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: S6O-00824

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 March 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 9 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will meet with the Life after Essure UK and Ireland support group to discuss its concerns about a lack of awareness and understanding of the reported damaging physical and mental health impacts of Essure sterilisation devices.

Question reference: S6W-06283

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 04 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 25 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government when it plans to empower local authorities to introduce a Transient Visitor Levy; whether it will be for local authorities to decide (a) when and (b) how to use such a levy, and whether it will affect the distribution formula of the block grant to local authorities.

Work towards a draft bill to provide local authorities with a discretionary power to apply a visitor levy, including a series of roundtable stakeholder events and formal consultation, was at an advanced stage but was necessarily paused at the onset of the COVID 19 pandemic in March 2020.

Our Budget confirmed that we would re-commence this work. Given the continuing impact of the pandemic on the tourism sector in Scotland, we consider it prudent to carefully review the work done to date and undertake further stakeholder engagement before making a firm decision on the next steps.

Question reference: S6O-00767

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 February 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 23 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its plans for enabling local authorities to bring in a Transient Visitor Levy.

Question reference: S6W-06282

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 04 February 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 16 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the First Minister’s COVID-19 Update on 1 February 2022, what action it is taking to extend "the protection of vaccination to all countries as quickly as possible".

The Scottish Government recognises that COVID-19 is an unprecedented global crisis, leaving no part of the world unaffected. Although Scotland is not a member of the COVAX scheme, we will continue engaging with the UK Government on that matter. On 8 December, the First Minister wrote to the Prime Minister to urge the UK government to end its opposition at the World Trade Organisation and to join over 100 countries who are now supportive of a temporary Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights waiver.

We have also provided international development support to our partner countries to support their COVID-19 responses, including vaccine preparedness.

In December 2020 we provided international development funding to support vaccine preparedness and delivery, including £2M to UNICEF in 2020 to help vaccine distribution, roll-out and online healthcare education in our partner countries.

In September 2021, we provided £250,000 from our international development fund to leverage the provision to our partner countries of £11.2 million worth of PPE – our single biggest ever donation – to aid COVID responses as part of our strategic response.

In February 2022 we provided £1.5m to UNICEF to support equal access to COVID-19 vaccines in our partner countries. The funds will support vaccination programmes in Rwanda, Zambia and Malawi, their provision of safe oxygen supplies, and help the agency deliver equipment, resources and technical support in response to the pandemic.

Question reference: S6O-00738

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 February 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 9 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to ensure that children living in temporary accommodation have access to permanent homes.

Question reference: S6O-00697

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 January 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 2 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether the COVID-19 certification scheme allows people who have received vaccines and boosters in different parts of the UK to demonstrate that they are fully vaccinated, to meet requirements for travel or visiting events where it is a requirement of entry.

Question reference: S6W-05783

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 19 January 2022
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 26 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it has taken to ensure that those with “worker” rather than “employee” status are eligible for financial support as a result of any COVID-19-related closures in the culture sector.

The Scottish Government has provided £240m to the culture sector over the pandemic, including £65m to help alleviate the financial pressures that individuals and organisations face following cultural venue closures and event cancellations in light of the Omicron variant.

Cultural organisations employing workers are eligible for the £25m COVID-19 Cancellation Fund for Cultural Organisations, administered by Creative Scotland. We would expect any organisation who applies to the Creative Scotland Cultural Organisations Cancellation Fund would use any money they receive to pay all their workers.

Question reference: S6O-00640

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 January 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 19 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on whether all homes are on track to comply with the new fire safety regulations by February.

Question reference: S6O-00607

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 December 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 12 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to ensure that public transport is accessible to disabled people.

Question reference: S6O-00553

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 December 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 16 December 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what support and advice it plans to provide to enable the establishment of community heat and power networks to deliver net zero targets.