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-39695

Asked by: Tess White, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 01 August 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 29 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking with local partners to ensure that flood defence measures are rigorously tested across Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-39697

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 01 August 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 29 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many Scotland-domiciled students have accessed doctoral loans in each year since 1999.

Question reference: S6W-39691

Asked by: Tess White, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 01 August 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 29 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to update the Scottish Government Urban Rural Classification.

Question reference: S6W-39664

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Friday, 01 August 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 29 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the release of the minute of a meeting in June 2024 between the Cabinet Secretary for Constitution, External Affairs and Culture and the Israeli Ambassador to the UK in which the cabinet secretary described Scotland and Israel as being "critical friends", whether it still holds this position and, if not, (a) when the position changed and (b) what subsequent discussions or correspondence it had with the Israeli Embassy regarding this matter.

Question reference: S6W-39693

Asked by: Tess White, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 01 August 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 29 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many Hospital at Home beds have been delivered across Scotland to date, broken down by NHS board, and whether it is on track to meet its 2,000 virtual bed target by December 2026.

Question reference: S6W-39663

Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Friday, 01 August 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 29 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to its news release of 3 March 2022, Stop trading with Russia, whether it remains its position that "Businesses in Scotland [should] withdraw from trading with Russia, following its invasion of Ukraine".

Question reference: S6W-39696

Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 01 August 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 29 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to review doctoral level funding in Scotland, in light of access to repayable doctoral loans being available to students residing in England and Wales, but not to those in Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-38942

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 28 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 1 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of its Public Service Reform Strategy and plans to reduce costs by £1 billion, whether it will identify the areas in which savings can be made without impacting on frontline services.

The Scottish Government is committed to delivering sustainable public services that continue to meet the needs of the people of Scotland. As set out in our Public Service Reform Strategy: Delivering for Scotland (June 2025), our approach to achieving £1 billion in annualised savings over the next five years is founded on improving efficiency, reducing duplication, and reforming how services are delivered — not on cutting frontline provision.

We are clear that this is not about reducing service provision or transferring services out of public hands. Rather, it is about ensuring that public services are delivered more effectively and efficiently. The strategy outlines a range of systemic reforms to secure these savings, including expanding shared services, simplifying the delivery landscape, scaling intelligent automation, and implementing digital solutions.

We have already delivered cash releasing and cash avoiding savings via our Single Scottish Estate, National Collaborative Procurement, Commercial Value for Money and digital programmes, which are securing cost avoiding and cash releasing savings. The programmes saved just over £320m over a two-year period to the end of 2024-25 , with further projected savings of nearly £300m over the following two financial years to the end of 2026-27.

We are committed to working closely with public bodies to drive this focus on system wide efficiency and are working towards an operational summit this year to drive that collaborative approach.

Question reference: S6W-39432

Asked by: Rhoda Grant, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jim Fairlie on 1 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government when details of the 2025-26 Bus Infrastructure Fund will be published.

Question reference: S6W-39568

Asked by: Ruth Maguire, MSP for Cunninghame South, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 28 July 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 1 August 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many bail-related offences were associated with an original charge of domestic abuse in 2023-24.

Statistics on people prosecuted and convicted in Scottish courts, by main charge, are published as Criminal Proceedings in Scotland. This includes people with a main charge of a bail-related offence. However, it is not possible to definitively link these offences to the original case where bail conditions were breached and therefore we cannot determine whether they represented a domestic abuse offence.