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-11830

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 28 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 10 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to data published by Transport Scotland on 26 October 2022 showing that drink driving fatalities increased from 10 in 2010 to 20 in 2020.

My condolences go to any families who have lost loved ones through drink-driving. The Scottish Government takes this issue very seriously and any road death, no matter what the cause, is tragic.

The Scottish Government is committed to achieving safer road travel in Scotland. Scotland’s Road Safety Framework to 2030, launched in February 2021, sets out a compelling long-term vision for road safety, Vision Zero, where there are zero fatalities and injuries on Scotland’s roads by 2050. The journey to achieving this vision also includes ambitious interim targets where the number of people killed or seriously injured on our roads will be halved by 2030.

On drink driving, through Road Safety Scotland, we have campaigned on this issue for many years. These campaigns have been developed and delivered with our partners in Police Scotland to ensure that our innovative media campaigns align with Police targeted enforcement campaigns.

In 2014, this Government introduced the lowest drink-drive limit in the UK. Working closely with Police Scotland and Transport Scotland, we will continue to support the use of police enforcement initiatives and awareness-raising campaigns to help eradicate drink-driving in Scotland.

Question reference: S6O-01547

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 November 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 16 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on Historic Environment Scotland site closures.

Question reference: S6W-11643

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 9 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government when the Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero, Energy and Transport last met with the Hunterston B nuclear power station director, either in person or virtually.

Whilst I have not met with the Hunterston B nuclear power station director, either in person or virtually, since taking up the post of Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero, Energy and Transport in May 2021, I did meet with Matt Sykes, the Managing Director for EDF Generation in December 2021.

The discussion focussed on various issues pertaining to EDF Generation, EDF Renewables and their role in supporting Scotland on the road to Net Zero. This included the closure of Hunterston B, which ceased electricity generation in January 2022 with the plant currently being decommissioned.

Question reference: S6W-11755

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 27 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Elena Whitham on 9 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many sick days were recorded for fire service personnel for mental health reasons, including anxiety, stress, depression or other psychiatric illnesses, in each year since 2016.

Question reference: S6W-11693

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 8 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to address the lack of dental spaces for new NHS patients in Inverclyde, in light of reports that every practice in the area is closed to new patients.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all communities within Scotland, including NHS patients in Inverclyde, can access a NHS dentist.

We have provided over £150 million of financial support to date to maintain the capacity and capability of NHS dentistry and agreed further funding into the new year to address the cost of living crisis.

From April 2022 we have re-introduced a system of fee per item payments that incentivises NHS dental teams to see patients. Public Health Scotland statistics (link attached) show that these measures have increased patient examination appointments and are comparable to pre-pandemic levels, allowing more patients to be seen and dental practices to begin to register more patients as they work through the pandemic backlog.

Public Health Scotland - Monthly Statistics - Dental Activity

NHS registration is significantly higher in Scotland than the rest of the UK, with more than 95% of the population registered with a NHS dentist.

Question reference: S6W-11828

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 28 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 8 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government when the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and Islands last met with representatives from the Scottish Crofting Federation, either in person or virtually.

Question reference: S6W-11749

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 27 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 8 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service latest court backlog statistics showing that the average time taken between pleading diet and evidence led trial for the High Court has more than doubled compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic.

There has been promising progress in reducing the backlog of cases in the criminal courts, and the total number of scheduled trials outstanding has fallen by over 10,000 since January this year. In the High Court, the number of trials called where evidence is led has equalled or exceeded pre-pandemic monthly averages throughout 2022. However, progress has been greatest in the summary courts. The Criminal Justice Board, composed of leaders across the sector, is now considering proposals to ensure the allocation of resources is directed towards delivering similar progress in solemn courts.

We are supporting measures that allow victims and witnesses to give their evidence before trial, helping to mitigate the impact of trial delays. For example, we have invested over £2 million across the High Court estate to facilitate the pre-recording of evidence, and there is now capacity to conduct 1,250 of these ‘evidence by commissioner’ hearings every year.

Question reference: S6W-11658

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 21 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 8 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many children in the (a) North Ayrshire and (b) Inverclyde local authority area are eligible to receive a free laptop or tablet, and, of those, how many (i) have received and (ii) are yet to receive a free laptop or tablet.

The following table shows how many pupils are in each of the named local authorities (taken from the most recent pupil census data from 2021) and how many devices have been distributed by these local authorities, using £25m digital inclusion funding made available by Scottish Government in 2020-21. In total, this funding supported the provision of 14,000 internet connections and 72,000 devices for learners across all local authorities.

Local Authority	Pupils (2021 pupil census)	Devices Distributed (via SG digital inclusion funding 2020/21)
North Ayrshire	17,887	1,734
Inverclyde	9,805	1,107

Individual local authorities across Scotland have also undertaken their own digital inclusion schemes. The latest information we have available indicates that almost 280,000 devices have been, or are in the process of being, rolled out to learners across Scotland.

We continue to work with local authorities on plans to ensure every school-aged child has access to a device and connectivity by the end of this parliamentary term in 2026.

Question reference: S6W-11695

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 7 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to encourage the parents of children living in the most deprived areas to register their child with NHS dental services.

As part of a suite of measures introduced on 1 February 2022, dentists now receive an enhanced examination fee for seeing patients, including a new additional child examination fee. These changes also included the extension of Childsmile fees for children and young people up to 17 years of age (before up to 5 years of age), and fluoride varnish application between 2 and 12 years of age (before between 2 and 5 years of age). Childsmile fees are weighted so that NHS dental teams receive three times the payment for children from SIMD areas 1 and 2.

The Childsmile Programme has an emphasis on prevention, rather than treatment, and has resulted in significant improvements in children's oral health through being delivered via nursery schools, primary schools, and dental practices, and includes free, daily, supervised toothbrushing, the application of fluoride varnish, and dietary and oral hygiene advice.

Question reference: S6W-11657

Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 21 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 7 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment has been made of trends in the number of car thefts in the last five years.

The Scottish Government publishes quarterly National Statistics on crimes recorded by the police. This includes recorded crimes of 'Theft of a motor vehicle' which covers both cars and other motor vehicle types. These have fallen substantially over the longer term, with a 69% reduction from 15,000 in 2006-07 to 4,691 in the year ending June 2022. In terms of the last five years, levels have remained fairly constant, except for a significant fall in the year ending June 2021, that may have been a consequence of pandemic-related restrictions. The number of crimes recorded in each of the last five years for the year ending in June is set out in the following table.

Year	Number of recorded offences of 'theft of a motor vehicle'
2017-18	4,938
2018-19	4,873
2019-20	4,889
2020-21	4,233
2021-22	4,691

More information, including a break-down by local authority area, can be found on the Scottish Government website at https://www.gov.scot/publications/recorded-crime-scotland-year-ending-june-2022/documents/

In addition to police recorded crime, information on adults' experience of theft of a motor vehicle is available from the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey. This includes crimes that are not reported to the police. The latest published results (for 2019-20), suggested 0.2% of adults in Scotland were victims of motor vehicle theft that year, with no difference to the findings in 2017-18 and 2018-19.