Questions and answers

Question reference: S6W-36740

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 7 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how much funding it has provided to the Children's Parliament in each of the last five years, and what its position is on whether this has delivered value for money.

Children’s Parliament was established in 1996. Their organisational mission is to lead the development of a rights-based culture in Scotland and ensure that children’s voices are actively engaged in shaping our world. They support the Scottish Government, local authorities, and other public bodies to fulfil their legal obligations to promote and protect the human rights of everyone and fulfil their duty of care toward children. Through their rights-based, creative practice, they provide children up to age 14 years old from diverse backgrounds across Scotland, with opportunities to share their experiences, thoughts, and feelings so that they can influence positive change in their lives at home, in school and in the community.

The Children’s Parliament have their annual accounts published on the Companies House website. These provide a breakdown of money received from the Scottish Government from 2020-24.

THE CHILDREN'S PARLIAMENT filing history - Find and update company information - GOV.UK

The 2024-25 annual accounts will be available on the Companies House website in due course, following the end of the financial year. However, at his point we can confirm that the Scottish Government currently expects to provide the Children’s Parliament with funding totalling £320,878 in 2024-25 (subject to relevant financial controls).

Children’s Parliament receives core funding from the Scottish Government via the Children, Young People and Families Early Intervention and Adult Learning and Empowering Communities Fund (CYPFEIF & ALEC) which is administered by the Corra Foundation. From 2018-19 to 2021-22 they were awarded £235,000. From 2022-23 to 2024-25 they received £246,750 annually. The Children’s Parliament is on track to meet the agreed outcomes by the end of 2024-25. Corra has indicated, through their formal grant reviews and monitoring, that the Children’s Parliament is delivering value for money and continues to demonstrate good progress towards the agreed objectives.

The Children’s Parliament also evidenced delivery of the aims of the three year grant funding, of £147,000 per year, that they received between 2021-2024 as part of the UNCRC Implementation Programme.

Question reference: S6W-36735

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 7 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government how many hours of ministerial time was spent on matters relating to the Children's Parliament in 2024, and what its position is whether this was an effective use of ministers' time.

Children’s Parliament was established in 1996. Their organisational mission is to lead the development of a rights-based culture in Scotland and ensure that children’s voices are actively engaged in shaping our world. They support the Scottish Government, local authorities, and other public bodies to fulfil their legal obligations to promote and protect the human rights of everyone and fulfil their duty of care toward children. Through their rights-based, creative practice, they provide children up to age 14 years old from diverse backgrounds across Scotland, with opportunities to share their experiences, thoughts, and feelings so that they can influence positive change in their lives at home, in school and in the community.

Ministerial time spent on individual matters such as the number of hours spent on matters relating to the Children’s Parliament, is not recorded.

Question reference: S6W-36734

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 7 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what steps it is taking to increase children's engagement with the Children's Parliament, and how much these measures are costing.

Children’s Parliament was established in 1996. Their organisational mission is to lead the development of a rights-based culture in Scotland and ensure that children’s voices are actively engaged in shaping our world. They support the Scottish Government, local authorities, and other public bodies to fulfil their legal obligations to promote and protect the human rights of everyone and fulfil their duty of care toward children. Through their rights-based, creative practice, they provide children up to age 14 years old from diverse backgrounds across Scotland, with opportunities to share their experiences, thoughts, and feelings so that they can influence positive change in their lives at home, in school and in the community.

The Scottish Government is not involved in increasing children's engagement with the Children's Parliament. That is a matter for the Children's Parliament.

Question reference: S6W-36739

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 7 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government which decisions or recommendations by the Children's Parliament have influenced its policy since May 2007, also broken down by policy and in what way it was influenced, and what information it has for the period prior to this.

Children’s Parliament was established in 1996. Their organisational mission is to lead the development of a rights-based culture in Scotland and ensure that children’s voices are actively engaged in shaping our world. They support the Scottish Government, local authorities, and other public bodies to fulfil their legal obligations to promote and protect the human rights of everyone and fulfil their duty of care toward children. Through their rights-based, creative practice, they provide children up to age 14 years old from diverse backgrounds across Scotland, with opportunities to share their experiences, thoughts, and feelings so that they can influence positive change in their lives at home, in school and in the community.

The Scottish Government engages with a range of organisations when making policy decisions. It is therefore not possible to directly attribute and quantify the influence of any one organisation. However, it is important to acknowledge since 2007, the Children’s Parliament has worked closely with Scottish Government to impact various policy areas, including:

Scotland’s Climate Assembly
COP 26
Learning for Sustainability Curriculum Development
Anti Racist Education Principles
Gender Equality in Education
Education Reform
Tobacco Action Plan
National Performance Framework
The development of the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024
Scottish AI Strategy
Mental Health Information and Support (Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Joint Delivery Board)

Question reference: S6W-36750

Asked by: Tess White, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 April 2025
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 7 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government whether the proposed Misogyny Bill will be introduced before the end of the current parliamentary session.

As set out in the answer to question S6W-37425, which was answered on 2 May 2025, due to the short amount of time left in this parliamentary session, there is insufficient time for a Misogyny Bill to be finalised and introduced. Therefore, the Scottish Government has decided not to proceed with this Bill in this parliamentary session.

However, in order to allow for the protected characteristic of ‘sex’ to be added to the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 so that women and girls have the same protections as other groups protected by that Act, we will lay before the Scottish Parliament in September a proposed draft of an SSI under the powers within the Act. This will allow for views to be offered on the approach taken before a finalised SSI is then subsequently laid which will, if agreed, result in new protections for women and girls being introduced.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Question reference: S6T-02503

Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 May 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 6 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what immediate action it will take to address the reported failure by NHS boards to publish significant adverse event reviews related to mother and baby deaths in hospitals.

Question reference: S6T-02508

Asked by: Katy Clark, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 May 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 6 May 2025

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that the number of new rape cases being reported to police has increased by more than a third since 2020-21.

Question reference: S6F-04057

Asked by: Kevin Stewart, MSP for Aberdeen Central, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 May 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 8 May 2025

To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government's response is to water scarcity alerts issued by SEPA for the east of Scotland, in light of low rainfall and warm temperatures.

Question reference: S6F-04054

Asked by: Patrick Harvie, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Green Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 May 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 8 May 2025

Question to be taken in Chamber.

Question reference: S6F-04052

Asked by: Russell Findlay, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 06 May 2025
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 8 May 2025

Question to be taken in Chamber.

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