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-34884

Asked by: Emma Harper, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 02 February 2021
Current Status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Jeane Freeman on 2 February 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the announcement of a 7.5% uplift for free personal and nursing care allowances for people in care homes this year, whether it will provide an update on when and how these payments will be formally reviewed.

This year we have been able to increase the allowances paid to those who are self-funders in residential care.

Usually, these payment rates increase in line with inflation. However, emerging evidence shows that the cost of providing personal and nursing care has increased significantly and the payment made to providers by Local Authorities for self-funding residents has not kept pace with this. This year, these rates of allowances have increased well above inflation and bring the payments closer to the actual costs of personal and nursing care for those who are self-funding their residential costs.

Any wider reforms of the way that residential and nursing care is paid for and delivered will be an important part of how we respond to the Independent Review of adult social care.

An additional £10.1 million has been allocated to Local Authorities to cover this rise.

Question reference: S5W-34476

Asked by: Emma Harper, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 January 2021
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 29 January 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the reported increasing numbers of COVID-19 positive cases in Stranraer and Wigtownshire, whether it will establish a walk-through COVID-19 testing centre in Stranraer, similar to those in Galashiels, Wick and Oban, which have similar population sizes to Stranraer, in order to provide equity of access to COVID-19 testing for people who rely on public transport.

The Scottish Government has established walk-through local test sites to support universities with students’ return in August and September, increase urban testing access, and fill drive-through provision gaps to provide equal access to testing across Scotland – when Scotland’s mobile testing unit fleet had not been scheduled to increase.

The Scottish Government plans to expand and improve the mobile testing fleet significantly by the beginning of March. Subject to local partners’ agreement, these plans mean a mobile testing unit will be able take drive-through bookings and walk-ins in Stranraer seven days a week – up from the current two days a week – with immediate effect.

Question reference: S5W-34570

Asked by: Emma Harper, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 January 2021
Current Status: Answered by Christina McKelvie on 27 January 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether the children of workers in the agricultural and dairy sector should be allowed to access the services that are available to the children of key workers under the current COVID-19 restrictions.

In order to achieve our primary objective of reducing interactions and helping to drive down community transmission of Covid-19, the number of key worker children presenting to schools during the current strict lockdown must be kept to an absolute minimum. The purpose of the exceptional key worker arrangements initiated in January 2021 is therefore to ensure that workers who are critical to supporting essential and lifeline services in Scotland can request places for their children in schools or with childcare providers, when alternative options have been exhausted.

Where the agriculture and dairy sector are critical to food supply and / or support essential or critical services as set out in the published guidance , employers and staff would be eligible to request access to key worker child places in schools as potential Category 3 workers. As not all agriculture and dairy workers supports such services, it would not be appropriate to explicitly include those sectors in the key worker categories.

It is for local authorities, schools and providers to consider and respond to individual requests. Employers are therefore asked to strictly prioritise and only request places for staff who are critical to the provision of essential services and have no alternate childcare or working options.

In considering requests to schools, local authorities are expected to take account of the diverse needs of their local communities, families and young people when applying these arrangements and managing demand for places.

Question reference: S5O-04954

Asked by: Emma Harper, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 January 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 27 January 2021

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the increased restrictions on business due to COVID-19, what direction and guidance it offers to local authorities regarding using discretionary business support funding.

Question reference: S5W-34657

Asked by: Emma Harper, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 19 January 2021
Current Status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Jeane Freeman on 19 January 2021

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to support urgent elective care, in light of the rise in COVID-19 admissions to hospital.

Whilst the need to protect non COVID-19 healthcare activity remains paramount, it will inevitably be affected by the degree to which we can suppress the virus. Consequently, given the differing levels of virus prevalence we are seeing across the country, we need to give our clinicians and NHS Boards flexibility to manage the demands of this continuing emergency situation.

Due to these demands, NHS Boards are stepping back their non-urgent routine procedures consistent with the Framework for Clinical Prioritisation of Elective Care . To support NHS Boards and to ensure that urgent elective and cancer patients continue to receive treatment, and following the arrangements set out in the NHS Scotland - winter preparedness plan: 2020 to 2021 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) , we have secured further capacity from the private healthcare sector in Scotland. Our strategy for using the private sector is to ensure that there is a green pathway for those patients who require vital planned care. The private sector hospitals will provide support for breast surgery, urology, and gynaecology.

This support comes on top of the additional capacity already being provided by NHS Golden Jubilee and NHS Louisa Jordan for a number of elective treatments and outpatient appointments. This will allow NHS Boards to concentrate on the front line response to the impact COVID19.

The Scottish Government will continue to work closely with NHS Boards to ensure those requiring urgent care can be seen as quickly and safely as possible.

Even as we expand our vaccination and testing programmes, the number of COVID patients within our hospitals remains very high – so it is absolutely vital that people continue to stay home, protect the NHS, and save lives.

Question reference: S5W-33919

Asked by: Emma Harper, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 December 2020
Current Status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Jeane Freeman on 22 December 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to prioritise the recovery of cancer services that have been impacted by COVID-19.

While cancer services have remained a priority throughout the pandemic, we recognise there continues to be an impact on cancer services due to the necessary reduction in some areas of clinically determined non-urgent care. Today, we have published and launched our Recovery and Redesign: An Action Plan for Cancer Services which details how we will continue to prioritise cancer services and steps that will be taken in order to ensure resilience in the future, and adopt new innovations. The Plan, which will be live from now until March 2023, is operationally focused with an emphasis placed on diagnosis and treatment. We have outlined 68 actions in total, including 4 flagship innovations. We will establish two Early Cancer Diagnostic Centres within existing NHS infrastructure, a Single Point of Contact Framework to aid patients navigate through cancer services, a programme of Prehabilitation to prepare patients for treatment and achieve optimal outcomes, and a National Dedicated Resource for Cancer. This plan will be backed by up to an additional £17 million, bringing our planned total investment in cancer services up to £114.5 million by March 2023.

Question reference: S5W-33949

Asked by: Emma Harper, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 December 2020
Current Status: Answered by Aileen Campbell on 17 December 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what recent engagement it has had with Dumfries and Galloway Council regarding progressing the Waterfront, East Pier and Town Centre redevelopments in Stranraer.

Engagement is regular and ongoing between Scottish Government and Dumfries & Galloway Council officials regarding the regeneration of Stranraer town centre and the plans for the waterfront.

The discussions have covered the progress of projects being supported through the Regeneration Capital Grant Fund and Town Centre Fund, and also wider Borderlands Growth Deal plans and projects.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-32111 on 26 October 2020, which continues to represent the latest position on this, with the Council’s proposals still awaited.

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: S5F-04649

Asked by: Emma Harper, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 07 December 2020
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 10 December 2020

To ask the First Minister what support is being offered to food and drink businesses in Scotland to prepare for Brexit.

Question reference: S5O-04802

Asked by: Emma Harper, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 November 2020
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 2 December 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how it is supporting community organisations across Dumfries and Galloway to help the most vulnerable people during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Question reference: S5W-33074

Asked by: Emma Harper, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 November 2020
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 20 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government when it last reviewed the role of clinical nurse specialists; what its findings were, and what future reviews it plans.

The role of the clinical nurse specialist was last reviewed in 2019-early 2020 under the Chief Nursing Officer Programme for Transforming Nursing roles, however this work was paused to allow us to focus on our response to the Covid 19 pandemic. We have recently restarted elements of this work and the Transforming Roles Specialist Nursing paper will be published as soon as we are in a position to do so.