Questions and answers

Question reference: S6O-00130

Asked by: Willie Coffey, MSP for Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 01 September 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 9 September 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how it monitors the impacts of riverbank erosion and what support it provides for those who are affected by the erosion.

Question reference: S6W-01181

Asked by: Willie Coffey, MSP for Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 02 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 20 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on progress with establishing a National Care Service and what the impact of such a service would have on people living in the Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley area.

We are committed to establishing a National Care Service and will launch a full and comprehensive public consultation within the first 100 days of this Parliament. The consultation will allow stakeholders and members of the public from all parts of Scotland an opportunity to give their views in advance of legislation being written. The National Care Service will oversee the delivery of care, improve standards, ensure enhanced pay and conditions for workers and provide better support for unpaid carers.

Question reference: S6W-01180

Asked by: Willie Coffey, MSP for Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 02 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by Kate Forbes on 19 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the establishment of a digital fund for small businesses within the Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley area and how that fund will be administered.

We are delighted with the progress on the reopening of the DigitalBoost Fund and will meet the 100 days deadline that we have set. This will be a national fund supporting businesses to increase their digital capacity and capabilities and we would encourage businesses in the Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley area to apply once it reopens. We will work with our enterprise support partner, Business Gateway, and delivery partners, LESL (Lancashire Enterprise Services Limited), to successfully administer and deliver this fund.

Question reference: S6W-01179

Asked by: Willie Coffey, MSP for Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Friday, 02 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by Tom Arthur on 19 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on COVID-19 recovery funding support for town centres within the Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley area.

The Scottish Government provides a wide range of Covid-19 recovery funding support for town centres in the Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley area.

To support sustained longer term renewal for our towns, villages and cities we have established a Place Based Investment Programme, backed with £325 million capital investment over five years from 2021-22. The allocation for 2021-22 to East Ayrshire Council is £1.31m. The programme will help to link and align place based funding initiatives and progress our ambitions for town centres, community led regeneration and 20 minute neighbourhoods. It builds on the £34 million economic stimulus for regeneration and towns and other funding specifically for town centres, smaller settlements and Business Improvement Districts delivered in 2020-21.

To further support local businesses and promote keeping local spend local we launched the next phase of the Scotland Loves Local (SLL) campaign on 5 July. The £10m SLL Programme includes a new national platform for the SLL loyalty card scheme that will help revitalise town centres and high streets hit by the pandemic.

Since the start of the pandemic, businesses including those in town centres have directly benefitted from £3.6 billion in support. This includes over £13 million, through the Strategic Framework Business Fund and Restart Grant, to businesses in East Ayrshire (as at 25 June 2021) and we continue to work closely with councils to ensure businesses subject to restrictions for a longer period of time remain supported.

Grants of up to £7,500 for retailers and up to £19,500 for hospitality and leisure businesses were paid in April to help businesses, including town centre businesses, re-open. These one-off re-start grants replaced the Strategic Framework Business Fund payments made between November and March and provided more money up front to help with the costs of re-opening. Data on business support funding and other local authority support schemes are available here .

Local authorities were also empowered to support local businesses through the Discretionary Fund, with over £1.7 million awarded to businesses in East Ayrshire from that Fund.

We have extended 100% Non-Domestic Rates relief for all retail, leisure and hospitality premises for all of 2021-22 – this is a more generous package than the equivalent rates reliefs available in other UK nations. This relief benefited over 500 businesses in East Ayrshire saving them over £11 million in 2020-21, according to the latest data available.

Question reference: S6W-01289

Asked by: Willie Coffey, MSP for Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 07 July 2021
Current Status: Answered by Kevin Stewart on 15 July 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what progress is being made with abolishing non-residential care charges.

Question reference: S5W-35558

Asked by: Willie Coffey, MSP for Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 25 February 2021
Current Status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 11 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government when it expects to see a significant impact on the COVID-19 pandemic-induced backlog of elective surgery activity and a return to pre-COVID-19 levels of hospital waiting times, in light of the recent announcement of a further £60 million investment in waiting times recovery.

In line with our framework for re-mobilising our health services, Re-mobilise, Recover, Re-design, Health Boards are following national and local clinical advice to safely and gradually prioritise the resumption of paused services, while also retaining sufficient capacity to respond to COVID-19.

To support elective care during the pandemic we published a Clinical Prioritisation Framework for Supporting Elective Care on 16 November 2020 which ensures patients have a clear and realistic expectation of when they will receive treatment that is clinically appropriate to their individual circumstances.

At present we are in the process of assessing Health Boards’ Local Mobilisation Plans which include Boards’ plans for addressing current waiting times levels. We will continue to support Health Boards to ensure they can restart services in a safe and sustainable way. In that regard, we need to also be mindful of the impact on our health and social care staff of over 12 months of significant physical and emotional pressure and ensure we pay full attention to the need to provide time for respite and decompression for them.

Question reference: S5W-35560

Asked by: Willie Coffey, MSP for Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 25 February 2021
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 11 March 2021

To ask the Scottish Government when COVID-19 testing kits will be supplied to standalone nurseries.

Question reference: S5O-05034

Asked by: Willie Coffey, MSP for Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 February 2021
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 18 February 2021

To ask the Scottish Government how it will develop its international relations in the post-Brexit era.

Question reference: S5W-34559

Asked by: Willie Coffey, MSP for Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 13 January 2021
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 22 January 2021

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will regularly report the COVID-19 test positivity rate among supermarket and retail staff compared with the general population, and, if it does not collect this information, whether it will consider doing so.

The Public Health Scotland (PHS) dashboard ( Dashboard - Data & intelligence from PHS (isdscotland.org) ) contains a range of management information including some information on likely exposure settings based on interviews conducted with people who have tested positive for Covid-19. This includes those who work in a retail environment and those who have been shopping.

In addition, the Scottish Government participates in the Defra Food Resilience Forum where there has been regular reporting of the absence across the whole of the food and drink sector, including supermarkets. Information is also collected on outbreaks so we are able to identify whether there are issues at particular retail outlets. Scottish Government also engages in regular dialogue with retailers to ensure there is an overview of the impact of Covid-19 on the sector.

Question reference: S5W-34134

Asked by: Willie Coffey, MSP for Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 17 December 2020
Current Status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Paul Wheelhouse on 18 December 2020

To ask the Scottish Government when it will publish this year’s Annual Energy Statement.

Tell us your views

Seòmar agus comataidhean