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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.

Find out more about parliamentary questions

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Question reference: S6O-01610

Asked by: Paul Sweeney, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 November 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body whether it will reject the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings and Average Weekly Earnings average of 4.2% for uprating the Staff Cost Provision in the financial year 2023-24.

Question reference: S6W-12033

Asked by: Paul Sweeney, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 16 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will develop a plan to maximise the utilisation of the Home Shipbuilding Credit Guarantee Scheme when it is introduced later in 2022.

Question reference: S6W-11960

Asked by: Paul Sweeney, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 16 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on the proportion of net inward migration to the UK that settled in Scotland in each of the last 10 years, and what steps it is taking to grow this relative proportion in future years.

Based on NRS and ONS data, the number of international migrants who have settled in Scotland in the last 10 years, and comparative UK data, is:

	Scotland	UK
mid-2012	35,900	517,754
mid-2013	28,200	503,723
mid-2014	33,200	582,621
mid-2015	37,800	636,277
mid-2016	40,400	649,550
mid-2017	32,900	571,515
mid-2018	32,900	625,927
mid-2019	39,900	609,308
mid-2020*	39,200	741,000
mid-2021*	41,000	573,000

*Figures are provisional.

In this year’s Programme for Government, in support of delivering the Population Strategy’s “Attractive and Welcoming Country” pillar, the Scottish Government has committed to launching a Talent Attraction and Migration Service to attract people to come and live in Scotland, help those moving to Scotland settle into communities, and support employers to navigate the immigration system. Service design is ongoing to ensure it achieves these outcomes and the service will launch during 2023.

Question reference: S6W-11959

Asked by: Paul Sweeney, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 08 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Ivan McKee on 16 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what engagement it has had with the National Shipbuilding Office on developing Scottish workstreams in the National Shipbuilding Strategy.

The Scottish Government engaged with the UK Government throughout the development of the National Shipbuilding Strategy Refresh and continues to engage with the National Shipbuilding Office through the National Shipbuilding Strategy Board, which is scheduled to meet again in December.

Scottish Government agencies are also members of wider structures that support the strategy. For example, representatives of Skills Development Scotland are members of the UK Shipbuilding Skills Taskforce, chaired by Dr Paul Little of City of Glasgow College.

The Scottish Government will continue to contribute to these forums and ensure that Scotland’s world class shipbuilding industry remains well represented.

Question reference: S6W-11893

Asked by: Paul Sweeney, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 03 November 2022
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 15 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on when it expects to publish the Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan.

The Scottish Government committed to publishing a refresh of the 2017 Energy Strategy in the Programme for Government and as part of the Bute House Agreement. Following the Scottish Government's response to the Just Transition Commission, we committed to publishing a Just Transition Plan for energy, which will be integrated with the forthcoming Energy Strategy Refresh to ensure a cohesive and joined up framework for action.

In parliament on 29 March 2022, I announced that the Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan (ESJTP) would be published in Autumn 2022 for consultation.

We intend to publish the draft ESJTP for consultation in the coming months.

Question reference: S6W-11665

Asked by: Paul Sweeney, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 21 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 15 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to improve outcomes for female clients of the Partnership Action for Continuing Employment scheme, in light of evidence that just 14% of female clients described their new role as higher skilled and higher responsibility than their previous role, compared to 27% of men.

We recognise the importance of improving labour market outcomes for females and we monitor the influence of PACE support through a major survey every two years. The most recent 2022 PACE Client Experience Survey report was published in September 2022,

https://www.gov.scot/collections/partnership-action-for-continuing-employment-pace/

The report shows that female clients were more likely than males to have gone straight to paid work for an employer which may suggest a desire to get a job quickly rather than hold out for a ‘better job’. Female clients were also much more likely to go into part-time work which tends to be lower-paid and require fewer skills; also fewer females than males are actively looking for jobs with greater responsibility or higher skill levels, likely to be due to these jobs not tending to be available part-time or in the sectors within which they typically work.

PACE Advisers assist female clients by helping them to break down barriers to accessing better paid work/sectors. We will seek to ensure as many females as possible access this service and if appropriate are directed to the Women Returners programme. This programme provides one-to-one bespoke support, advice and access to opportunities for women aged 25 and over who have been out of the labour market for six months or more and want to restart their career journey.

A refreshed Fair Work Action Plan, due to be published in the next few months, will refresh and take forward our commitments in our Gender Pay Gap Action Plan making explicit that addressing gender pay gaps is a key element of Fair Work.

Question reference: S6T-00975

Asked by: Paul Sweeney, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 14 November 2022
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 15 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that nursing staff at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital are routinely left in charge of up to 30 patients and are forced to conduct 5.00 am bed washes due to staff shortages.

Question reference: S6W-11654

Asked by: Paul Sweeney, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 21 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 9 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how education on the Holocaust is delivered in secondary schools.

The Curriculum for Excellence enables teachers to tailor the content of lessons to best suit learners in their particular circumstances. Within the broad general education there is the opportunity to teach the Holocaust both within the people, past event and societies section of social studies and across the wider curriculum. There is also an opportunity to teach the holocaust within the History qualifications in the senior phase.

The curriculum in Scotland is built around 4 central tenets, that young people will become successful learners, effective contributors, confident individuals, and responsible citizens. Enabling young people to develop into responsible citizens requires them to understand both modern day and historic discrimination. One way this is built into our social studies curriculum is through the requirement for learners to demonstrate the following experiences and outcomes:

I can discuss why people and events from a particular time in the past were important, placing them within a historical sequence.
I can discuss the motives of those involved in a significant turning point in the past and assess the consequences it had then and since.
Through researching, I can identify possible causes of a past conflict and report on the impact it has had on the lives of people at that time.
Having critically analysed a significant historical event, I can assess the relative importance of factors contributing to the event.
I can express an informed view about the changing nature of conflict over time, appreciate its impact and empathise with the experiences of those involved.

A wide range of resources are available for schools to promote learning and teaching about, and remembrance of, the Holocaust. These resources focus on the Holocaust but also promote awareness of Jewish people, culture and their contribution to society and address the issue of antisemitism in the world today. Professional learning to support teachers to embed Holocaust education across secondary schools in Scotland is also available, including a subsidised standalone Masters module on Citizenship and Holocaust Education.

Question reference: S6W-11656

Asked by: Paul Sweeney, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 21 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 9 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will consider embedding Holocaust education in the Curriculum for Excellence in a similar way as LGBTQ+ education, and what the reasons are for its position on this matter.

There is no specific content embedded in the curriculum. Curriculum for Excellence is a flexible curriculum, which enables teachers to tailor the content of lessons to best suit learners in their particular circumstances

To find out more about what the Scottish Government is doing to teach Holocaust Education in schools, I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-11654 on 9 November 2022. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Question reference: S6W-11664

Asked by: Paul Sweeney, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 21 October 2022
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 9 November 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to increase the accessibility of the Partnership Action for Continuing Employment webinars, in light of reports from the client experience survey that just one fifth of clients accessed the webinars.

PACE support is usually delivered face to face, often in an employer’s premises, in addition to support which is available through the PACE Helpline and through online resources. PACE webinars and pre-recorded content were a newly introduced service in 2021 to enhance online resources in response to restrictions on face to face support due to the pandemic and to enable PACE support to continue to be provided to individuals affected by redundancy. Clients who had engaged with these new services reported very high levels of satisfaction. However as reported in the PACE Client Experience Survey 2022, https://www.gov.scot/collections/partnership-action-for-continuing-employment-pace/ , approximately half of clients surveyed would prefer face-to-face service delivery (45% to 64% for each service).

Webinars are promoted in PACE materials and are available to book through My World of Work at https://careers.myworldofwork.co.uk/career-advice/facing-redundancy/pace-webinars#/ . PACE Advisers promote the webinars and a promotional toolkit has also been produced and issued to key partners including DWP to enable information to be provided to relevant customers. Details of webinars are regularly promoted through SDS social media channels and feature as events during specific weeks, for example during Challenge Poverty Week (3-9 October) and during Scottish Careers Week (7-11 November). We will continue to promote the webinar programme widely as an additional PACE service for those clients who prefer to access support digitally.