1000 new officers this financial year and around 320 having joined since March, she is bringing in the resources that will ensure that frontline policing is prioritised.