Chamber and committees

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: S4O-04748

Asked by: Roderick Campbell, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 28 October 2015
Current Status: Awaiting answer

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with the UK Government regarding the future use of Leuchars army station.

Question reference: S4O-04724

Asked by: Roderick Campbell, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 October 2015
Current Status: Awaiting answer

To ask the Scottish Government how it can encourage library usage by children.

Question reference: S4W-27859

Asked by: Roderick Campbell, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 02 October 2015
Current Status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Michael Matheson on 5 October 2015

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will match the UK Government’s introduction of lifetime pension awards for widows of police officers and firefighters killed in the line of duty.

The Scottish Government recognises the distinct risk that police officers and firefighters face each day in keeping our communities safe. The risk can regrettably result in the ultimate sacrifice being made and it is only right that there is a change to the pension rules to reflect the impact that sacrifice has on families.

Although the 2006 and 2015 police and firefighter schemes allow for lifetime adult survivor pension awards, pensions paid to widows, widowers and civil partners under the older 1987 police and 1992 firefighter pension schemes are withdrawn on remarriage or entering a civil partnership. The Scottish Government has taken the decision that, going forward, pensions paid to survivors will no longer be subject to this particular rule where the police officer or firefighter is killed in the line of duty.

The Scottish Government will go further than the UK Government by also reinstating pensions previously withdrawn from survivors of officers and firefighters killed in the line of duty. Entitlement to these reinstated pensions will take effect from 1 October 2015.

Question reference: S4O-04667

Asked by: Roderick Campbell, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 23 September 2015
Current Status: Answered by Jamie Hepburn on 1 October 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how it can support grassroots development of rugby.

Question reference: S4O-04693

Asked by: Roderick Campbell, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 30 September 2015
Current Status: Awaiting answer

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to help increase take-up of the flu vaccination.

Question reference: S4W-27413

Asked by: Roderick Campbell, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 10 September 2015
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 23 September 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how many (a) GPs and (b) consultants have retired from each NHS board in each of the last five years and at what average age.

Information on how many a) GPs and b) consultants have retired from each NHS board in the last five years, and at what average age, is not published by Information Services Division Scotland. Information relating to retiral rates is not recorded by NHS boards in a standardised way. Information relating to numbers of a) GPs and b) consultants can be found by following the following links:

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/General-Practice/

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/Publications/2015-09-01/Medical_Trend_J2015.xls.

Question reference: S4F-02962

Asked by: Roderick Campbell, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 21 September 2015
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 24 September 2015

To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government is doing to assist research into dementia.

Question reference: S4W-27336

Asked by: Roderick Campbell, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 04 September 2015
Current Status: Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 17 September 2015

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to reduce the number of domestic fire incidents for people aged 60 and over.

The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) has a statutory responsibility for promoting fire safety, which includes providing advice, information, publicity and encouragement to prevent fires and death or injury in the home. SFRS promotes domestic fire safety in a number of different community safety initiatives, including providing free home fire safety visits. These visits are available to everyone, but the SFRS is actively promoting them for the people most vulnerable from the risk of fire at home, and this includes people over 60 years old.

In June 2015, the SFRS launched a ‘week of action’, which focussed on older people, who often live alone and with reduced mobility. The initiative included targeted visits by operational crews and community fire-fighters to households throughout the country to offer residents advice on keeping their homes and everyone in them safe. The initiative was supported locally through the use of the SFRS ‘Ageing Safely’ toolkit which was distributed to partners to deliver its messages within a local context. During the week of action I visited my local fire station in Eyemouth to provide Scottish Government support to the campaign and to highlight the importance of the campaign’s messaging.

The SFRS recognise that a partnership approach is the most effective way to identify those individuals in communities who are most vulnerable, to make early interventions to ensure they are protected and that the risk of fire related fatalities and casualties is reduced. The service will continue to work with partners to share information, target its resources, and jointly assess and reduce the specific risks to those most vulnerable in our communities.

Question reference: S4O-04634

Asked by: Roderick Campbell, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 16 September 2015
Current Status: Awaiting answer

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it can take to improve the safety of passengers on trains.

Question reference: S4W-27177

Asked by: Roderick Campbell, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Monday, 24 August 2015
Current Status: Answered by Fergus Ewing on 16 September 2015

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the potential economic impact on Scotland of the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.

In his evidence to the European and External Relations Committee on 5 February 2015, the Deputy First Minister noted that the Scottish Government had undertaken indicative modelling of the impact of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) on the Scottish economy.

Fuller information on this modelling can be found in the Scottish Government response to the 2^nd Report 2015 (Session 4) in Annex B: TTIP – Modelling of Economic Impacts on Scotland which was supplied by the Office of the Chief Economic Advisor.