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: S6T-00628

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Monday, 28 March 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 29 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what urgent action it will undertake to resolve waiting time delays in A&E following recent reported estimates from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine that the delays have contributed to 240 avoidable deaths this year.

Question reference: S6W-07329

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 18 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 28 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether any Hikvision cameras have been installed in any Scottish Government building since the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee report Never Again: The UK's Responsibility to Act on Atrocities in Xinjiang and Beyond was published in July 2021, which recommended that equipment manufactured by Hikvision should not be permitted to operate within the UK.

Question reference: S6W-07331

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 18 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 28 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether any Hikvision cameras are currently installed in or around any Scottish Government building.

Question reference: S6W-07337

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 25 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government which NHS board areas have a Huntington’s disease specialist service providing home visits, where the practitioner providing the support works exclusively with Huntington’s disease cases.

Question reference: S6W-07335

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 25 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to motion S6M-00923, which was supported by 99 MSPs from all parties, what steps it is taking in response to the motion’s call to expand specialist Huntington’s disease services in line with rising cases.

Since 2015 we have committed over £500,000 in funding to the Scottish Huntington’s Association (SHA) towards the development of the national care framework for Huntington’s Disease (HD) and in funding towards the organisation’s specialist support services and initiatives to raise awareness of the condition.

I was pleased to meet with the SHA on 10 November 2021 to discuss motion S6M-00923, the progress on the Framework for HD and to understand the provision of specialist services in Scotland. We will continue to work with NHS, third sector partners and people affected by Huntington’s Disease to drive up standards of care.

Question reference: S6W-07334

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 25 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government which NHS board areas have a Huntington’s Disease Clinical Lead, and, in each of these cases, regarding Huntington’s Disease Management clinics, how (a) long each lasts and (b) regularly they take place.

The information for parliamentary questions S6W-07334, S6W-07336 and S6W-07337 on 25 March 2022 is not held centrally. Please visit the National Care Framework for Huntington’s Disease website to obtain further information on the services and support available to people with Huntington’s Disease through NHS Scotland, by health board area.

The Scottish Huntington’s Association also maintains a list of HD Clinical Leads by health board on its website: HD Clinical Leads • Scottish Huntington's Association (hdscotland.org) .

Presymptomatic genetic testing is available for those with a family history of Huntington disease and tests whether the person has inherited the faulty gene associated with the condition. This is delivered by our genetic laboratory services and data on the number of people tested is not held by the Scottish Government.

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-07336

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 18 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 25 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government (a) how many people and (b) what proportion of the population (i) have received a (A) positive (1) predictive and (2) diagnostic and (B) negative (1) predictive and (2) diagnostic test for Huntington’s disease, and (ii) are at risk of inheriting Huntington’s disease but have not been tested, broken down by NHS board area.

Question reference: S6O-00937

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 March 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 30 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what plans it has to tackle homelessness.

Question reference: S6W-07242

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 11 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 22 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide additional funding for schools that take refugee children from Ukraine.

Scotland has a proud history of welcoming displaced people and people seeking asylum. The Scottish Government and Scotland’s local authorities stand ready to welcome and support people with the safety and security they need to rebuild their lives.

The Government is actively working with a wide range of partners, including the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, councils and the Scottish Refugee Council, to ensure effective coordination of plans to address the practical challenges of resettling those coming to Scotland.

The UK Government have committed to providing £10,500 in additional funding to local authorities for each resettled Ukrainian to support access to services. We understand that an additional sum will be provided for children of school age, and we are seeking further clarity from UK Government on the specifics of this.

Question reference: S6W-07243

Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Friday, 11 March 2022
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 17 March 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-06819 by Keith Brown on 4 March 2022, how many of the (a) 403 cyber-attacks that were reported under sections 1 and 2 and (b) 72 cyber-attacks that were reported under section 3 of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 originated from Russia.

The data the Scottish Government receives from Police Scotland is a general count of the number of crimes and offences recorded by the police, split by local authority. We do not receive further details on the characteristics of these cases and so are unable to provide a further breakdown for the offences recorded under Sections 1 and 2 of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 (which relate to unauthorised access to computers, with the intent to commit or facilitate the commissioning of further offences). In terms of Section 3 of the Computer Misuse Act 1990, police records for all cases in 2020-21 were manually reviewed as part of producing a new chapter on the estimated volume of recorded cyber-crime in Scotland (included within the 2020-21 recorded crime National Statistics). Section 3 relates to unauthorised acts which impair the operation of computers, including preventing or hindering access to programs, data etc. At the time these cases were reviewed, a majority of them did not have a confirmed country of origin for the perpetrator. For those that did, none of them originated from Russia.