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: S6W-39093

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 24 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of any impact of the reported delay in delivering the national Fracture Liaison Service audit on its ability to monitor any inequalities in access to early osteoporosis diagnosis.

The FLS audit has been commissioned to drive improvements and support clinical decision-making in effectively evaluating gaps in osteoporosis care. This will reduce health inequalities for the people of Scotland, especially for those most at risk of fractures.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) is responsible for delivering and implementing the Fracture Liaison Service (FLS) audit. While they identified some initial recruitment-related delays, these have been addressed and completed.

PHS do not anticipate any further impact following this initial delay and progress is continuing at pace, on track and within the guidance set out by Scottish National Audit Programme (SNAP).

Question reference: S6W-39092

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 01 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 24 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what interim mechanisms are being used to monitor the performance of fracture liaison services while work on the national audit is ongoing.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) is responsible for implementing and delivering the Fracture Liaison Service (FLS) audit. They are working with NHS Boards across Scotland, to provide the necessary support as they develop the audit in line with Scottish National Audit Programme (SNAP) governance.

Scottish Government expects that everyone with a long-term condition to be able to access the care and support they need to be able to live well. As such, we expect that all NHS Boards have monitoring procedures in place to manage the performance and effectiveness of their services.

Question reference: S6W-39484

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 22 July 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 19 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of reports of the UK Government committing £5.8 million to a smoke-free pregnancy incentive scheme in England in 2025-26, how much funding it has committed in total in 2025-26 for Quit Your Way services specifically aimed at delivering projects incentivising pregnant women in Scotland to give up smoking.

Question reference: S6W-39485

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 22 July 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 19 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of reports of the UK Government committing an additional £70 million to support stop smoking services in England in 2025-26, how much funding it has committed in total in 2025-26 for the specialist Quit Your Way smoking cessation services delivered by regional NHS boards in Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-39506

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 22 July 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 19 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the timeline for the introduction of regulations to increase the income threshold for charity audits in Scotland from £500,000 to £1 million.

Question reference: S6W-39249

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Kaukab Stewart on 22 July 2025

To ask the Scottish Government who is being invited to provide insight for the first phase of strategy development for its Equality Strategy for Women and Girls.

We are engaging a range of stakeholders and women and girls with lived experience in the development of Scotland’s first equality strategy for women and girls.

The strategy will be co-designed with the First Minister’s National Advisory Council for Women and Girls (NACWG) and the Empowering Women Panel (EWP). The NACWG was established in 2017 to give advice to government on what needs to happen to tackle gender inequality in Scotland. The EWP was started in 2023 and is a group of 20 diverse women and girls from all parts of the country and all backgrounds who don’t normally have the chance to influence policy.

We are engaging widely and the first phase is ongoing, this will include:

Inviting over 50 organisations to engage with the women and girls they work with to share their views on the development of the strategy.
Two roundtables hosted by the NACWG with gender equality stakeholders and wider equality stakeholders to seek their expertise on the strategy.
A round table with members of the Senior Leaders Forum to understand how the strategy can support public leaders to work collaboratively to deliver further progress in equality for women and girls.
Individual meetings with stakeholders with key roles in the delivery of the strategy such as COSLA.
A workshop with groups that hold gender critical views to ensure that we hear a breadth of views.
Peer led research from the EWP seeking the views of diverse women on the development of the strategy.

The views and expertise from these meetings will be considered by the Scottish Government, NACWG and EWP and used to develop the content for the first phase of the strategy. There will be further opportunities to influence the strategy in phase two of its development due to commence later this year.

Question reference: S6W-39403

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 July 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 13 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to research commissioned by Food Standards Scotland, which states that, when customers were exposed to price promotions on food ordering apps and websites, they were more likely to buy more food than they intended to, creating a culture of food waste and consumption of excess calories.

Question reference: S6W-39401

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 July 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 13 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the finding in the research, The gendered impact of Covid-19 on health behaviours and mental health: Evidence from the UK, that more adverse changes in women’s health, compared with men, following the COVID-19 pandemic, persisted through to May 2023, which suggests that longer-term effects may have been worsened by financial pressures during this period, what measures it has put in place to ensure that this does not happen again.

Question reference: S6W-39397

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 July 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 13 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the research, The gendered impact of Covid-19 on health behaviours and mental health: Evidence from the UK, which reportedly shows that women’s mental and physical health were affected more negatively than men’s during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Question reference: S6W-39402

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 July 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 13 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government when it anticipates that Public Health Scotland will publish the framework to support out-of-home outlets to provide and promote healthy food.