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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: S6W-14716

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 06 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 10 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what the average waiting time is (a) in the Scottish Borders and (b) nationally for rheumatology patients to receive treatment by homecare medicines services.

Question reference: S6W-14718

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 06 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 10 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made regarding the effect of staff vacancies on the performance and safety of homecare medicine services.

There were significant capacity constraints across the medicines homecare market in 2022. A key challenge has been recruitment of staff in a challenging labour market, with some providers more adversely affected than others. The situation is improving but continues to be closely monitored.

Certain homecare providers have highlighted issues with nursing capacity in recent months. Where this has been raised as an issue, there has been close working with providers to ensure that available staffing resource is used in a way that helps minimise disruption to service performance.

Homecare providers have not reported any recent issues with staffing within their pharmacy departments.

Several homecare providers have experienced staffing shortages within customer services departments, and this has been a major contributing factor to the capacity constraints experienced.

There have been a small number of instances where there have been delays to the delivery of medicines to patients, which has the potential to impact on patient safety. Medicines homecare providers and Health boards have processes in place to support managing and learning from any patient safety incidents that arise during service delivery.

Question reference: S6W-15071

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 16 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 9 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of any potential impact on (a) biodiversity, (b) carbon sequestration and (c) future wildfire control of its decision to cease funding for muirburn in the 2023 Agri-Environment Climate Scheme application round.

Question reference: S6O-01997

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 08 March 2023
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 15 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is, regarding the implications for the food and drink supply chain in Scotland, to the National Farmers Union’s petition on improving food security.

Question reference: S6W-15040

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 13 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 8 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much venison has been sold from estates managed by Forestry and Land Scotland to wholesalers, in each year since 2016.

Question reference: S6W-15065

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 8 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has sought advice from the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service regarding any implications of banning muirburn on peat deeper than 40cm.

Question reference: S6W-15039

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 13 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Mairi McAllan on 8 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government whether it has assessed the potential impact that Forestry and Land Scotland’s contract with venison dealers in Scotland has had on the ability of land managers to sell venison on to wholesalers.

The Forestry and Land Scotland contract for the sale of venison from Scotland’s national forests and land was awarded by a competitive tender following substantial stakeholder engagement / market research.

The stakeholder engagement / market research considered all aspects of the venison market both in Scotland and the UK and involved the following (amongst others):

Association of Deer Management Groups (ADMG)
Lowland Deer Network
Scottish Quality Wild Venison
Scottish Venison Association
Approved Game Meat Handling Establishments (AGHE) processing venison
Ardgay Game
Highland Game
Simpson Game
Lincolnshire Game
Hubertus Game
Ben Rigby

Following the stakeholder engagement / market research a tender strategy was developed, which detailed how the contract would be structured to maximise the benefits in line with the Scottish Venison Strategy.

Question reference: S6W-15063

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Angus Robertson on 2 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government when the Ministerial Population Taskforce will next meet.

Question reference: S6W-15041

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 13 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 1 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding it has allocated to the promotion of (a) Scotch Beef, (b) Scotch Lamb, (c) Specially Selected Pork and (d) game and venison, in each year since 2016.

The Scottish government has provided grant funding for marketing campaigns to Quality Meat Scotland and we have also supplied funding to the Scottish Venison association for the marketing of venison.

The funding to QMS was over two years and is as follows:

July 2018: £200,000 To support a range of key activities behind the Scotch Lamb promotional campaign in 2018.

November 2018: £125,000 To support key activities behind the Specially Selected Pork promotional campaign in 2019.

October 2019: £200,000 To support a targeted initiative in the Meat with Integrity Campaign and a fuller range of key activities behind the Scotch Lamb promotional campaign in 2019.

The funding to the Scottish Venison Association was as follows:

March-May 2021: £60,000 To support an online campaign as part of the Scotland Food & Drink Partnership Covid recovery programme to support Scottish Venison producers and processors.

Question reference: S6W-15070

Asked by: Rachael Hamilton, MSP for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 15 February 2023
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 1 March 2023

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason it decided to remove capital funding for muirburn from the 2023 Agri-Environment Climate Scheme application round.

Financial Year	Volume of Venison Sold (kg)
2016-17	720.1k
2017-18	837.6k
2018-19	786.1k
2019-20	791.9k
2020-21	714.6k
2021-22	884.8k