Questions and answers

Question reference: S6W-31929

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 December 2024
Current Status: Answer expected on 17 December 2024

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body whether it will review restrictions on using recorded footage from the Chamber for social media purposes.

Question reference: S6W-31856

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 02 December 2024
Current Status: Answer expected on 16 December 2024

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answers to questions S6W-20007 and S6W-20008 by Fiona Hyslop on 14 August 2023, whether ScotRail considers (a) climate and sustainability objectives and (b) the potential for greater modal shift when making operational decisions about service patterns and potential consumer demand, on services such as "Rail and Sail" tickets served by the Cairnryan-Belfast ferry route.

Question reference: S6W-31855

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 02 December 2024
Current Status: Answer expected on 16 December 2024

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answers to questions S6W-20007 and S6W-20008 by Fiona Hyslop on 14 August 2023, how many meetings have taken place between (a) ScotRail, (b) the Scottish Ministers and (c) Scottish Government officials and Stena Line since 1 April 2022, and whether any such meetings involved discussions regarding increased connectivity on the Cairnryan-Belfast ferry route.

Question reference: S6W-31854

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 02 December 2024
Current Status: Answer expected on 16 December 2024

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the publication of the second Strategic Transport Projects Review (STPR2), what action it has taken to (a) progress recommendation 40, which recommended improving access to Stranraer and ports at Cairnryan and (b) encourage greater use of public transport.

Question reference: S6W-31510

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Alasdair Allan on 28 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether (a) it will provide an update on how much of the £1.8 billion that was committed for decarbonising buildings through its Heat in Buildings strategy has been (i) allocated and (ii) spent and (b) it is committed to spending any remaining amount during the current parliamentary session.

Scotland’s Heat in Buildings Strategy, published in October 2021, outlines our ambitious programme that reflects the scale and the size of the challenge to reduce emissions from our buildings. Our commitment to allocate £1.8bn over this parliament is helping kick-start growth in the market and support those least able to pay.

Of the £1.8bn commitment made in our Heat in Buildings Strategy, over £1.3bn has been allocated to date, of which, over £575m has been spent to the end of September 2024.

Any further budget allocations will be set out in the Scottish Government draft budget, which will be published on 4 December.

Question reference: S6O-04080

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 November 2024
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 5 December 2024

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what steps it is taking to increase access to diabetes tech for patients in NHS Lothian.

Question reference: S6W-31204

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 27 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what action it plans to take in light of Carnegie UK research, which shows that people on lower incomes and disabled people have much lower wellbeing than the average person in Scotland.

The goal of the Scottish Government is to help people live happier and healthier lives with higher living standards, building a fair, green, growing economy that promotes the wellbeing of all Scotland’s people. Therefore, we welcome Carnegie UK’s Life in the UK 2024: Scotland report as a valuable contribution to the evidence base in Scotland. The principles are closely aligned to the National Performance Framework (NPF), which monitors numerous wellbeing issues. We are alert to the issues raised by Carnegie’s report and are committed to tackling the challenges that disabled people face, as well as investing £3 billion a year to tackle poverty and help with the cost of living.

Employment in a good job can be an important factor in a person’s wellbeing. Through the Fair Work Action Plan, we have set out actions needed to promote fair and inclusive workplaces for all people across Scotland, including addressing persistent structural barriers such as those faced by disabled people. Our Fair Work First policy applies Fair Work criteria to as many funding streams, business support grants and public contracts as we can. We have included payment of at least the real Living Wage in the criteria for Fair Work First, and this is a key mechanism for driving fair pay in Scottish workplaces, helping to support improved income security and living standards.

To help address barriers in the labour market for disabled people, the Programme for Government contains a commitment to introducing enhanced specialist employability support for disabled people across all local authorities by next Summer. We are working across sectors to achieve our aim of halving the disability employment gap in Scotland by 2038, focussing on support for disabled people to both enter and progress in fair work. We will shortly issue a response to the Scottish Parliament Economy and Fair Work Committee’s recent report on its inquiry into the disability employment gap. We have also developed the Disability Plan, which will ensure disabled people have greater involvement and visibility in policy and decision-making processes.

We note the recommendations included in the report. Whilst we are not introducing a Wellbeing and Sustainable Development Bill at this time, we are committed to working across the chamber with Ms Boyack on her Members’ Bill as proposals develop. When these become available, they will be given due consideration. The NPF sets out our vision of societal wellbeing. We continue to advance the NPF, including working towards updating this in 2025 to ensure it reflects a unified vision for Scotland. We will also develop, as I confirmed to the Finance and Public Administration Committee on 8 October, an implementation plan to improve how the NPF is taken forward by public bodies, including the Scottish Government.

Question reference: S6W-31205

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 27 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to Carnegie UK’s Life in the UK 2024: Scotland report, which found that collective wellbeing scores in 2024 remain largely unchanged from those reported in 2023.

The goal of the Scottish Government is to help people live happier and healthier lives with higher living standards, building a fair, green, growing economy that promotes the wellbeing of all Scotland’s people. Therefore, we welcome Carnegie UK’s Life in the UK 2024: Scotland report as a valuable contribution to the evidence base in Scotland. The principles are closely aligned to the National Performance Framework (NPF), which monitors numerous wellbeing issues. We are alert to the issues raised by Carnegie’s report and are committed to tackling the challenges that disabled people face, as well as investing £3 billion a year to tackle poverty and help with the cost of living.

Employment in a good job can be an important factor in a person’s wellbeing. Through the Fair Work Action Plan, we have set out actions needed to promote fair and inclusive workplaces for all people across Scotland, including addressing persistent structural barriers such as those faced by disabled people. Our Fair Work First policy applies Fair Work criteria to as many funding streams, business support grants and public contracts as we can. We have included payment of at least the real Living Wage in the criteria for Fair Work First, and this is a key mechanism for driving fair pay in Scottish workplaces, helping to support improved income security and living standards.

To help address barriers in the labour market for disabled people, the Programme for Government contains a commitment to introducing enhanced specialist employability support for disabled people across all local authorities by next Summer. We are working across sectors to achieve our aim of halving the disability employment gap in Scotland by 2038, focussing on support for disabled people to both enter and progress in fair work. We will shortly issue a response to the Scottish Parliament Economy and Fair Work Committee’s recent report on its inquiry into the disability employment gap. We have also developed the Disability Plan, which will ensure disabled people have greater involvement and visibility in policy and decision-making processes.

We note the recommendations included in the report. Whilst we are not introducing a Wellbeing and Sustainable Development Bill at this time, we are committed to working across the chamber with Ms Boyack on her Members’ Bill as proposals develop. When these become available, they will be given due consideration. The NPF sets out our vision of societal wellbeing. We continue to advance the NPF, including working towards updating this in 2025 to ensure it reflects a unified vision for Scotland. We will also develop, as I confirmed to the Finance and Public Administration Committee on 8 October, an implementation plan to improve how the NPF is taken forward by public bodies, including the Scottish Government.

Question reference: S6W-31206

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 November 2024
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 26 November 2024

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to improve trust in government, in light of Carnegie UK research finding that 37% of people in Scotland have low levels of trust in the Scottish Government.

We recognise that reduced levels of trust is a challenge facing governments around the world. Evidence shows that a key driver of trust is people feeling they have a say. One way we are working to improve levels of trust is through our Open Government Action Plan: providing meaningful opportunities for people to be involved in decisions that affect them and sharing information openly. This includes a fiscal transparency portal to help the public track government spend, and an AI register to show the development and use of AI in the Scottish public sector. Our commitments cover fiscal openness and transparency, health and social care, climate change, data and digital, and participation. These are all areas in which civil society and members of the public have told us the ongoing promotion of transparency, participation, inclusivity and accountability is important to them.

We are paying close attention to the impact trust has on democracy through the Democracy Matters engagement process on the future of community decision making. A key pillar of this was asking how more people can participate in local decision making. The process findings were published in September and we will now work with civil society and the wider public sector to deliver on the ambitions set out by our communities.

Question reference: S6W-31554

Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 21 November 2024
Current Status: Answer expected on 6 December 2024

To ask the Scottish Government to what extent it measures social value in determining planning consent for energy projects.

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