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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-30218

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 27 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 8 October 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it can share the results of the Planet Youth pilot scheme in each year since the scheme was established across participating schools in the Highlands and Islands region.

The information requested is not held centrally. Highland is one of 6 local authority areas implementing Planet Youth in Scotland. Data on the Highlands and Islands schools participating in the Planet Youth pilot is held by the Highland Alcohol and Drug Partnership and the charity Winning Scotland.

Winning Scotland has been carrying out research on the progress of the pilot in participating local authorities in Scotland, including Highland. Five communities are involved in the pilot in Highland and the data has, and continues to be, shared with the local coalitions which have formed around those communities. This includes community planning partners, schools, third sector, businesses and others.

Question reference: S6W-30209

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 8 October 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what the minimum number of road workers is that are required to be onsite at the (a) A83 Rest and Be Thankful and (b) Old Military Road when operating under convoy control.

Question reference: S6W-30216

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 27 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 8 October 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it is able to directly attribute any decline in rates of teenage (a) smoking, (b) drinking and (c) drug-taking to either (i) the Planet Youth pilot scheme or (ii) pre-existing anti-substance abuse health campaigns.

No. We are investing in Planet Youth over 2 years, from 2023-2025. Planet Youth, sometimes referred to as the Icelandic Model, is an approach to prevention which empowers communities to support their young people to reduce the risk of substance use and harms. In Iceland, this approach instigated a decline in teenage substance use. Whilst Planet Youth in Scotland is in its early stages, Winning Scotland who lead on this initiative, are currently developing evaluation tools to measure outcomes.

Question reference: S6W-30217

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 27 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Neil Gray on 8 October 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding it has provided to Winning Scotland to fund its Planet Youth in Scotland programme in each year since the programme was established.

Question reference: S6W-30198

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 8 October 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how long traffic is required to wait on average at each end of the Old Military Route while the road is operating under convoy control.

Question reference: S6W-30197

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 26 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 8 October 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what the maximum number of vehicles is that can travel single-file along the Old Military Route at any given time while the road is operating under convoy control.

Question reference: S6W-30114

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 8 October 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it has taken to tackle the so-called evidence gap in assessing rural poverty and deprivation, as described in the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation’s Rural deprivation: Evidence summary, which was published in November 2016.

The Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation rural deprivation evidence summary included sections describing the main issues associated with using SIMD in rural areas, as well as ways of overcoming these through using the wide range of available data sources alongside SIMD for exploring particular topics or communities of interest. The evidence summary was published alongside two case studies Fuel poverty in Dumfries and Galloway and Child poverty in the Orkney Islands which illustrated how this could be done. The SIMD 2020 introductory booklet included a case study on using SIMD in a rural area.

Scottish Government has also published (or funded) a number of reports and resources on poverty and deprivation in rural areas, including Poverty in rural Scotland: evidence review, The cost of remoteness - reflecting higher living costs in remote rural Scotland when measuring fuel poverty: research report, National Islands Plan Survey: final report, Improving our understanding of child poverty in rural and island Scotland, A design based approach to understanding and tackling rural child poverty,Scottish Islands Survey 2023: main findings,Rural Scotland data dashboard: overview and Review of evidence on rural community interventions.

The Scottish Government Office of the Chief Social Policy Adviser has recently funded a UKRI/ESRC Policy Fellow to carry out research on trends in rural and island poverty.

National Records of Scotland are in the process of developing the 2022 Census-based household level deprivation indicator which will allow analysis of key household variables by deprivation for very small geographies.

There are numerous other reports and resources produced by a range of external stakeholder organisations.

Question reference: S6W-30112

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 8 October 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has made any assessment of its current ability to provide additional childcare to (a) parents and (b) guardians of nursery-age children with (i) short- and (ii) long-term additional support needs.

Education authorities have a duty under the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004 (as amended) to identify, provide for and review the additional support needs of their children, including in respect of funded early learning and childcare (ELC). The Scottish Government provides funding to education authorities for additional support for learning as part of their block grant. It is for individual education authorities to manage their own budget and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

Question reference: S6W-30115

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 8 October 2024

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-29676 by Jenni Minto on 18 September 2024, for what reason (a) it and (b) Public Health Scotland does not (i) collect and (ii) hold this data centrally, and whether either organisation will commit to begin collecting this data to help understand how disease modifying therapies are being used in Scotland to treat multiple sclerosis (MS).

Many specialist medicines, often referred to as "biologics", and including the disease modifying medicines for multiple sclerosis (MS), are normally managed by secondary care specialists, but supplied to patients in their homes, most often by homecare medicines (HCM) suppliers. A number of these companies operate in the Scottish market.

The national HCM dataset is a relatively new resource and is still developing as new suppliers come onstream and start providing data (including, where available, retrospective data from January 2019). As a new resource, and because these medicines can have multiple supply models, work is being undertaken to validate the completeness and accuracy of the national HCM dataset in comparison with local registries, where local registries are available.

It is anticipated that, in the future, the national HCM dataset, either itself or through linkage with other datasets, will become a valuable resource in helping to better understand treatments pathways and the beneficial outcomes or otherwise from these types of medicines, as well as helping to identify any unwarranted variation in clinical practice or access to treatment.

Question reference: S6W-30111

Asked by: Tim Eagle, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 24 September 2024
Current Status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 8 October 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has made any assessment of the domestic shipbuilding sector’s ability to meet future demand for (a) new ferries and (b) ferry-related infrastructure in (i) Argyll and Bute and (ii) the Western Isles.

This analysis has not been carried out by the Scottish Government or by Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited (CMAL) on our behalf, although CMAL are aware of the shipyard capabilities in the UK. There is a UK Department for Transport body called the National Shipbuilding Office which has carried out this assessment for both military and commercial shipbuilding capabilities - CMAL are well connected with them and share information and best practices for the benefit of exploring future opportunities.

New vessel and infrastructure tenders are usually let by CMAL to enhance and improve the Clyde & Hebrides Ferry Services fleet and associated infrastructure and these are procured on the open market. These tenders are international and cannot be focussed on a subset of UK only contractors or yards. So, when CMAL tender, they invite UK as well as Global yards to submit interest.