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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: S5O-04887

Asked by: Alex Rowley, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 December 2020
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 23 December 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what progress it is making with the roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccine across the country.

Question reference: S5W-33686

Asked by: Alex Rowley, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 02 December 2020
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 10 December 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what percentage of NHS staff have received the flu vaccination, and how this compares with the same period in 2019, broken down by NHS board.

Scottish Government officials are working closely with Health Boards to monitor vaccine uptake amongst eligible cohorts. A weekly report on seasonal influenza activity in Scotland is published on the Public Health Scotland website: https://publichealthscotland.scot/downloads/weekly-national-seasonal-respiratory-report-18-november-2020/

Vaccination uptake for 2019-20 flu season for Healthcare Workers, broken down by each NHS Health Board, is detailed in the following table.

Seasonal Flu - 2019/20 Health Care Workers
Health Board	Vaccine Uptake %
Ayrshire and Arran	61.10%
Borders	53.50%
Dumfries and Galloway	74.50%
Fife	67.40%
Forth Valley	52.00%
Grampian	53.10%
Greater Glasgow and Clyde	47.10%
Highland	55.40%
Lanarkshire	49.00%
Lothian	63.70%
Orkney	61.90%
Shetland	68.50%
Tayside	56.20%
Western Isles	51.70%
Total (Scotland)	55.7%

Question reference: S5O-04855

Asked by: Alex Rowley, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 December 2020
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 16 December 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what recent action it has taken to address any staff shortages in prisons.

Question reference: S5F-04619

Asked by: Alex Rowley, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 30 November 2020
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 3 December 2020

To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government's response is to IPPR Scotland research suggesting that youth unemployment could reach over 100,000 in the coming months, the highest level since records began.

Question reference: S5O-04804

Asked by: Alex Rowley, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 25 November 2020
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 2 December 2020

To ask the Scottish Government how many housing developments have been delayed because of the absence of frontloading capital for schools infrastructure.

Question reference: S5W-33143

Asked by: Alex Rowley, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 10 November 2020
Current Status: Answered by Ben Macpherson on 23 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason the catering equipment hire sector is not eligible for COVID-19 business (a) support grants and (b) rates relief.

The Scottish Government recognises that this is an extremely difficult time for businesses across Scotland. From the outset we have been explicit that we are utilising every penny of the UK Government’s business support consequential funding to support businesses in Scotland, and we have delivered a package of financial support to help as many businesses as possible. In designing non-domestic rates reliefs as part of this package of financial support, we had to balance helping as many businesses as possible against affordability.

The rates reliefs are set out in The Non-Domestic Rates (Coronavirus Reliefs) (Scotland) Regulations 2020. This includes a universal 1.6% relief available to all non-domestic properties, and a 100% relief for properties in the Retail, Hospitality, Leisure and Airport sectors that meet the qualifying purpose or purposes specified in the classes in schedule 1 of the Regulations as amended. Non-domestic rates are administered by local authorities, and the interpretation of the relevant legislation and the awarding of reliefs is a matter for them.

Together our rates relief package and the initial Business Support Grant Scheme, introduced in March 2020, in the early stages of the pandemic delivered financial support worth £2.3 billion to assist businesses in these challenging times. Properties occupied by the catering equipment hire sector may also have been eligible for the Business Support Grant Funds where they met the eligibility criteria set out in Scottish Government guidance. The funds were open to applications until 10 July.

Further support is now available, and the Strategic Framework set out the Scottish Government's package of business support measures from 2 November which offers grants for businesses required to close by law, and those businesses that remain open but are required by law to modify their operations.

We continue to seek the funding and powers we require to support Scottish businesses through this pandemic, and to engage with specific sectors who may face unique impacts and consider how best to provide help and support.

Question reference: S5W-32789

Asked by: Alex Rowley, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 26 October 2020
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 10 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to strengthen support for developing skills and training for people who lose their jobs because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Scottish Government recognises that Covid 19 has had a fundamental impact on the Scottish economy and labour market, and that steps are required to mitigate against its worst effects.

We are working closely with Skills Development Scotland and other agencies to both re-purpose existing support for individuals and businesses and quickly develop a range of new programmes and support which can address the risk of increased unemployment.

We are providing £100 million for targeted employment support and training. This includes £60 million to support our Youth Guarantee which will see every young person guaranteed an opportunity in education, a job, or training, and on 8 th October 2020, we launched the £25 million National Transition Training Fund to help up to 10,000 people aged 25 and over, who have lost their jobs or are at risk of redundancy as a result of the virus, to develop the skills required to move into sectors with the greatest potential for future growth and job opportunities. We are also providing £5 million to enhance support for those affected by redundancy through our Partnership Action for Continuing Employment (PACE) initiative.

We are investing £3.7m in Individual Training Accounts to enable up to 18,500 people of all ages, who are unemployed or on low incomes, to access funding of up to £200 per year to support training . We’ve worked with SDS and stakeholders to make sure both the training available through Individual Training Accounts and the manner in which they will be delivered, reflect the very different labour market and environment we are now operating in.

Question reference: S5W-32586

Asked by: Alex Rowley, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 15 October 2020
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 5 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what planning is in place to respond to any national or localised school closures as a result of COVID-19.

Question reference: S5W-32590

Asked by: Alex Rowley, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 15 October 2020
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 5 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what review it has carried out of the blended learning that took place in spring 2020, and whether this included an analysis of any discrepancies between schools in the provision of study materials and the extent of teachers’ marking of pupils’ work.

During the course of Term 4 2019-20, Education Scotland gathered a range of evidence on the approach to remote learning being taken across local authority areas. This work looked at the use of the Glow platform, use of live/synchronised learning by teachers and use of websites to share information. Education Scotland's analysis indicated that in May 2020, over 430,000 unique users accessed Glow, almost double the number of users from the same period in 2019. In the same month, those users accessed Glow 11.4m times, around 4 times the usage of the same period in 2019.

Further qualitative evidence is being gathered via Education Scotland's "What Scotland Learned" initiative. This will include the sharing of examples of remote learning during the period of Scotland-wide school closures in Spring 2020.

Education Scotland will continue to engage with local authorities and schools in order to monitor the approach to remote learning. The Covid Education Recovery Group will fulfil a further role in helping to work across organisational and structural boundaries, providing a forum for open discussion about what is working and where improvement is needed.

Detailed data on teachers' marking and assessment of pupils' work is not gathered at national level.

Question reference: S5O-04728

Asked by: Alex Rowley, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 October 2020
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 5 November 2020

To ask the Scottish Government what barriers are preventing it from introducing the new Scottish Child Payment for all 16-year-olds and under in 2021.

We are introducing the Scottish Child Payment early for under 6s in recognition of the fact that almost 60% of children in poverty are in households where the youngest child is under 6.

We were able to introduce this payment earlier because it builds on the existing infrastructure for our Best Start Grant payments. I am pleased that applications will open next week with first payments beginning from end February 2021.

To make payments to those over 6, we need access to data from both the DWP and HMRC to verify parental responsibility. DWP have so far declined to provide us with the relevant data for 6-16s, and are still considering what can be made available to us and in what timescales.