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: S6W-11809

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 28 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 11 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what support has been provided to help fund rural small-scale housing developments in each year since 1999.

Whilst the Scottish Government funds the delivery of homes in rural areas to support local authorities’ Local Housing Strategies , rural investment has only been reported on since 2015-16. Data has therefore been provided for housing investment in rural areas from that year onwards in the following table. Individual project spend can be spread over a number of years and we do not collate information by year to show the size of project that spend is associated with. The average size of rural housing development approved across Scotland during this period was 15 homes.

Financial Year	Investment in Rural Areas (£m)
2015-16	66.588
2016-17	76.615
2017-18	101.453
2018-19	102.465
2019-20	120.308
2020-21	133.931
2021-22	139.133
Total	740.493

Question reference: S6W-11811

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 28 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 11 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what the longest time is that someone has been in temporary accommodation for in each local authority area in each year since 1999.

Homelessness data which includes information about temporary accommodation placements, is available for all local authorities from 2017-18. Information at individual (person or household) level cannot be provided due to data confidentiality.

Tables showing the distribution of time spent in temporary accommodation for households with homelessness applications that closed in each year from 2017-18 are available from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. Number 63738). The figures are based on homelessness applications with at least one associated temporary accommodation placement.

Question reference: S6W-11871

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 10 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what support is being provided to the Edinburgh Filmhouse to allow it to resume operating.

I refer the member to the answer to questions S6W-11493 and S6T-00915 answered on 26 October 2022 and 25 October 2022 respectively.

The answer to Topical Question S6T-00915 can be found here: https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/official-report/search-what-was-said-in-parliament/meeting-of-parliament-25-10-2022?meeting=13939&iob=126317#16180

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at: https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Question reference: S6W-11815

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 28 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 10 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the resources required to fund road and pavement repairs in each local authority area.

Question reference: S6W-11812

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 28 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 10 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what the key NHS infrastructure projects are that it has planned in each NHS board area, including the dates by when the Scottish Ministers anticipate each will be delivered.

The Scottish Government's Infrastructure Investment Plan, which was published in February 2021, sets out the government’s infrastructure priorities for the period from 2021 to 2026. The Infrastructure Investment Plan is available online at A National Mission with Local Impact: Infrastructure Investment Plan for Scotland 2021-22 to 2025-26 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Under the Infrastructure Investment Plan the Scottish Government is:

Doubling the annual funding for maintenance over 5 years, investing over £1 billion in enhancing or refurbishing existing facilities, and modernising key equipment.
Investing over £220 million in the Baird and Anchor project in Aberdeen which brings together all Maternity, Neonatal, Reproductive Medicine, Breast and Gynaecology services in the Baird Family Hospital and consolidates Haematology, Oncology and Radiotherapy Day and Outpatient services in the ANCHOR Cancer centre.
Delivering a programme of investment in National Treatment Centres in Clydebank, Inverness, Livingston, Aberdeen, Tayside, and Kirkcaldy.
Upgrading the Edinburgh Cancer Centre, building the new national secure adolescent inpatient service in Irvine and replacing the St Brendan’s facility in Barra.
Investing in the provision of a new health and social care community hub in Parkhead that will replace 10 different buildings across Glasgow northeast area.
Investing over £50 million to modernise our radiology equipment nationally, and over £100 million to upgrade and replace our ambulance fleet.
Investing £25 million in the system development required to build on the 50-fold increase in patient use of NearMe digital healthcare services.

Question reference: S6W-11818

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 28 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Clare Haughey on 10 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government when it will update the Parliament on the date for a formal national apology for forced adoption.

We are carefully considering the next steps on how to address the responses to our engagement with people affected by historical adoption practices. We are in the process of obtaining some additional consultation from the Cabinet on how we should proceed with this matter.

In the meantime, we have issued a tender to commission research into support services and have also started the implementation of a new dedicated peer-support service for mothers affected.

Question reference: S6W-11547

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 10 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether its forthcoming workforce projections for health and social care will include breakdowns for (a) consultant hepatologists, (b) liver nurse specialists and (c) alcohol liaison nurses.

As committed to in the National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care we will, for the first time, publish our high level indicative projections for the Health and Social Care Workforce.

As part of the development of the indicative workforce projections a Short Life Working Group, comprising of key stakeholders developed an initial specification for workforce projections. Development of any projections is complex with many interlinking factors and as such we will look to continue to build the complexity of our workforce projections over time. Initially we will include job families from across the health and social care sector and utilise data from existing workforce data sets. Unfortunately we currently do not hold national level workforce data on consultant hepatologists, liver nurse specialists and alcohol liaison nurses and are therefore unable to include these specialities in initial workforce projections beyond the level of nurse and medical job families.

As part of the strategy we have also committed to taking forward specific actions to improve how we gather, use and assess workforce data. This includes taking steps to improve the demographic data we collect and the analysis we undertake of data obtained at different geographic levels within our health and social care system. This work to improve workforce data will be done in concert with development of workforce projections and the continued development of these.

Question reference: S6W-11548

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 10 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to improve surveillance of hepatocellular carcinoma among adults with cirrhosis.

We expect clinicians to adhere to current guidelines from authoritative sources such as the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). The NICE quality statement on surveillance for hepatocellular carcinoma, published in 2017, states that adults with cirrhosis should be offered six monthly surveillance for hepatocellular carcinoma. The European Association for the Study of the Liver published updated recommendations in the Journal of Hepatology in 2020.

Question reference: S6O-01557

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 November 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 17 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what support it provides to learners of English as an additional language.

Question reference: S6W-11810

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 28 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 8 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what percentage of pupils in each year group have received free school meals in each local authority area in each year since 1999.

The Scottish Government does not collect data on the uptake of free school meals broken down by year group.

The Schools Healthy Living Survey Supplementary Statistics provides a breakdown of school meal uptake by pupils in primary, secondary and special schools dating back to 2006. Previous School Healthy Living Survey Supplementary Statistics datasets, back to 2012, are available through the following web link: School Healthy Living Survey supplementary statistics - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

The uptake of free school meals as a percentage of the total number of pupils since 2006 is contained within the following table:

Free School Meals uptake by school sector 2006-2022

	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022
P1-P3 (2015-2020) / P1-P5 (2022)	#	#	#	#	#	#	#	#	#	75%	78%	77%	76%	75%	72%	#	63%
P4-P7 (2015-2020) / P6-P7 (2022)	#	#	#	#	#	#	#	#	#	16%	15%	14%	13%	14%	15%	#	12%
Primary	15%	14%	14%	14%	16%	18%	18%	18%	17%	42%	42%	42%	40%	40%	39%	#	48%
Secondary	8%	7%	7%	7%	8%	8%	9%	10%	10%	9%	9%	9%	9%	9%	9%	#	8%
Special	55%	55%	48%	48%	48%	47%	51%	51%	52%	51%	44%	54%	51%	50%	58%	#	48%
Total	12%	12%	11%	11%	13%	14%	15%	15%	14%	29%	29%	28%	28%	27%	27%	#	31%
Total excluding P1-P3 (2015-2020) / P6-7 (2022)	#	#	#	#	#	#	#	#	#	13%	12%	12%	11%	12%	12%	#	10%

# = data not collected