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: S4W-29557

Asked by: Lewis Macdonald, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 January 2016
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 9 February 2016

To ask the Scottish Government when work will begin on the extension of the digital infrastructure in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire, and when it will be completed.

Question reference: S4W-29552

Asked by: Lewis Macdonald, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 January 2016
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 9 February 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how much it will spend on dualling the single track stretch of the East Coast railway line at Montrose in each of the next three years.

In addition to its support to the Aberdeen City Region Deal, the Scottish Government is committing an additional £200 million to increase line speeds and remove major capacity constraints along key sections of the route between Aberdeen and Dundee, including options for double tracking of Usan Junction and the South Esk Viaduct at Montrose. The additional funds will be invested over the same time period as the City Region Deal.

Question reference: S4W-29553

Asked by: Lewis Macdonald, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 January 2016
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 9 February 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how much it will spend on improvements to the A90/A937 south junction at Laurencekirk in each of the next three years.

Question reference: S4W-29555

Asked by: Lewis Macdonald, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 January 2016
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 9 February 2016

To ask the Scottish Government when work will begin on improvements to the A90/A937 south junction at Laurencekirk, and when it will be completed.

Question reference: S4W-29556

Asked by: Lewis Macdonald, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 January 2016
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 9 February 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how much it will spend on the extension of the digital infrastructure in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire in each of the next three years.

The Scottish Government is working closely with Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire Councils as part of the £410 million Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband programme. The co-investment being delivered through the programme will extend fibre broadband coverage across the region – to 97% of premises in Aberdeen City and 89.4% in Aberdeenshire.

The Scottish Government is committed to pushing coverage even further; as well as extending and enhancing the capacity of digital infrastructure across the region as a means of supporting enhanced digital service delivery across both public and private sectors.

The recent announcement of an additional £10 million over and above the City Deal agreement will build on existing investments and support the extension of digital infrastructure in the region. Work is already underway with local partners to develop and refine proposals and we expect that detailed plans setting out the nature and timescales for the additional investment will be announced in the coming months.

Question reference: S4W-29561

Asked by: Lewis Macdonald, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 29 January 2016
Current Status: Answered by Derek Mackay on 9 February 2016

Question reference: S4W-29559

Asked by: Lewis Macdonald, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 January 2016
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 5 February 2016

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of its contribution to the Aberdeen City region deal, including (a) how much it will spend on each project and (b) in which years the spending will take place.

The Scottish and UK Governments are committed to jointly investing up to £250 million on a 50:50 basis over the next 10 years to support innovation, digital connectivity, the expansion of Aberdeen Harbour and transport projects. The Scottish Government will work with the UK Government and Aberdeen City region local partners to develop and refine proposals over the coming weeks and months. Funding will be made available when all parties agree robust detailed business cases and implementation plans. These will set out the spending profiles.

In addition the Scottish Government has committed to investing over the same time span as the City region deal, an additional £254 million in the North East’s infrastructure to help deliver better transport links, more affordable housing and better digital connectivity. We believe this will help deliver a more significant step change to the North East economy.

Question reference: S4O-05546

Asked by: Lewis Macdonald, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 03 February 2016
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 10 February 2016

To ask the Scottish Government how many jobs in Scotland it estimates have been lost as a result of the downturn in the oil and gas industry.

Question reference: S4O-05529

Asked by: Lewis Macdonald, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 January 2016
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 4 February 2016

To ask the Scottish Government whether it expects to deliver the commitment that it made on 30 April 2014 that four specialist major trauma centres will be operational from 2016.

Question reference: S4W-29277

Asked by: Lewis Macdonald, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 12 January 2016
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 26 January 2016

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S4W-28954 by Shona Robison on 8 January 2016, what the result was of the testing of the new NHS 24 IT system between March and September 2015, and what issues were identified during this.

NHS 24 have confirmed to Scottish Government that the testing programme for implementation of the new IT system in 2015 followed industry standard best practice. NHS 24 confirm that the programme took a phased approach and covered a wide range of phases designed to test system functionality and resilience.

NHS 24 are currently compiling an internal report of what went wrong during the implementation, which will set out lessons learnt and next steps to ensure successful implementation.