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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-21896

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 29 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 27 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to educate people about the different heart disease symptoms that are suffered by men and women.

Our Women’s Health Plan includes a commitment to improve information and public awareness of heart disease symptoms and risks for women.

Throughout February 2023 we delivered an awareness campaign related to this action. Outreach posters were placed in 1,000 pharmacies and 1,600 organisations (such as GPs and community centres).

Posters included a link to the NHS Inform Women’s Heart Health page . The page notes that the symptoms of a heart attack can vary person to person, though both women and men may experience some common symptoms.

Question reference: S6W-21892

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 29 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 27 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a breakdown of how much funding it has provided to the NHS for tackling heart disease in each of the last five financial years.

Diagnosis, treatment and care for people with heart disease is being provided across a range of services delivered by our NHS, supported by record funding of more than £19 billion for the health portfolio.

While the Scottish Government provides core funding and is responsible for setting the strategic policy for the NHS in Scotland, responsibility for service delivery rests locally with Health Boards who configure services taking into account local circumstances and the reasonable needs of their patient populations.

Question reference: S6W-21891

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 29 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 27 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to support Heart Research UK in its aim to prevent, treat and cure heart disease cases in Scotland.

We are grateful to Heart Research UK for their continued work to prevent, treat and cure heart disease in Scotland.

We recognise the scale and impact of heart disease in Scotland and have set out our strategic direction to address this in our Heart Disease Action Plan (2021).

The plan outlines a collaborative approach and acknowledges the important role of the third sector in minimising preventable heart disease and ensuring that everyone with suspected heart disease has timely and equitable access to diagnosis treatment and care.

Question reference: S6W-21893

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 29 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenni Minto on 27 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much the NHS has spent on tackling heart disease in each of the last five financial years, also broken down by NHS board.

Question reference: S6O-02670

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 October 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 2 November 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to improve rail services for passengers in the Mid Scotland and Fife region.

Question reference: S6W-21894

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 29 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 25 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to improve school meals for children and increase their intake of fruits and vegetables.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring our children and young people have access to healthy and nutritious food when at school. The Scottish Government ensure that all food and drink served in education authority and grant aided schools, including free and paid for school meals, meet these high standards through the Nutritional Requirements for food and drink in schools (Scotland) Regulations 2020. The Regulations are based on scientific evidence and dietary advice and designed to ensure children and young people can access an appropriate amount of energy and key nutrients as part of their school day to support their healthy growth and development.

The Regulations require 2 full portions of vegetables and 1 full portion of fruit to be served as part of a primary school lunch and a secondary school analysed lunch, building on the previous standards which required a variety of fruit and vegetables to be on offer but did not specify a required portion size. In addition, portions of fruit and vegetables must be made available in any place within school premises where food is provided at other times of the school day for example morning break provision or tuckshops. Compliance with the Regulations is monitored by Education Scotland Health and Nutrition Inspectors as part of their annual inspection programme.

As set out in our Programme for Government, we will continue to work with local authorities to ensure that school meals meet the highest standards of nutrition, recognising that this is vital to our children’s effective learning.

The Scottish Government is currently working with Local Authorities on the roll out of the next phase of Free School Meal expansion therefore ensuring more of our children and young people are provided the opportunity to benefit from healthy and nutritious meals.

Food and nutrition is an integral part of our national educational curriculum set out in the health and wellbeing experiences and outcomes detailed in Curriculum for Excellence. This will help to ensure that children and young people are provided with the knowledge, skills and experience they need to make positive dietary choices, including why it is important to consume plenty of fruit and vegetables as part of a balanced and nutritious school lunch.

Question reference: S6W-21907

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 29 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Elena Whitham on 24 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government which local authority areas have appointed a women's champion or advocate, as recommended by the Drug Deaths Taskforce in its report, Women and Drug Related Deaths – Working Group Report and Recommendations.

The decision on whether to appoint a local women’s champion or advocate sits with local authority areas. As such, the government does not hold a list of champions or advocates. The government is, however, fully committed to working with local authority areas to ensure that we take, when appropriate, a gendered response to substance use. That is why we have committed more than £5.5 million to establish two houses, run by Aberlour, which are designed to support women and their children through recovery. In addition, we are providing more than £6 million to establish a training and social enterprise based residential rehabilitation programme at River Garden Auchincruive which will have a separate unit to support women through recovery.

Question reference: S6O-02632

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 18 October 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 26 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government when it last met COSLA to discuss pay awards in schools.

Question reference: S6W-21503

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 4 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has revised and improved the programme of substance use education and prevention in schools and broader settings to ensure it is good quality, impactful and in line with best practice, as included at action point 2 in the updated Rights, Respect and Recovery Action Plan 2019-2021, which was published in December 2020.

The launch of our National Mission on Drugs in January 2021 has meant that some of the commitments set out in the Rights, Respect, Recovery Strategy and the action plan for it, refreshed in December 2020, are being delivered in a different way. Many of the milestones are being delivered through the National Mission and others are being picked up as part of more recent Government commitments.

The Scottish Government is working closely with key stakeholders, including Education Scotland, to review and revise resources available for substance use education to ensure they are in line with best practice. This is part of wider work to provide schools with the right resources and support, through implementation of the Personal and Social Education Review, to address the issues facing children and young people today.

Completion of this work will support delivery of the recommendation from, where relevant, the Rights, Respect and Recovery Action Plan 2019-2021 as well as the similar recommendation from Drugs Death Task Force.

Question reference: S6W-21504

Asked by: Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 20 September 2023
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 4 October 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will commit to allowing bodies that receive funding from the alcohol industry to be involved in any programme of substance use education and prevention in schools and broader settings.

The Scottish Government will not work with the alcohol industry on provision of education in schools. Our wider approach to joint work with the industry will be based on the principles of the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Strategy to reduce the harmful use of alcohol, which recognises industry’s role as developers, producers, distributors, marketers and sellers of alcohol products.

Instead, the Scottish Government is committed to taking forward substance use education work in our schools through Curriculum for Excellence. Children and young people learn about a variety of substances including alcohol, medicines, drugs, tobacco and solvents. They will explore the impact risk taking behaviour has on life choices and health.