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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: S4O-04175

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 March 2015
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 26 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government when the rules on eligibility of blood donors were last reviewed.

Question reference: S4O-04126

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 March 2015
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 18 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to expand the range of foreign language courses available in schools.

Question reference: S4W-24484

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 17 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 2 March 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to ensure that biomass energy plants do not inflate the price of timber for other sectors, in light of its Electricity Generation Policy Statement - 2013.

Timber production in Scotland is increasing and the Forestry Commission’s long term forecasts for the availability of future potential softwood indicate increased wood availability up to the 2030s with likely increased availability of small roundwood and sawmill co-products, wood types used by both the wood panel and wood fuel industries. The Scottish Government’s 15 megawatt cap on support for new electricity biomass plants in Scotland has removed the incentive for new large scale electricity only biomass plants. Increased demand for wood fuel is likely largely to come from the developing smaller scale renewable heat market where growth in demand for wood fuel will be incremental and at a sustainable level. By contrast there is no such 15 megawatt cap south of the border.

Question reference: S4W-24481

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 17 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 24 February 2015

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S4W-24165 by John Swinney on 5 February 2015, how many hard copies of the Scottish Government's white paper have been ordered in each month since September 2014.

Question reference: S4W-24343

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 05 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 17 February 2015

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S4W-24165 by John Swinney on 5 February 2015, what it means by "managed in line with usual practice".

Question reference: S4O-04024

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 February 2015
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 19 February 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how it assists farmers who wish to remove silt from river beds.

Question reference: S4W-24292

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by Maureen Watt on 10 February 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to review the regulations regarding people's eligibility to be blood donors.

When assessing a donor’s eligibility the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service (SNBTS) have to take into consideration more than 300 deferral criteria. The guidelines are constantly evolving, for example in calendar year 2014 SNBTS revised 13 of their donor selection rules and the deferral criteria for 32 countries. Changes in deferral criteria are often complex and sometimes need to be made quite rapidly, for example in response to changes in the pattern of infectious diseases in other parts of the world.

SNBTS procedures and policies support staff to make the correct decisions about donor eligibility. Regular reporting and review of donor deferrals aim to reduce variation in practice and highlight criteria to be reviewed at SNBTS or UK level.

SNBTS is represented on the Joint United Kingdom Blood Transfusion and Tissue Transplantation Services Professional Advisory Committee, the UK Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs and relevant subcommittees which maintain a watching brief on new and emergent issues relevant to donor selection and blood and tissue safety.

Question reference: S4W-24294

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by Maureen Watt on 10 February 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has regarding how many cases of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) have been recorded in Scotland in each year since 1980.

Definite or probable variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) cases in Scotland, where Scotland was the last residence before death, from 1 May 1995 - 31 December 2014, are shown in the following table.

No deaths were recorded for vCJD in the UK prior to 1995.

Year of death	Number of deaths in Scotland
1995	0
1996	3
1997	0
1998	1
1999	4
2000	5
2001	4
2002	2
2003	0
2004	2
2005	0
2006	0
2007	1
2008	0
2009	0
2010	0
2011	0
2012	0
2013	0
2014	0
Alive	0
TOTAL	22

Question reference: S4W-24293

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 03 February 2015
Current Status: Answered by Maureen Watt on 10 February 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what information it has regarding how many people in Scotland have received a blood transfusion in each year since 1980.

Please refer to the following table that shows the number of patients who received a blood transfusion in Scotland per calendar year. Data was obtained from the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service’s (SNBTS) Account for Blood (established in 2009). This data is not available prior to 2009:

Calendar year	Patients transfused
2009	38,894
2010	39,782
2011	38,667
2012	37,871
2013	36,139
2014	34,557

Please note:

The data presented does not reflect full coverage of transfusions in Scotland. Due to changes in blood bank systems it has not been possible to get full consistent coverage. The following should be noted when interpreting this information:

The Western Infirmary blood bank data is not available for 2009 and approximately half of 2010. The addition of data from this blood bank in the latter half of 2010 most likely accounts for the apparent 2% increase in patients transfused in that year against a background of 2-4% decrease in other years.

Data from the Western Isles blood bank is only available from 2014.

Wishaw General, Caithness General and Belford blood bank information is not available.

Private hospital data are not available.

The number of patients transfused is a count of patients transfused with any blood component at any location. The same patient may be transfused with different blood component types in different locations.

The count of patients uses the patient Community Health Index (CHI). Where the CHI is unknown or unable to be derived a patient is identified through the local blood bank system identifier

SNBTS currently holds a record of individual units issued dating from 1999. Data on the number of patients transfused began to be formally recorded following the establishment of Account for Blood in 2009.

Question reference: S4W-24165

Asked by: Murdo Fraser, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 26 January 2015
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 5 February 2015

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S4W-23717 by John Swinney on 18 December 2014, what happened to the 4,614 hard copies of the white paper that were reportedly not distributed.

Scotland’s Future: Your Guide to an independent Scotland has been available to order at no cost to individuals in hard copy or digital formats since its launch in November 2013.

A total of 80,000 hard copies were produced in response to unprecedented demand, both from individuals and through the successful programme of public engagement by the Scottish Government.

The remaining copies are being managed in line with usual practice.

Month	Copies Ordered
September (19-09 to 30-09 2014)	78
October	41
November	21
December	20
January	23
February (01-02 to 10-02 2015)	15