Questions and answers

Question reference: S6W-05957

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 27 January 2022
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 8 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many probable suicides there were in each year from 2017 to 2021, broken down by local authority and also given as an annual crude rate per 100,000 population.

National Records of Scotland (NRS) publishes figures on probable deaths by suicide annually. Figures for each year from 2017 to 2020 are provided on the NRS website, and this includes a breakdown by local authority areas at Table 5. The data is found here:

NRS plans to publish figures of probable deaths by suicides for 2021 in summer 2022.

NRS does not publish annual crude rates of probable suicides at a population level. Instead, it uses age-standardised rates which provide reliable comparisons across local authority areas by taking account of different demographic profiles. NRS publishes this data on a 5 yearly basis, rather than on an annual basis, to ensure the data does not disclose individual cases. Detailed information is available in figure 6 of the spreadsheet provided in the above link.

Question reference: S6W-05948

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 27 January 2022
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 7 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether Police Scotland provides financial support to officers and staff seeking to attend the psychological wellbeing and counselling programmes at the two Police Treatment Centres, in Harrogate and Auchterarder.

Question reference: S6W-05946

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 27 January 2022
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 7 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what action Police Scotland is taking to reduce the number of police officer and staff working days lost due to poor mental health.

The provision of Health and Wellbeing services, for the police workforce, is a matter for the Chief Constable.

Police officers and staff can access a range of services to care for their psychological, physical, social and financial wellbeing through Police Scotland's “Your Wellbeing Matters” programme. Police Scotland have a network of ‘Wellbeing Champions’ who offer Officers and Staff guidance and signposting to the most appropriate support available to them. These support services include occupational health and the HELP employee assistance programme which offer counselling, specific interventions and guidance. Police Scotland offer post traumatic support for all police officers and members of police staff who are directly involved in potentially traumatic incidents through the Trauma Risk Management programme (TRiM). Mental health is also very much the focus of health and wellbeing training offering at present, Police Scotland are working with 2 delivery partners, ELEOS and Lifelines Scotland, on a weekly schedule of training activity. The training aims to raise awareness and support the emotional and psychological wellbeing of the Police workforce.

Question reference: S6W-05944

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 27 January 2022
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 7 February 2022

Question reference: S6W-05945

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 27 January 2022
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 7 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what formal support is available to police officers and staff experiencing poor mental health.

The provision of Health and Wellbeing services, for the police workforce, is a matter for the Chief Constable.

Police officers and staff can access a range of services to care for their physical and mental health through Police Scotland's “Your Wellbeing Matters” programme. This includes the signposting of services by ‘Wellbeing Champions’ and the programme has resulted in a raised awareness of the services available, such as occupational health and employee assistance, which offer counselling, and specific interactions through the Trauma Risk Management programme (TRiM).

Question reference: S6W-05947

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 27 January 2022
Current Status: Answered by Keith Brown on 7 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what specialist support Police Scotland offers to police officers and staff experiencing poor mental health.

The provision of Health and Wellbeing services, for the police workforce, is a matter for the Chief Constable.

Police officers and staff can access a range of services to care for their physical and mental health through Police Scotland's “Your Wellbeing Matters” programme. This includes the signposting of services by ‘Wellbeing Champions’ and the programme has resulted in a raised awareness of the services available, such as occupational health and employee assistance, which offer counselling, and specific interactions through the Trauma Risk Management programme (TRiM).

Question reference: S6O-00753

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 February 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 10 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on when it expects college and university students to be able to return to full-time face-to-face learning.

Question reference: S6W-05818

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 January 2022
Current Status: Answered by Patrick Harvie on 2 February 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how many homes have received energy saving help from it in each of the last five years, also broken down by (a) local authority area and (b) the government schemes involved in providing the help or fuel poverty relief.

The Scottish Government has provided support to households for energy saving measures through a number of support and advice schemes over the last 5 years. Home Energy Scotland, administered on behalf of the Scottish Government through Energy Saving Trust, acts as a single point of access for advice on sustainable energy and fuel poverty support in Scotland. We also offer support and advice through other Scottish Government schemes providing energy saving help or fuel poverty relief to households. The information on these schemes has been provided to the Scottish Parliament Information Centre at BIB number 63123.

Question reference: S6W-05192

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Wednesday, 12 January 2022
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 24 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether newspaper publishing businesses will be eligible for the business rates relief extension announced by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance on 10 December 2021 and, if not, what financial support will be available to such businesses from March 2022.

Since the start of the pandemic, businesses in Scotland have benefitted from more than £4.4 billion in support. This includes COVID-19 non-domestic rates reliefs which have saved businesses around £1.6 billion in reduced rates bills since 1 April 2020.

The Scottish Budget maintains a generous non-domestic regime in Scotland for 2022-23 and supports a package of reliefs worth an estimated £802 million. This includes for businesses in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors continuing relief at 50% for the first three months of 2022-23, capped at £27,500 per ratepayer. This responds to a key ask from the business community to avoid a cliff edge return to full rates liability for those businesses on 31 March 2022. The property uses eligible for this relief in 2022-23 will be unchanged from 2021-22. Properties used wholly or mainly for news publishing will continue to be eligible for this relief.

Question reference: S6W-05655

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Tuesday, 11 January 2022
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 19 January 2022

To ask the Scottish Government (a) whether it has provided or (b) when it will provide a full response to the previous parliamentary session's Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee’s Inquiry into Regional Marine Planning, as committed to in the Minister for Rural Affairs and the Natural Environment’s letter to the Committee of 23 March 2021.

We welcomed the previous Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform (ECCLR) Committee’s Inquiry report into regional marine planning. This report and its 29 recommendations have been carefully considered to help inform our future approach to regional marine planning. There will be a formal response to the ECCLR inquiry, with individual responses to each recommendation, made in advance of an announcement about the next steps for marine planning in Spring 2022.

��˿��

Chamber and committees