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-26022

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 29 October 2019
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 7 November 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will enact the provisions in the Transport (Scotland) Bill regarding keeper liability before the Parking Code of Practice is in force.

The UK-wide Code of Practice, which is being established under the UK (Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019, will be a key element supporting the keeper liability provisions within Scotland. To ensure fairness and transparency for motorists we have no intention of enacting those provisions until the Code of Practice is in place. We are continuing our work with our UK counterparts to ensure that Scotland is fully represented in the Code's development.

Question reference: S5W-25735

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 October 2019
Current Status: Answered by Aileen Campbell on 5 November 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what marketing and campaign plans it has for Hate Crime Awareness Week 2019, and whether it plans to repeat the "Dear Haters" letter campaign that covered multiple identity characteristics, which was used in 2018.

Question reference: S5W-25712

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 October 2019
Current Status: Answered by Aileen Campbell on 5 November 2019

To ask the Scottish Government when it will announce its plans for Hate Crime Awareness Week.

Hate Crime Awareness Week took place across the UK from 12 to 19 October 2019, during which we engaged with key stakeholders to promote and support a broad range of events and activity across Scotland. Myself and the Justice Secretary used the opportunity provided by Hate Crime Awareness Week to reassure communities that there is no place for hate crime or prejudice in Scotland.

We remain committed to taking action to challenge all forms of hated and prejudice and in June 2017, we published an ambitious programme of work. I chair an Action Group with key stakeholders to take this work forward whose identified priorities are on victim support through raising awareness of hate crime and encouraging reporting, as well as working with us to ensure improved data and evidence around hate incidents and crime.

Hate crime is hugely damaging to victims, their families and communities and we all must play our part in challenging it.

Question reference: S5O-03673

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 October 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 30 October 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it is making on encouraging the uptake of breast cancer screening.

Question reference: S5W-25536

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 27 September 2019
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 14 October 2019

To ask the Scottish Government which (a) individuals and (b) organisations the Cabinet Secretary for Social Security and Older People has met in the last year to discuss (i) equalities issues and (ii) the Gender Recognition Act 2004.

Information on Ministerial engagements is published on the Scottish Government’s website and is at https://www.gov.scot/search/?q=Ministerial+engagements . The most recent published information covers the period to April 2019. Since then I have undertaken the following engagements related to Equalities and Gender Recognition:

29 May – Visit to Shaheliya (Equalities)

12 June – Equality Network Trans equality reception at Parliament (Gender Recognition)

13 June – Meeting with Louise Macdonald, Chair of NACWAG (Equalities)

25 June – Meeting with Equality Network, Scottish Trans Alliance, Stonewall Scotland, LGBT Youth Scotland, LGBT Health and Wellbeing (Gender Recognition)

25 June - Equality Network reception – 50th anniversary of Stonewall (Equalities)

30 July – Visit to ASSIST (Equalities)

6 August – Meeting with Engender, Zero Tolerance, Scottish Women’s Aid, Close the Gap and Rape Crisis Scotland (Gender Recognition)

21 August - Meeting with Equality Network, Scottish Trans Alliance, Stonewall Scotland, LGBT Youth Scotland, LGBT Health and Wellbeing (Gender Recognition)

28 August – Speech at Scottish Women’s Aid “Women Against Violence Europe” event (Equalities)

Following my letter of 21 June to all MSPs I have also met with a number of MSPs from across the Parliament to discuss Gender Recognition.

Question reference: S5W-25527

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 September 2019
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 9 October 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what consideration it has given to introducing a means-tested voucher scheme to enable lower income families to provide tuition for their children.

The Scottish Government does not provide funding for the use of private tutors and there are no plans to provide means-tested vouchers for private tutoring. We recognise that children affected by poverty can face barriers to accessing education. That is why the Scottish Government has prioritised closing the educational attainment gap between children from the most and least deprived backgrounds. To tackle this, over the lifetime of this parliament we will invest £750 million in the Attainment Scotland Fund to deliver the Scottish Attainment Challenge. This includes Pupil Equity Funding, which is allocated directly to over 95% of schools. A key priority for schools and authorities is to encourage and support parents and families to engage with their children’s learning, and this is evident in the work underway as part of the Challenge Authorities and Schools’ Programmes.

Question reference: S5O-03634

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 September 2019
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 3 October 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how it will allocate the £1.5 million that is to be provided to social landlords to prevent homelessness.

Question reference: S5W-25021

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 19 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on Shelter Scotland's view that Glasgow City Council has broken the law almost 7,000 times in the last two years by failing to provide accommodation for people presenting as homeless, and whether it supports the organisation’s plan to take the council to court on this issue.

Question reference: S5W-25020

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 29 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 19 September 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of reports that Glasgow City Council has failed to provide accommodation for people presenting as homeless on almost 7,000 occasions over the last two years, what its response is to the council refuting Shelter Scotland's accusation of the “gatekeeping” of homelessness services.

The Scottish Government considers any failure to provide temporary accommodation to those presenting as homeless as unacceptable.

That is why the Scottish Government has agreed to work with Glasgow City Council to understand the local issues they face and is leading a voluntary review in partnership to identify solutions on the Council’s failure to provide temporary accommodation to homeless people. Two meetings have been held which have focused on reviewing cases where a failure to provide temporary accommodation was recorded. This has uncovered some inaccurate recording and identified where improvements could be made, which the Council is taking steps to address. This work is continuing.

The Scottish Housing Regulator are also engaging with the council in terms of its failure of its statutory duty to provide temporary accommodation to homeless people.

It is the responsibility of Glasgow City Council to how it responds to Shelter Scotland.

Question reference: S5W-24455

Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 23 July 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 15 August 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to reduce waiting times in orthopaedics.

The Orthopaedic community of clinicians and managers, supported by Scottish Government’s Trauma and Orthopaedic ACCESS Programme, are driving through a range of improvements to provide better care for patients, and continue to do so through increasing clinical efficiency and improving quality of care. The Trauma and Orthopaedic Access Programme supports several work strands with a detailed dashboard of indicators, which hospitals can benchmark their progress against.

We have recently accounted an additional total of £102 million that has been released under the Waiting Times Improvement Plan. This funding has been allocated to all territorial Health Boards and the Golden Jubilee. This funding supported by Boards Annual Operating Plans, will lead to increased activity and assist in a further reduction of waiting times.