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: S5W-34612

Asked by: Alex Rowley, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 18 January 2021
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 1 February 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how many young people have signed onto the Young Person's Guarantee.

The Guarantee was launched in November 2020. We have worked closely with partners to build on our existing strong education, skills and employability infrastructure to deliver the recommendations from Sandy Begbie’s report.

We are working closely with partners from across the public, private and third sectors to progress towards our aim of ensuring that within two years, every person aged between 16 and 24 will have the opportunity to study; take up an apprenticeship, job or work experience; or participate in formal volunteering. There is no process to sign up for the Guarantee as all young people requiring help, should be able to access support.

Through our additional investment of £60m in 2020-21 we have provided funding for around 18,000 new and enhanced existing opportunities to support young people. Including provision through Local Authorities, Colleges, Skills Development Scotland and the third sector.

The early success of the Young Person’s Guarantee will be maintained next year. Additional investment of £125 million will go towards the Young Person’s Guarantee, the National Transition Training Fund and other initiatives, ensuring the future workforce has the skills needed for a green recovery and supporting those at risk of long term unemployment.

We are working with partners to develop a rigorous measurement and evaluation framework to show how the Guarantee is delivering a range of different opportunities to support young people. As part of this process, we published the young person’s labour market dashboard on 28 January. Young person’s local authority labour market dashboard - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . This new, interactive tool has been developed to provide a summary of labour market measures for those aged 16 to 24 by local authority. This dashboard along with the annual Participation Measure produced by Skills Development Scotland will help us to measure and target opportunities and support.

Question reference: S5W-34613

Asked by: Alex Rowley, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 18 January 2021
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 1 February 2021

To ask the Scottish Government in what sectors the jobs created by the Young Person's Guarantee have been located, broken down by the average rate of pay.

Further information regarding opportunities created by the Young Person's Guarantee and our approach to measurement and evaluation can be found in response to Parliamentary Question S5W-34614 on 1 February 2021.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

Question reference: S5W-34173

Asked by: Alex Rowley, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 18 December 2020
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 15 January 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the principle of compulsory professional registration for all college staff teaching in FE colleges.

Question reference: S5O-04887

Asked by: Alex Rowley, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 December 2020
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 23 December 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it is making with the roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccine across the country.

Question reference: S5W-33686

Asked by: Alex Rowley, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 December 2020
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 10 December 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what percentage of NHS staff have received the flu vaccination, and how this compares with the same period in 2019, broken down by NHS board.

Scottish Government officials are working closely with Health Boards to monitor vaccine uptake amongst eligible cohorts. A weekly report on seasonal influenza activity in Scotland is published on the Public Health Scotland website: https://publichealthscotland.scot/downloads/weekly-national-seasonal-respiratory-report-18-november-2020/

Vaccination uptake for 2019-20 flu season for Healthcare Workers, broken down by each NHS Health Board, is detailed in the following table.

Seasonal Flu - 2019/20 Health Care Workers
Health Board	Vaccine Uptake %
Ayrshire and Arran	61.10%
Borders	53.50%
Dumfries and Galloway	74.50%
Fife	67.40%
Forth Valley	52.00%
Grampian	53.10%
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	47.10%
Highland	55.40%
Lanarkshire	49.00%
Lothian	63.70%
Orkney	61.90%
Shetland	68.50%
Tayside	56.20%
Western Isles	51.70%
Total (Scotland)	55.7%

Question reference: S5O-04855

Asked by: Alex Rowley, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 December 2020
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 16 December 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what recent action it has taken to address any staff shortages in prisons.

Question reference: S5F-04619

Asked by: Alex Rowley, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 30 November 2020
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 3 December 2020

To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government's response is to IPPR Scotland research suggesting that youth unemployment could reach over 100,000 in the coming months, the highest level since records began.

Question reference: S5O-04804

Asked by: Alex Rowley, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 November 2020
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 2 December 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how many housing developments have been delayed because of the absence of frontloading capital for schools infrastructure.

Question reference: S5W-33143

Asked by: Alex Rowley, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 November 2020
Current Status: Answered by Ben Macpherson on 23 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason the catering equipment hire sector is not eligible for COVID-19 business (a) support grants and (b) rates relief.

The Scottish Government recognises that this is an extremely difficult time for businesses across Scotland. From the outset we have been explicit that we are utilising every penny of the UK Government’s business support consequential funding to support businesses in Scotland, and we have delivered a package of financial support to help as many businesses as possible. In designing non-domestic rates reliefs as part of this package of financial support, we had to balance helping as many businesses as possible against affordability.

The rates reliefs are set out in The Non-Domestic Rates (Coronavirus Reliefs) (Scotland) Regulations 2020. This includes a universal 1.6% relief available to all non-domestic properties, and a 100% relief for properties in the Retail, Hospitality, Leisure and Airport sectors that meet the qualifying purpose or purposes specified in the classes in schedule 1 of the Regulations as amended. Non-domestic rates are administered by local authorities, and the interpretation of the relevant legislation and the awarding of reliefs is a matter for them.

Together our rates relief package and the initial Business Support Grant Scheme, introduced in March 2020, in the early stages of the pandemic delivered financial support worth £2.3 billion to assist businesses in these challenging times. Properties occupied by the catering equipment hire sector may also have been eligible for the Business Support Grant Funds where they met the eligibility criteria set out in Scottish Government guidance. The funds were open to applications until 10 July.

Further support is now available, and the Strategic Framework set out the Scottish Government's package of business support measures from 2 November which offers grants for businesses required to close by law, and those businesses that remain open but are required by law to modify their operations.

We continue to seek the funding and powers we require to support Scottish businesses through this pandemic, and to engage with specific sectors who may face unique impacts and consider how best to provide help and support.

Question reference: S5W-32789

Asked by: Alex Rowley, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 26 October 2020
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 10 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to strengthen support for developing skills and training for people who lose their jobs because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Scottish Government recognises that Covid 19 has had a fundamental impact on the Scottish economy and labour market, and that steps are required to mitigate against its worst effects.

We are working closely with Skills Development Scotland and other agencies to both re-purpose existing support for individuals and businesses and quickly develop a range of new programmes and support which can address the risk of increased unemployment.

We are providing £100 million for targeted employment support and training. This includes £60 million to support our Youth Guarantee which will see every young person guaranteed an opportunity in education, a job, or training, and on 8 th October 2020, we launched the £25 million National Transition Training Fund to help up to 10,000 people aged 25 and over, who have lost their jobs or are at risk of redundancy as a result of the virus, to develop the skills required to move into sectors with the greatest potential for future growth and job opportunities. We are also providing £5 million to enhance support for those affected by redundancy through our Partnership Action for Continuing Employment (PACE) initiative.

We are investing £3.7m in Individual Training Accounts to enable up to 18,500 people of all ages, who are unemployed or on low incomes, to access funding of up to £200 per year to support training . We’ve worked with SDS and stakeholders to make sure both the training available through Individual Training Accounts and the manner in which they will be delivered, reflect the very different labour market and environment we are now operating in.