Questions and answers

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 ��˿�� 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: S6O-04814

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 June 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 18 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions the health secretary has had with ministerial colleagues and NHS Lothian regarding the provision of education and tutoring for sick children at the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People in Edinburgh and other NHS facilities and services.

Question reference: S6O-04758

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 May 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 4 June 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the scale of online bullying in schools.

Question reference: S6W-37543

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 12 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 27 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent on redeveloping the Stranraer waterfront in the current parliamentary session to date, and how much it estimates it will have spent in total by the end of the current parliamentary session.

There has been no investment specifically related to Stranraer waterfront in the current Parliamentary term through Regeneration programmes.

Regeneration has supported a number of projects in Stranraer, including funding for Stranraer Development Trust, within the current parliamentary term.

Following the development of the Stranraer community’s Local Place Plan, the regeneration funding announced in the Scottish Budget will support the delivery of regeneration of the town centre with funding of up to £710k.

Question reference: S6W-37542

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 12 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 24 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent on the Learning Estate Investment Programme in the current parliamentary session to date, and how much it estimates it will have spent in total by the end of the current parliamentary session.

The £2bn Learning Estate Investment Programme (LEIP), in collaboration with local authorities, commenced in 2021 and will deliver 47 school infrastructure projects across Scotland. The LEIP builds on the success of the £1.8bn Scotland's Schools for the Future Programme, which completed in 2021, and delivered 117 school infrastructure projects.

In the current parliamentary session to date, the Scottish Government has distributed a cumulative amount of £13.6m through the LEIP in revenue grant payments to projects that are open to pupils. For those open projects, we expect this to total £24m by the end of this parliamentary session.

Question reference: S6W-37536

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 12 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 24 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much capital funding it has committed to the building of a new Monklands Hospital.

The outline business case estimated costs at £1.3 billion. Design and expected costs will be confirmed as part of the Full Business Case (FBC) submission which is expected in late 2025- early 2026. The 2025-26 budget provides funding to support development of the FBC. Funding for construction is not allocated until the business case process is complete; this ensures appropriate due diligence of major capital projects.

Question reference: S6W-37520

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 09 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 22 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it remains committed to its Young Person’s Guarantee policy; whether it is tracking progress on this policy, and what its success conditions are for this objective.

was published in March 2023 and outlines the outcomes and opportunities provided by the funding from the Young Person’s Guarantee.

of No one Left Behind and Young Person’s Guarantee was published in Autumn 2023 which explores how well they had been implemented, the experiences of service providers and service users, and lessons from early delivery.

Since April 2023, the Young Person’s Guarantee has been mainstreamed across Government, with activity across education, skills and employability supporting young people into opportunities.

Question reference: S6W-37521

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 09 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 22 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much it (a) spent in Session 5, (b) has spent in the current parliamentary session to date and (c) estimates it will spend in Session 6 on (i) supporting new jobs and (ii) reskilling people for the jobs of the future.

We are unable to provide specific information on expenditure that exclusively supported new jobs. Successive budgets within the current parliamentary session have prioritised expenditure to support economic growth, including business growth and the jobs they generate.

In terms of ensuring people have the skills for jobs of the future, our 2025-26 Scottish budget allocates over £2 billion for colleges, universities, and the wider skills system, prioritizing support for students and ensuring access to education. We are focussing on maximising high-quality apprenticeships with an investment of over £185m to deliver 25,500 new Modern Apprentices, 5,000 Foundation Apprentices and 1,200 Graduate Apprentices, while continuing to support around 38,000 apprentices already in training.

Through the Just Transition Fund we've also spend £9.7 million on a package of skills interventions, including a digital offshore energy skills passport and the Energy Transition Skills Hub.

As part of the Falkirk and Grangemouth Growth Deal, we have committed £4 million for a Skills Transition Centre at Forth Valley College – to ensure that people can get the training they need for jobs in new and emerging sectors, including at the Grangemouth site. We have also allocated of up to £450k to support those workers who have been made redundant at the Grangemouth Refinery into new in-demand jobs. We are committed to ensuring that those highly skilled people continue to contribute to businesses in Grangemouth and the wider Scottish economy.

The support referenced about is not exhaustive. A diverse array of national, regional, and local support services are available across the public and private sectors, making a comprehensive overview impractical and information not all held by SG.

Question reference: S6W-37540

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 12 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 22 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent on supporting community-led regeneration and town centre revitalisation in the current parliamentary session to date, and how much it estimates it will have spent in total by the end of the current parliamentary session.

Question reference: S6W-37526

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 12 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angus Robertson on 22 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it is its policy to provide arts funding through a Percentage for the Arts scheme for public capital projects, and, if so, how it has implemented any such policy.

The Scottish Government has committed through its 2024 Programme for Government to review the way the culture sector is supported. This ongoing culture sector support programme will, amongst other things, explore alternative and additional funding mechanisms to grow the overall funding pot for culture in Scotland. A Percentage for the Arts scheme is one of the mechanisms that will be considered as part of this programme.

Question reference: S6W-37528

Asked by: Craig Hoy, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 12 May 2025
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 22 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding it has allocated to national challenge competitions in the current parliamentary session to date, and how much it plans to allocate by the end of the current parliamentary session.

While the term National Challenge Competition is very broad, there are a range of policy initiatives which publicly seek new ideas and/or issue funding on a competitive basis. Funds and initiatives of this kind exist across the Scottish Government and it is therefore difficult to provide a comprehensive list without further clarification. However, examples of such initiatives include:

The work of the Chief Scientist for Health, whose office periodically launches open innovation calls focussed on health challenges facing the Scottish population. Examples of such challenges include drugs deaths and mental health.
The Civtech programme, which, on an ongoing basis, supports new, small and medium size companies to win public sector contracts by solving key innovation challenges.
Other forms of pre-commercial procurement in which public bodies contract for services to develop new and innovative solutions.
Entrepreneurship policy, where funding is regularly issued on a competitive basis. Examples include the recently launched Ecosystem Fund, focussed on backing organisations who support and mentor start-up founders and the Entrepreneurial Education Fund, which invests in projects focussed on embedding entrepreneurial thinking across the Scottish education system.