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: S5O-02988

Asked by: Joan McAlpine, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 March 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 13 March 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether Police Scotland and the Scottish courts service record incidents according to the alleged perpetrator's birth sex, or by self declaration.

Question reference: S5O-02941

Asked by: Joan McAlpine, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 February 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 6 March 2019

To ask the Scottish Government which parts of the economy and areas of employment are most at risk from a no deal Brexit.

Question reference: S5O-02931

Asked by: Joan McAlpine, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 February 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 28 February 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to tackle the issue of land banking in town centres.

Question reference: S5W-21724

Asked by: Joan McAlpine, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 February 2019
Current Status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 20 February 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what information it can provide regarding the opening of the Scottish Government Innovation and Investment Hub in Paris.

I am pleased to advise of the opening of our Hub in Paris on 18 February. The Hub is located in rue d’Anjou, where Scottish Development International has recently relocated its offices.

The purpose of the Hub is to promote Scotland’s interests in France. This will include building on existing trade and investment activity to boost Scotland’s trade with France and supporting innovation-focussed collaboration and entrepreneurial exchange between the two nations. France was Scotland’s third biggest export market in 2016, the biggest one for food & drink. Furthermore, the Hub will serve as a way of promoting Scotland’s interests in key international organisations based in Paris such as the OECD and UNESCO.

The head of our new Hub in Paris is Lucy Sterne, has extensive Government experience having worked for the Department for Work and Pensions, and, HM Treasury and on secondment to the New Zealand Treasury.

Question reference: S5W-21408

Asked by: Joan McAlpine, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 05 February 2019
Current Status: Answered by Michael Russell on 14 February 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has been invited to join discussions regarding alternative arrangements to the Irish backstop.

No we have not. There have been no invitations to join the alternative arrangements working group. Indeed, it is no secret that we have been generally frustrated with the quality of engagement that there has been to date.

The First Minister met with the Prime Minister and Welsh First Minister on 23 January and a meeting of the Joint Ministerial Committee (EU Negotiations) took place on the 7 February. At neither of these meetings were we genuinely engaged in a meaningful discussion of the UK Government’s considerations of alternative arrangements for the backstop provisions in the Withdrawal Agreement.

The Scottish Government fully and unconditionally supports the Good Friday Agreement and the maintenance of an invisible border on the island of Ireland. However, we also firmly believe that if the UK is determined to pursue a more distant relationship with Europe, the principle of differentiation established in the draft Withdrawal Agreement in respect of Northern Ireland should be available to other parts of the UK. Indeed the Scottish Government set out a detailed plan to keep Scotland in the Single Market as far back as December 2016 but this was dismissed by the UK Government.

Question reference: S5O-02884

Asked by: Joan McAlpine, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 February 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 20 February 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how it has enhanced the role of clinical nurse specialists in the NHS and what the benefits have been.

Question reference: S5O-02875

Asked by: Joan McAlpine, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 January 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 7 February 2019

To ask the Scottish Government when it last met the Tenant Farming Commissioner.

Question reference: S5O-02808

Asked by: Joan McAlpine, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 January 2019
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 23 January 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how it supports victims of crime.

In 2018-19 we are providing £17.9 million to support victims of crime, including to third sector organisations who provide practical and emotional support to victims and their families. We will provide £18 million in 2019-20 to continue this work, increasing from £5.4 million in 2016-17.

The Lord Advocate and I also co-chair the Victims Taskforce, which met for the first time last month. The Taskforce was established to co-ordinate and drive action to improve the experiences of victims within the criminal justice system. The work of the Taskforce will be directly informed by victims’ voices.

Question reference: S5W-20477

Asked by: Joan McAlpine, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 07 December 2018
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 20 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what measures are in place to educate people on the risks of being “catfished”, the act of luring a person into a relationship through using a fake identity online.

Internet safety is largely a reserved matter and any decisions on the regulation of the internet is currently made by the UK Government. Scottish Ministers are, however, developing and implement policy relating to child internet safety using their devolved responsibility for education, policing and child protection.

The Scottish Government takes online risks and unacceptable behaviour such as ‘catfishing’, very seriously, which is why, through the Child Protection Improvement Programme, we published the National Action Plan on Internet Safety for Children and Young People in 2017, setting out our priorities for equipping children and young people to stay safe online and help professionals, parents and carers to support children in their online activity. We have committed to publish a progress report in 2019 which will also consider further actions that will reflect the rapid evolution of online technologies and our need to ensure we respond appropriately.

At national level we have established an expert group for preventing sexual offending involving children and young people, with a strong focus on cyber enabled offending. It is identifying how to further improve the whole system approach to preventing sexual offending involving children and young people.

Education Scotland published the new Experiences and Outcomes for the Technologies area of the curriculum which includes internet safety and cyber resilience.

The Scottish Government also published the ‘Cyber Resilience Learning and Skills Action Plan’ in March 2018. The plan recognises the need to keep ourselves, our families and our organisations safe and secure, and able to manage threat whilst acknowledging the enormous opportunities digital technologies provide.

Activity includes support through the National Cyber Security Funding Programme to Young Scot for the development of social media campaigns focusing on online safety and support to Education Scotland to enable a dedicated drive on supporting teachers to support children and young people to become more cyber resilient.

The Scottish Government works in partnership with the UK Safer Internet Centre to promote Safer Internet Day and supports the South West Grid for Learning to deliver a series of Online Safety Live events across Scotland throughout 2018 and 2019.

We continue to participate in, and contribute to the work undertaken by the UK Council for Internet Safety through which government, the tech community and the third sector work together to ensure the UK is the safest place in the world to be online.

Scotland has dedicated funding for support services, supporting adult survivors of child abuse, through its Survivor Support Innovation and Development Fund and other routes.

Adult support and protection measures can be used to safeguard vulnerable adults who are victims of internet-based romance scams or frauds.

Question reference: S5W-20483

Asked by: Joan McAlpine, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 07 December 2018
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 20 December 2018

To ask the Scottish Government what actions are taken to support victims of “catfishing”.