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.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

Filter your results Hide all filters

Displaying 4000 questions Show Answers

Order by |

Question reference: S6W-40114

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 05 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 11 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many clinical trials have taken place in each year since 1999, broken down by NHS board.

NHS Research Scotland holds a record of the number of clinical studies that Health Boards participate in each year. These data are held from 2014 to present and indicate a range of study numbers from 1464 to 1711 over this time period.

Noting that clinical studies can be carried out across multiple Health Boards at the same time, Table 1 reports the total number of unique clinical studies per year, and Table 2 reports the number of clinical studies per Health Board per year.


	Financial Year
	14/15	15/16	16/17	17/18	18/19	19/20	20/21	21/22	22/23	23/24	24/25
Unique Studies	1567	1606	1668	1711	1694	1652	1464	1558	1627	1568	1540

Table 1. Total number of clinical studies.

	Financial Year
	14/15	15/16	16/17	17/18	18/19	19/20	20/21	21/22	22/23	23/24	24/25
National Waiting Times Centre Board	60	60	56	63	67	56	49	50	62	77	83
NHS Ayrshire & Arran	130	122	118	110	101	89	53	60	62	59	51
NHS Borders	57	57	44	38	39	37	33	31	28	20	25
NHS Dumfries & Galloway	74	65	61	49	48	43	32	34	29	28	19
NHS Fife	133	129	137	124	119	114	83	89	74	80	75
NHS Forth Valley	101	75	89	75	70	56	49	67	72	70	54
NHS Grampian	316	338	332	329	329	325	297	331	337	312	284
NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde	792	806	869	896	908	881	822	789	833	819	788
NHS Highland	113	110	117	114	106	95	94	85	79	67	68
NHS Lanarkshire	142	139	132	130	128	111	98	122	134	135	123
NHS Lothian	604	612	620	664	665	631	531	610	613	613	585
NHS Tayside	319	344	360	340	336	311	261	314	306	283	278

Total	2841	2857	2935	2932	2916	2749	2402	2582	2629	2563	2433

Table 2. Number of clinical studies per Health Board.

Question reference: S6W-39961

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 05 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 11 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what recent discussions it has had regarding including methanol awareness in the school curriculum.

Question reference: S6W-40112

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 05 September 2025
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 11 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many hours NHS staff have spent on trainee research as part of protected development working time in each year since 1999, broken down by NHS board

The specific information - the number of hours NHS staff have spent on trainee research as part of protected development working time - requested is not gathered or held centrally by Scottish Government. This is a matter for the individual Health Boards.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting NHS Scotland staff development and career progression. As part of the 2023-24 pay deal, Agenda for Change staff have reaffirmed rights to Protected Learning Time (PLT), ensuring access to essential training - including statutory, mandatory, and profession-specific learning - within working hours. Health Boards are expected to support this through consistent policies, including study leave where appropriate. A national PLT Implementation Group is leading work to ensure all NHS staff have equitable access to high-quality learning opportunities, regardless of role or location.

Question reference: S6W-40458

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 September 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 25 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-38195 by Fiona Hyslop on 13 June 2025, what its position is on the introduction of a potential traffic congestion charge by the City of Edinburgh Council.

Question reference: S6W-40461

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 September 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 25 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the framework legislation on the matter, how it will enforce Sections 13 and 19 of the Visitor Levy (Scotland) Act 2024 to ensure that funds raised by a local authority through such a levy are reinvested in tourist infrastructure only.

Question reference: S6W-40465

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 September 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 25 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the comment by the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care on STV News at Six on 9 September 2025 that “Chronic pain sufferers have a debilitating condition that has a chronic impact on their entire ability to live life well. That is why we are investing across the health service to improve waiting times, to improve capacity within the health service", how much additional funding it has allocated from the health budget to hospital-based NHS chronic pain specialist clinics to (a) reduce waiting times and (b) improve the capacity for treatment.

Question reference: S6W-40464

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 September 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 25 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-38180 by Ivan McKee on 9 June 2025 regarding the current model of the Visitor Levy (Scotland) Act 2024, whether it will (a) provide an update on the progress of the discussions with the tourism sector regarding the model, including any proposed alternatives and (b) confirm what changes have been agreed to the model, and what the timeline for the implementation of these will be.

Question reference: S6W-40459

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 September 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 25 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many pupils attending independent schools have been charged for in-hospital educational support in each year since 1999, broken down by local authority area.

Question reference: S6W-40460

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 September 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 25 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many pupil support assistants have been trained to carry out invasive medical procedures in each year since 1999, broken down by local authority area.

Question reference: S6W-40463

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 September 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 25 September 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the reported concerns of the operators that will be required to apply the City of Edinburgh Council’s visitor levy to advance bookings from 1 October 2025, that they have not been provided with practical guidance on how to do so, and whether it has engaged with the local authority on this matter.