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-30235

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 30 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 18 October 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to promote more understanding from employers regarding staff who experience migraines.

Scottish Government’s Fair Work policy sets out actions to promote fair and inclusive workplaces across Scotland. Becoming a 'fair work employer' includes creating a healthy and safe environment where individuals' wellbeing is actively supported.

Scottish Government supports employers to do this via several interventions, including:

Providing occupational health support for employers via Health Scotland's Healthy Working Lives website and Working Health Services Scotland. Access to occupational health can help enable early intervention and personalised support where required.
Promoting flexible and hybrid working by providing over £1.1 million in funding through Fair Work and Social Innovation Partnership budgets. Flexible working practices can help people to manage their condition without dropping out of the workplace and incurring a loss of income.

Those who experience a substantial and long-term impact on their lives due to migraine have a right under the Equality Act 2010 to have their employer make reasonable adjustments in the workplace.

Question reference: S6W-30241

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 30 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 18 October 2024

To ask the Scottish Government on what dates since 2022 the Pain Management Task Force has discussed migraine-related issues, and what the outcomes were of any such discussions.

The Pain Management Task Force oversees the implementation of the . Discussions at the Task Force are centred around delivery of the actions in the rather than condition specific issues. While there have been no specific discussions on migraine-related issues at the Task Force, many of the actions in the Plan discussed at each Task Force meeting will benefit people with migraine, such as updated quality prescribing guidelines and the creation of a chronic pain Knowledge Hub, a resource available to all NHS Scotland staff and third sector organisations to deepen their understanding of chronic pain.

Question reference: S6W-30475

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 07 October 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 15 October 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has made any assessment of the number of people who use the existing Sound of Harris ferry service for health-related appointments, and, if so, whether it will provide details of this.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on numbers of patients travelling and the means of travel. However we are aware of an increase in travel on the sound of Harris Ferry following changes to the Benbecula Stornoway air service in April 2024.

As you may be aware, at the meeting to consider Access to Health Services in the Western Isles on 21 August, it was agreed to establish a working group, led by HITRANS, to consider ways to improve the patient experience.

At the first meeting of this group, NHS Western Isles and CalMac confirmed that they are working together to minimise issues for patients using ferry travel through a block booking of 2 cars per day for NHS Wester Isles patients. It was noted that monitoring of capacity and demand is ongoing by NHS Western Isles and CalMac will consider an increase in pre booked spaces if required.

Question reference: S6W-30219

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 27 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 9 October 2024

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason it has not published an updated Scottish Schools Adolescent Lifestyle and Substance Use Survey (SALSUS) report since 2018, in light of its reported commitment to publishing one every two years.

Question reference: S6W-30232

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 30 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 9 October 2024

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason the Scottish Sea Fisheries Statistics, 2023, which was due to be published in November 2024 is recorded in its calendar of statistical releases as being delayed, and by what date this will be published.

The Scottish Sea Fisheries Statistics 2023 was originally scheduled for publication in September 2024. This publication was delayed until November 2024 as a result of an unscheduled revision of previous years data for the United Kingdom by the Marine Management Organisation. Our publication includes fishing data from the Marine Management Organisation for the rest of the UK. We therefore needed to delay our publication. We are hoping to publish the Scottish Sea Fisheries Statistics 2023 in late November or early December 2024. The exact date will be confirmed by the end of October 2024.

More detail on the data revision by the Marine Management Organisation, which was published on 8 October 2024, is available at:

Question reference: S6W-30220

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 27 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 9 October 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will publish an updated version of the Scottish Schools Adolescent Lifestyle and Substance Use Survey (SALSUS) before the end of the current parliamentary session.

Question reference: S6W-30221

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 27 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 8 October 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how many successful reductions of substance abuse have been produced by the Planet Youth pilot scheme, compared with the rates of reduction produced by pre-existing anti-substance abuse campaigns.

Planet Youth is a long term, upstream preventative approach and as such we would not yet expect to see a reduction in the substance use. The purpose of the pilot, which only started last year, is to build capacity in local communities to allow them to better use and understand data directly from their young people. There is significant evidence from Iceland that the approach works to reduce the number of young people engaging in health harming behaviours, and in increasing the age of first use. The pilot should allow us to ascertain the challenges and opportunities in transferring this model to Scotland, thanks to the 6 local areas who are pioneering the approach. There is an ongoing learning evaluation which will be published after the pilot ends in March 2025. Preliminary findings indicate there has been progress so far both in terms of taking a whole systems approach and at a community level. We are also seeing increasing interest in investing in prevention at a national and local level. It is clear from the numbers that pre-existing campaigns on substance use among teenagers are not as effective as we would like, hence the investment in a longer term, more systemic approach. There may be a misunderstanding about what Planet Youth is and colleagues from national charity Winning Scotland, who are facilitating Planet Youth in Scotland, would be happy to provide more information to interested members.

Question reference: S6W-30114

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 8 October 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it has taken to tackle the so-called evidence gap in assessing rural poverty and deprivation, as described in the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation’s Rural deprivation: Evidence summary, which was published in November 2016.

The included sections describing the main issues associated with using SIMD in rural areas, as well as ways of overcoming these through using the wide range of available data sources alongside SIMD for exploring particular topics or communities of interest. The evidence summary was published alongside two case studies and which illustrated how this could be done. The included a case study on using SIMD in a rural area.

Scottish Government has also published (or funded) a number of reports and resources on poverty and deprivation in rural areas, including , , , , ,Scottish Islands Survey 2023: main findings, and .

The Scottish Government Office of the Chief Social Policy Adviser has recently funded a UKRI/ESRC Policy Fellow to carry out research on trends in rural and island poverty.

National Records of Scotland are in the process of developing the 2022 Census-based household level deprivation indicator which will allow analysis of key household variables by deprivation for very small geographies.

There are numerous other reports and resources produced by a range of external stakeholder organisations.

Question reference: S6W-30112

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 8 October 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has made any assessment of its current ability to provide additional childcare to (a) parents and (b) guardians of nursery-age children with (i) short- and (ii) long-term additional support needs.

Education authorities have a duty under the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004 (as amended) to identify, provide for and review the additional support needs of their children, including in respect of funded early learning and childcare (ELC). The Scottish Government provides funding to education authorities for additional support for learning as part of their block grant. It is for individual education authorities to manage their own budget and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

Question reference: S6W-30198

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 8 October 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how long traffic is required to wait on average at each end of the Old Military Route while the road is operating under convoy control.