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: S5W-03476

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 05 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 2 November 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to ensure that people with kidney cancer have equal access to all systemic therapies approved by the Scottish Medicines Consortium regardless of where they live.

Question reference: S5W-03971

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 24 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 2 November 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how much additional funding will be provided to support the increase in Scottish Development International's representation in the EU that was announced by the First Minister.

Question reference: S5W-03964

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 24 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 2 November 2016

To ask the Scottish Government which companies have received Regional Selective Assistance in each year since 2011-12; how much was awarded and how many jobs were created.

Question reference: S5W-03969

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 24 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 2 November 2016

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the announcement by the First Minister to increase Scottish Development International's representation in the EU, how many additional staff will be employed.

Question reference: S5W-03975

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 24 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 2 November 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what (a) policies and (b) initiatives underpin its economic strategy and how are these measured.

Scotland’s Economic Strategy (SES) is directed towards achieving the Scottish Government’s central Purpose of creating a more successful country, with opportunities for all of Scotland to flourish, through increasing sustainable economic growth.

The SES sets out four priority areas for supporting sustainable economic growth:

Investing in our people and our infrastructure in a sustainable way;

Fostering a culture of innovation and research and development;

Promoting inclusive growth and creating opportunity through a fair and inclusive jobs market and regional cohesion; and,

Promoting Scotland on the international stage to boost our trade and investment, influence and networks.

Details of specific policies and initiatives that underpin these priorities are set out in Chapter two of the SES, which is available at the following address:

http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2015/03/5984/5

The Programme for Government, published on 6 September 2016, sets out the policies, actions and legislation that the Scottish Government will take forward to deliver these priorities. The Programme for Government is available at the following address: http://www.gov.scot/programme2016

Question reference: S5W-03972

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 24 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 2 November 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how much Scotland exports to the (a) rest of the UK, (b) EU, (c) USA and (d) rest of the world.

The latest published figures for 2014 estimate that Scottish exports to the rest of the UK are worth £48.5 billion. Scottish international exports are estimated to be worth £27.5 billion with an estimated £11.6 billion of these exports destined for the EU and £15.2 billion destined for non-EU countries. The USA is estimated to be Scotland’s largest international export market with an estimated £4.0 billion worth of exports.

The Scottish Government is currently exploring all options to protect Scotland’s interests and relationship with Europe.

Question reference: S5W-03965

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 24 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 2 November 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what (a) grant and (b) loan funds are provided by (i) Scottish Enterprise and (ii) Highlands and Islands Enterprise, and what the budget is for each fund.

Question reference: S5W-03963

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 24 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 2 November 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what (a) land and (b) assets are owned by (i) Scottish Enterprise and (ii) Highlands and Islands Enterprise.

Question reference: S5W-03821

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 17 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Maureen Watt on 2 November 2016

To ask the Scottish Government what services are available to people coming off anti-depressants.

Any prescribing is a clinical decision for a patient’s doctor and there is good evidence that GPs assess and treat depression appropriately. Decisions to use them should always involve the patient so that they understand both the potential benefits and risks in making a decision to take them.

For people coming off antidepressants help is available from a range of sources, GPs in primary care can often provide sufficient medical support in the community. For more specialised help general psychiatric services commonly manage people with a wide variety of mental health problems, including addictions. The multidisciplinary teams in specialist mental health consist of a range of professions – medical doctors, psychologists, nurses, allied health professionals that all can have a part to play in providing medical, psychological and social supports. Specialist addiction services are available for the most complex either through advice or direct service involvement and primary care, mental health and addiction specialist services are all sensitive to the stigma associated with mental health problems including addictions and do all they can to reduce this.

Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) develops evidence based clinical practice guidelines for the National Health Service (NHS) in Scotland. SIGN guidelines are produced in collaboration with patients, carers and members of the public. SIGN guidelines 114 on Non-pharmaceutical management of depression in adults provides an assessment of non-pharmaceutical therapies, encompassing psychological therapies, structured exercise and lifestyle interventions, and a range of alternative and complementary treatments. These guidelines are published online and are available at http://sign.ac.uk/guidelines/fulltext/114/index.html.

In addition the Scottish Government also supports provided by Breathing Space and NHS Living Life to people experiencing depression and anxiety is a key element of wider work across Scotland to intervene early and prevent problems from becoming worse. This will be making a big difference to people and aligns well with our policy on improving prevention and intervening early, which is one area of focus for the next Mental Health Strategy.

Question reference: S5W-03818

Asked by: Jackie Baillie, MSP for Dumbarton, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 17 October 2016
Current Status: Answered by Maureen Watt on 2 November 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how many deaths by suicide there have been in each year since 2011, broken down by (a) gender, (b) age and (c) local authority area.

Statistics on Probable Suicides (Deaths which are the Result of Intentional Self-harm or Events of Undetermined Intent) are published annually on the National Records of Scotland website. The following workbook contains trends by gender (worksheet 1), age-group (worksheet 3) and local authority (worksheet 5). http://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/files//statistics/probable-suicides/suicides-2015-all-tables.xlsx

New coding rules were introduced by NRS in 2011, and the workbook contains figures from 2011 onwards based on both old and new coding. Any comparisons with suicides before 2011 should be based on old coding rules. Further information about the classification of suicide deaths is available on the following webpage: http://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/statistics-and-data/statistics/statistics-by-theme/vital-events/deaths/suicides/the-definition-of-the-statistics