- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 November 2022
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Current Status:
Taken in the Chamber on 16 November 2022
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on Historic Environment Scotland site closures.
Answer
Taken in the Chamber on 16 November 2022
- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 20 October 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Michael Matheson on 9 November 2022
To ask the Scottish Government when the Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero, Energy and Transport last met with the Hunterston B nuclear power station director, either in person or virtually.
Answer
Whilst I have not met with the Hunterston B nuclear power station director, either in person or virtually, since taking up the post of Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero, Energy and Transport in May 2021, I did meet with Matt Sykes, the Managing Director for EDF Generation in December 2021.
The discussion focussed on various issues pertaining to EDF Generation, EDF Renewables and their role in supporting Scotland on the road to Net Zero. This included the closure of Hunterston B, which ceased electricity generation in January 2022 with the plant currently being decommissioned.
- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 27 October 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Elena Whitham on 9 November 2022
To ask the Scottish Government how many sick days were recorded for fire service personnel for mental health reasons, including anxiety, stress, depression or other psychiatric illnesses, in each year since 2016.
Answer
This information is not held centrally by Scottish Government but Scottish Fire and Rescue Service staff absence information is publicly available on the website SFRS under their People Committee meeting papers.
- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 21 October 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 8 November 2022
To ask the Scottish Government how many children in the (a) North Ayrshire and (b) Inverclyde local authority area are eligible to receive a free laptop or tablet, and, of those, how many (i) have received and (ii) are yet to receive a free laptop or tablet.
Answer
The following table shows how many pupils are in each of the named local authorities (taken from the most recent pupil census data from 2021) and how many devices have been distributed by these local authorities, using £25m digital inclusion funding made available by Scottish Government in 2020-21. In total, this funding supported the provision of 14,000 internet connections and 72,000 devices for learners across all local authorities.
Local Authority | Pupils (2021 pupil census) | Devices Distributed (via SG digital inclusion funding 2020/21) |
North Ayrshire | 17,887 | 1,734 |
Inverclyde | 9,805 | 1,107 |
Individual local authorities across Scotland have also undertaken their own digital inclusion schemes. The latest information we have available indicates that almost 280,000 devices have been, or are in the process of being, rolled out to learners across Scotland.
We continue to work with local authorities on plans to ensure every school-aged child has access to a device and connectivity by the end of this parliamentary term in 2026.
- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 October 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 8 November 2022
To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to address the lack of dental spaces for new NHS patients in Inverclyde, in light of reports that every practice in the area is closed to new patients.
Answer
The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all communities within Scotland, including NHS patients in Inverclyde, can access a NHS dentist.
We have provided over £150 million of financial support to date to maintain the capacity and capability of NHS dentistry and agreed further funding into the new year to address the cost of living crisis.
From April 2022 we have re-introduced a system of fee per item payments that incentivises NHS dental teams to see patients. Public Health Scotland statistics (link attached) show that these measures have increased patient examination appointments and are comparable to pre-pandemic levels, allowing more patients to be seen and dental practices to begin to register more patients as they work through the pandemic backlog.
NHS registration is significantly higher in Scotland than the rest of the UK, with more than 95% of the population registered with a NHS dentist.
- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 28 October 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 8 November 2022
To ask the Scottish Government when the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and Islands last met with representatives from the Scottish Crofting Federation, either in person or virtually.
Answer
I last met with a representative of the Scottish Crofting Federation at the Agriculture Reform Implementation Oversight Board on 3 November 2022.
- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 27 October 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Keith Brown on 8 November 2022
To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service latest court backlog statistics showing that the average time taken between pleading diet and evidence led trial for the High Court has more than doubled compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Answer
There has been promising progress in reducing the backlog of cases in the criminal courts, and the total number of scheduled trials outstanding has fallen by over 10,000 since January this year. In the High Court, the number of trials called where evidence is led has equalled or exceeded pre-pandemic monthly averages throughout 2022. However, progress has been greatest in the summary courts. The Criminal Justice Board, composed of leaders across the sector, is now considering proposals to ensure the allocation of resources is directed towards delivering similar progress in solemn courts.
We are supporting measures that allow victims and witnesses to give their evidence before trial, helping to mitigate the impact of trial delays. For example, we have invested over £2 million across the High Court estate to facilitate the pre-recording of evidence, and there is now capacity to conduct 1,250 of these ‘evidence by commissioner’ hearings every year.
- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 17 October 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Keith Brown on 7 November 2022
To ask the Scottish Government what work was conducted by (a) its, (b) Police Scotland and (c) Scottish Prison Service staff to get Peter Tobin to disclose the location of where he buried the remains of his victims.
Answer
These are matters for Police Scotland rather than Scottish Government or the Scottish Prison Service, which has no has no legal authority to question individuals in relation to crimes committed in the community.
I have asked the Chief Constable to write directly to the member with further detail on Police Scotland’s activity in this regard.
While I understand there are no current lines of enquiry following the death of Peter Tobin, any information that is received by Police Scotland will continue to be reviewed as has been the established procedure since his conviction and imprisonment.
- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 21 October 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Keith Brown on 7 November 2022
To ask the Scottish Government what assessment has been made of trends in the number of car thefts in the last five years.
Answer
The Scottish Government publishes quarterly National Statistics on crimes recorded by the police. This includes recorded crimes of 'Theft of a motor vehicle' which covers both cars and other motor vehicle types. These have fallen substantially over the longer term, with a 69% reduction from 15,000 in 2006-07 to 4,691 in the year ending June 2022. In terms of the last five years, levels have remained fairly constant, except for a significant fall in the year ending June 2021, that may have been a consequence of pandemic-related restrictions. The number of crimes recorded in each of the last five years for the year ending in June is set out in the following table.
Year | Number of recorded offences of 'theft of a motor vehicle' |
2017-18 | 4,938 |
2018-19 | 4,873 |
2019-20 | 4,889 |
2020-21 | 4,233 |
2021-22 | 4,691 |
More information, including a break-down by local authority area, can be found on the Scottish Government website at
In addition to police recorded crime, information on adults' experience of theft of a motor vehicle is available from the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey. This includes crimes that are not reported to the police. The latest published results (for 2019-20), suggested 0.2% of adults in Scotland were victims of motor vehicle theft that year, with no difference to the findings in 2017-18 and 2018-19.
- Asked by: Jamie Greene, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 October 2022
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 7 November 2022
To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to encourage the parents of children living in the most deprived areas to register their child with NHS dental services.
Answer
As part of a suite of measures introduced on 1 February 2022, dentists now receive an enhanced examination fee for seeing patients, including a new additional child examination fee. These changes also included the extension of Childsmile fees for children and young people up to 17 years of age (before up to 5 years of age), and fluoride varnish application between 2 and 12 years of age (before between 2 and 5 years of age). Childsmile fees are weighted so that NHS dental teams receive three times the payment for children from SIMD areas 1 and 2.
The Childsmile Programme has an emphasis on prevention, rather than treatment, and has resulted in significant improvements in children's oral health through being delivered via nursery schools, primary schools, and dental practices, and includes free, daily, supervised toothbrushing, the application of fluoride varnish, and dietary and oral hygiene advice.
