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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 MSPs 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-35986

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 3 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many ministerial interventions have been made in the management and operations of Ferguson Marine since its nationalisation.

The Framework Agreement that exists between the Scottish Government and Ferguson Marine sets out the relationship between the business and Scottish ministers, including matters requiring Scottish Government approval such as the appointment of the Chair, the Board of Directors and approval of the remuneration of the chief executive officer.

Since the nationalisation of Ferguson Marine ministers have not intervened directly in the management and operations of Ferguson Marine.

Question reference: S6W-35985

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 3 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government to what extent universities rely on international students to help their financial stability, and what impact this has on admissions policies.

The Scottish Government welcomes the valuable contribution that international students make to our society, culture, and economy. Our commitment to Scotland's universities is demonstrated through our long-term commitment to Scotland’s universities, investing over £1 billion every year in the sector since 2012/13. This is continued in the 2025-26 budget which provides over £1.1bn of investment in teaching and research in Scotland’s universities.

Universities are autonomous institutions, and the share of international student fee income compared to other income sources will differ between each institution. However, universities are responsible for their own admissions policies but should consider their long-term stability by actively diversifying their international student intake and seeking alternative funding sources. Neither international nor rUK students are able to access funded places which have been set aside for Scottish students.

We need an immigration system that supports our higher education sector to deliver the best learning, research and student experience. That is why the Scottish Government announced proposals for a Scottish Graduate Visa - to support a clear pathway for international students to build their careers in Scotland and contribute to our economy and wider society.

Question reference: S6W-35984

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Graeme Dey on 3 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will publish a breakdown of total university funding per student, including teaching grants and other financial support, in each of the last 10 years.

As part of the annual budget process the funding for the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), is announced. The 2025-26 Budget includes over £1.1bn of investment in teaching and research in Scotland’s universities.

It is the role of the SFC to allocate these funds to individual institutions. The SFC publish details as part of their annual Final Allocation publication. This provides details of the funding for controlled and non-controlled subjects and funded places to each university, as well as the subject price groups.

Question reference: S6W-35987

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 3 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much it has spent on consultancy and external reviews regarding the viability of Ferguson Marine as a state-owned shipbuilder.

The Scottish Government has created a webpage on www.gov.scot dedicated to documents relating to Ferguson Marine (https://www.gov.scot/collections/ferguson-marine-documents/). This webpage contains links to consultancy documents produced when Ferguson Marine became a state-owned shipyard in 2019 and the ‘Ferguson Marine: Commercial advice information pack’ which was published in February 2025.

Question reference: S6W-35971

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 3 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many women have been waiting longer than two years for gynaecological procedures, broken down by NHS board.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) publishes quarterly data on the length of time patients wait to be seen as a new outpatient or admitted for treatment as an inpatient or day case. The latest statistics represent all patients covered by the national standards for these stages of treatment to 31 December 2024. Individual patients are counted more than once if they are waiting to attend more than one scheduled hospital appointment or admission, so the official statistics shown here do not reflect the actual number of individuals involved but the number of waits.

Table 1. sets out the number of ongoing waits over 2 years for a Gynaecology inpatient or day-case admission as of 31 December 2024:

Table 1.

NHS Board of Treatment	Over 104 week waits
NHS Borders	12
NHS Dumfries & Galloway	0
NHS Fife	1
NHS Forth Valley	0
NHS Grampian	314
NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde	673
NHS Highland	42
NHS Lanarkshire	124
NHS Lothian	10
NHS Orkney	0
NHS Shetland	0
NHS Tayside	186
NHS Western Isles	0
NHS Ayrshire & Arran	11
TOTAL	1,373

Table 2. sets out the number of ongoing waits over 2 years for a Gynaecology new outpatient appointment as of 31 December 2024:

Table 2.

NHS Board of Treatment	Over 104 week waits
NHS Golden Jubilee	0
NHS Ayrshire & Arran	0
NHS Borders	0
NHS Dumfries & Galloway	0
NHS Fife	0
NHS Forth Valley	0
NHS Grampian	195
NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde	0
NHS Highland	5
NHS Lanarkshire	0
NHS Lothian	31
NHS Orkney	0
NHS Shetland	0
NHS Tayside	32
NHS Western Isles	0
TOTAL	263

We know many people are still waiting too long and this is not good enough. We are determined do more. In 2024-25, we allocated over £450,000 to gynaecology from our £30 million targeted investment in planned care, delivering around 3,500 additional new outpatient appointments.

The 2025-26 Budget will provide a record £21.7 billion for Health & Social Care, including a commitment to provide £200 million to help reduce waiting times and improve capacity, and gynaecology is being targeted as a key priority area for additional funding.

Question reference: S6W-35660

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 20 March 2025
Current Status: Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 3 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the funding that it provides to the Scottish Youth Parliament to support its mission to provide a national platform for young people to discuss the issues that are important to them, whether it considers MYSPs to be representative of Scotland's young people, and what the reasons are for its position on this matter.

The Scottish Youth Parliament (SYP), along with other children's and youth organisations, supports the Scottish Government, local authorities and other public bodies to fulfil their legal obligations to promote and protect the human rights of children and young people. The SYP is the democratic voice of Scotland’s young people. Their vision for Scotland is of a nation that actively listens to and values the meaningful participation of its young people. Their goal is to make this vision a reality, in order to ensure young people in Scotland grow up loved, safe and respected, and able to realise their full potential.

The Scottish Youth Parliament (SYP) champions and promotes diversity and inclusion within their organisation to ensure it has broad representation that reflects the demographics of young people living in Scotland. The current membership includes, MSYPs from a wide variety of backgrounds including minority ethnic backgrounds, with experience of care, from rural and low Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) areas, who are young carers, who are neurodiverse, and from LGBTQIA+ backgrounds.

SYP also aims to ensure the voices of young people whose rights are most at risk are at the centre of their programme. It has a particular focus on women’s empowerment and anti-racism.

These lived experiences help to inform an intersectional representation of young people in Scotland. After each SYP election the organisation publishes a summary of the diversity data. The 2024 data can be found in this document: https://syp.org.uk/members/our-diversity/

Question reference: S6W-36462

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 April 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 30 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many patients have died by suicide in NHS mental health facilities in each of the last five years, and what proportion of those deaths occurred in settings that had previously been identified for ligature risks.

Question reference: S6W-36463

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 April 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 30 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government when it first became aware of risks to patient safety posed by ligature anchor points at Forth Valley Royal Hospital, and what actions were taken at that time.

Question reference: S6W-36367

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 April 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 30 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-35432 by Kaukab Stewart on 19 March 2025, whether it will provide a breakdown of the costs associated with the "Connected Communities Budget Funding – Engagement with Afghan women 2022".

Question reference: S6W-36361

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 April 2025
Current Status: Answer expected on 30 April 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many civil servants have been dismissed for poor performance in each year since 1999.