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-24343

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 17 February 2015

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S4W-24165 by John Swinney on 5 February 2015, what it means by "managed in line with usual practice".

Question reference: S4O-04024

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 February 2015
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 19 February 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how it assists farmers who wish to remove silt from river beds.

Question reference: S4W-24293

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by Maureen Watt on 10 February 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has regarding how many people in Scotland have received a blood transfusion in each year since 1980.

Please refer to the following table that shows the number of patients who received a blood transfusion in Scotland per calendar year. Data was obtained from the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service’s (SNBTS) Account for Blood (established in 2009). This data is not available prior to 2009:

Calendar year	Patients transfused
2009	38,894
2010	39,782
2011	38,667
2012	37,871
2013	36,139
2014	34,557

Please note:

The data presented does not reflect full coverage of transfusions in Scotland. Due to changes in blood bank systems it has not been possible to get full consistent coverage. The following should be noted when interpreting this information:

The Western Infirmary blood bank data is not available for 2009 and approximately half of 2010. The addition of data from this blood bank in the latter half of 2010 most likely accounts for the apparent 2% increase in patients transfused in that year against a background of 2-4% decrease in other years.

Data from the Western Isles blood bank is only available from 2014.

Wishaw General, Caithness General and Belford blood bank information is not available.

Private hospital data are not available.

The number of patients transfused is a count of patients transfused with any blood component at any location. The same patient may be transfused with different blood component types in different locations.

The count of patients uses the patient Community Health Index (CHI). Where the CHI is unknown or unable to be derived a patient is identified through the local blood bank system identifier

SNBTS currently holds a record of individual units issued dating from 1999. Data on the number of patients transfused began to be formally recorded following the establishment of Account for Blood in 2009.

Question reference: S4W-24292

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by Maureen Watt on 10 February 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to review the regulations regarding people's eligibility to be blood donors.

When assessing a donor’s eligibility the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service (SNBTS) have to take into consideration more than 300 deferral criteria. The guidelines are constantly evolving, for example in calendar year 2014 SNBTS revised 13 of their donor selection rules and the deferral criteria for 32 countries. Changes in deferral criteria are often complex and sometimes need to be made quite rapidly, for example in response to changes in the pattern of infectious diseases in other parts of the world.

SNBTS procedures and policies support staff to make the correct decisions about donor eligibility. Regular reporting and review of donor deferrals aim to reduce variation in practice and highlight criteria to be reviewed at SNBTS or UK level.

SNBTS is represented on the Joint United Kingdom Blood Transfusion and Tissue Transplantation Services Professional Advisory Committee, the UK Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs and relevant subcommittees which maintain a watching brief on new and emergent issues relevant to donor selection and blood and tissue safety.

Question reference: S4W-24294

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by Maureen Watt on 10 February 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has regarding how many cases of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) have been recorded in Scotland in each year since 1980.

Definite or probable variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) cases in Scotland, where Scotland was the last residence before death, from 1 May 1995 - 31 December 2014, are shown in the following table.

No deaths were recorded for vCJD in the UK prior to 1995.

Year of death	Number of deaths in Scotland
1995	0
1996	3
1997	0
1998	1
1999	4
2000	5
2001	4
2002	2
2003	0
2004	2
2005	0
2006	0
2007	1
2008	0
2009	0
2010	0
2011	0
2012	0
2013	0
2014	0
Alive	0
TOTAL	22

Question reference: S4W-24165

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 26 January 2015
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 5 February 2015

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S4W-23717 by John Swinney on 18 December 2014, what happened to the 4,614 hard copies of the white paper that were reportedly not distributed.

Scotland’s Future: Your Guide to an independent Scotland has been available to order at no cost to individuals in hard copy or digital formats since its launch in November 2013.

A total of 80,000 hard copies were produced in response to unprecedented demand, both from individuals and through the successful programme of public engagement by the Scottish Government.

The remaining copies are being managed in line with usual practice.

Question reference: S4O-03990

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 January 2015
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 4 February 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to incentivise businesses to pay the living wage.

The Scottish Government fully supports the Living Wage Campaign and recognises the real difference the living wage can make to the people of Scotland. Although the Scottish Government is not able to set pay levels in the private sector, or indeed the private and wider public sector in Scotland where employees are not covered by our pay policy, we actively encourage all organisations to ensure all staff on lower incomes receive a fair level of pay.

In line with this, the Scottish Government has funded a pilot by the Poverty Alliance to increase the number of employers across all sectors in Scotland paying the living wage. And I am pleased to say these now number over 100.

We have also made a commitment in our Programme for Government that we will introduce a Scottish Business Pledge – making it clear that we want companies to commit amongst other things to pay the living wage and to fair work.

Question reference: S4W-23986

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 12 January 2015
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 22 January 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what it considers to be a reasonable timescale for the determination of applications to the Energy Consents Unit for wind turbine developments.

Question reference: S4W-23985

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 12 January 2015
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 22 January 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what its policy is on dealing with applications for wind turbine developments on areas designated as wild land submitted prior to the adoption of the National Planning Framework 3 and the new Scottish Planning Policy.

Question reference: S4W-23984

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 12 January 2015
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 22 January 2015

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason it has requested additional submissions on wild land issues for certain applications for consent for wind turbine developments on areas of designated wild land and not others.