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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: S5W-24764

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 29 August 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what advice it issues to GPs and pharmacies regarding the supply of hormone replacement therapy and, if it does not currently issue such advice, whether it plans to do so.

The Chief Pharmaceutical Officer for Scotland wrote to all NHS Boards, GPs and community pharmacists (Circular PCA(P) (2019) 18) on 26 August 2019 advising of the latest supply update on all Hormone Replacement Therapy products marketed in the UK.

Any information on current and ongoing supply issues relating to individual drugs or devices is shared by NHS Scotland with the relevant networks within the service to help prescribers and dispensers meet patients’ on-going medical needs. The NHS Scotland Prescribing Advisers’ Network provides support to prescribers on the use of alternative products.

Question reference: S5W-24673

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 09 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 28 August 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the recent announcement by ScotRail that Glasgow Queen Street, Aberdeen, Inverness and Fort William train stations will not remove charges for access to toilets and plan to increase charges from 30p to 50p.

Question reference: S5W-24594

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 02 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 28 August 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether clinical waste will be exported to other countries under its contract with Tradebe.

Question reference: S5W-24593

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 02 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 28 August 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the report in The Guardian on 25 July 2019 regarding hazardous clinical waste originating from the UK that has recently been discovered in Sri Lanka, what information it has regarding whether this includes clinical waste originating from Scotland.

Question reference: S5W-24595

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 02 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 28 August 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide details of the due diligence that it carried out prior to appointing Tradebe to dispose of clinical waste, and what consideration it made of the reported penalties that the company had been subject to because of environmental and workplace health and safety violations.

Question reference: S5W-24592

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 02 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Roseanna Cunningham on 28 August 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what action it has taken in response to the report in the Herald on Sunday on 17 February 2019 that that nearly 30 tonnes of high-risk clinical waste appears to have gone missing.

Question reference: S5W-24765

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 14 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 27 August 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how many times in the last 12 months it has met the UK Government to discuss the supply of hormone replacement therapy.

Question reference: S5W-24674

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Friday, 09 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Michael Matheson on 27 August 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the announcement by ScotRail that toilet charges will continue in four stations in Scotland, what its response is to research by Age Scotland that states that older people may not make journeys that do not have a convenient toilet stop.

Question reference: S5W-24541

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Joe FitzPatrick on 21 August 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, what its response is to reports of high influenza activity early in the season in Australia and across the Southern Hemisphere; what impact this could have on influenza activity in Scotland, and what action it will take in response to this.

We are closely monitoring the current flu season in Australia and will use any transferrable evidence and learning from Australia to strengthen approaches for Scotland.

While evaluating the Southern Hemisphere’s flu season is useful for our own planning it does not necessarily mean that the Northern Hemisphere will experience the same flu season next winter.

The best way for people to defend themselves from the flu is to be vaccinated. A new flu campaign for the 2019-20 Scottish season will launch in Autumn and work is underway to ensure effective planning is in place.

Question reference: S5W-24573

Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 01 August 2019
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 21 August 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what the gender breakdown is for the 921 graduate apprenticeships starts in the recently published 2018-19 Skills Development Scotland figures.

The gender breakdown of graduate apprenticeship starts for 2017-18 and 2018-19 can be found below:

Year	Total Starts	Male Starts	Female Starts	Male %	Female %
2017-18	278	227	49	82.8	17.8
2018-19	921	605	316	65.7	34.3

Graduate Apprenticeship numbers are still small and any conclusions drawn from the report need to be made with caution. However, Graduate Apprenticeship starts tripled to reach a total of 921 starts in 2018/19, which was accompanied by increased female representation from 17.8% of the starts in 2017-18 to 34.3% in 2018-19.

Given historic underrepresentation for females in STEM, the growth in representation is encouraging, as 10 out the 12 Graduate Apprenticeship frameworks offered in 2018-19 were in STEM subjects. We recognise that there is still work to be done in getting more women into Apprenticeship roles and Skills Development Scotland is working in partnership with a range of organisations to address gender imbalance in Apprenticeships.