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: S7W-00914

Asked by: David Linden, MSP for Glasgow Baillieston and Shettleston, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 June 2026
Current Status: Answered by Angela Constance on 22 June 2026

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the number of specialist clinicians in Scotland whose area of expertise includes postural tachycardia syndrome.

The Scottish Government has not undertaken a specific assessment of the number of specialist clinicians in Scotland whose expertise includes postural tachycardia syndrome (PoTS).

Autonomic symptoms are often experienced as part of a range of other conditions and may be managed across different clinical specialties. Information on clinicians with expertise in PoTS is not held centrally. NHS Boards may be able to provide further information on local service provision.

Question reference: S7O-00096

Asked by: David Linden, MSP for Glasgow Baillieston and Shettleston, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 10 June 2026
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 18 June 2026

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the adequacy of provision for Islamic cemeteries and burial grounds in Scotland, including the support or guidance that it provides to local authorities in meeting the needs of Muslim communities.

Question reference: S7W-00832

Asked by: David Linden, MSP for Glasgow Baillieston and Shettleston, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 June 2026
Current Status: Answer expected on 18 June 2026

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the Trading Standards Workforce Survey of 2025, which was prepared by the Society of Chief Officers of Trading Standards in Scotland.

Question reference: S7W-00833

Asked by: David Linden, MSP for Glasgow Baillieston and Shettleston, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 04 June 2026
Current Status: Answer expected on 18 June 2026

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to support and promote modern apprenticeships in regulatory services.

Question reference: S7O-00038

Current Status: Withdrawn

Question reference: S7W-00190

Asked by: David Linden, MSP for Glasgow Baillieston and Shettleston, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 21 May 2026
Current Status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 2 June 2026

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of stalled spaces in Glasgow where associated remedial works on contaminated land would be deemed to make construction of social housing cost prohibitive.

The Scottish Government has worked closely with local authorities and industry partners to identify and address barriers to the delivery of housing, including those related to planning and contaminated land.

During 2025, a total of 114 sites across Scotland were assessed as part of this work. Of these, 11 sites were located within the Glasgow City Council area. None of these 11 sites were identified as being stalled due to issues relating to contaminated land or the cost of associated remediation works.

The Regeneration Capital Grant Fund (RCGF) provides funding through local authorities for project proposals that support place based regeneration, including the remediation of vacant and derelict land to unlock sites for development of new homes.

Further assistance is provided through the Vacant and Derelict Land Fund (VDLF), a ring-fenced element of the local government finance settlement targeted at local authorities with the greatest levels of long-term vacant and derelict land and deprivation.

In terms of supporting the delivery of social housing on land requiring remediation, the Affordable Housing Supply Programme (AHSP) allows for grant funding to contribute towards eligible remediation costs within the curtilage of a development site.

Under the Transfer of the Management of Development Funding (TMDF) arrangements, the assessment and administration of these funding applications in Glasgow is conducted by Glasgow City Council on behalf of Scottish Ministers.

Question reference: S7W-00030

Asked by: David Linden, MSP for Glasgow Baillieston and Shettleston, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 14 May 2026
Current Status: Answered by Ben Macpherson on 29 May 2026

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to promote apprenticeships (a) in bricklaying and (b) overall.

The Scottish Government supports Skills Development Scotland (SDS) and training providers to work with employers to raise awareness of the benefits of apprenticeships to their business.

SDS promote all types of apprenticeship opportunities, including bricklaying, as an attractive career path through their all-age career service, in every local authority. An SDS Careers Adviser is embedded in every school in Scotland to highlight the career options available to people, including apprenticeships.

The My World of Work website, used in schools to support young people, includes in depth information about apprenticeships, whilst apprenticeships.scot is promoted to all ages as the main source of information about Scottish Apprenticeships. SDS also work with partners and employers to highlight the importance of apprenticeships particularly through Scottish Apprenticeship Week.

SDS has also explored how to better support the construction workforce through the recently published research they commissioned, on behalf of the Skills and Workforce Group of the Construction Accord.

In tandem, a short-life working group led by the Scottish Funding Council, has focused on developing practical solutions to strengthen learner pathways and improve workforce retention in the sector. This work, in collaboration with the Scottish Government, college sector, SDS and the Construction Industry Training Board, is nearing completion.

Question reference: S7W-00035

Asked by: David Linden, MSP for Glasgow Baillieston and Shettleston, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 14 May 2026
Current Status: Answered by Stephen Flynn on 29 May 2026

To ask the Scottish Government how many road traffic collisions involving electric scooters, electric bikes and pedestrians there have been in each year since 2016.

Data on collisions which cause injury and take place on the road network, including adjacent pavements and cycle lanes, is collected by Police Scotland as part of the Great Britain-wide dataset known as STATS19.

The following tables provide the number of injury road collisions recorded as involving an e-bike or an e-scooter and pedestrians between 2016 and 2024, the last full year for which we currently have data.

E-scooters and e-bikes are not designated vehicle types collected within STATS19, and as such they can only be identified using free-text fields which capture other vehicles and similar. This is likely to represent an incomplete record of e-bikes in particular, as it is not always possible to identify where e-bikes may have been recorded as bicycle or electric motorcycle, which are both designated vehicle types.

Transport Scotland is currently part of a working group led by the Department for Transport, which is considering how the collection of injury road collision data for different vehicle types, and for e-bikes in particular, can be improved.

Number of injury road collisions involving e-bikes and pedestrians

Year	Number
2016	0
2017	0
2018	0
2019	0
2020	0
2021	1
2022	0
2023	0
2024	1

Number of injury road collisions involving e-scooters and pedestrians

Year	Number
2016	0
2017	0
2018	0
2019	0
2020	0
2021	1
2022	1
2023	4
2024	1

Question reference: S7W-00021

Asked by: David Linden, MSP for Glasgow Baillieston and Shettleston, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 14 May 2026
Current Status: Answered by Stephen Flynn on 26 May 2026

To ask the Scottish Government how many rail passengers have used (a) Easterhouse, (b) Garrowhill, (c) Shettleston, (d) Carntyne, (e) Baillieston, (f) Mount Vernon and (g) Carmyle stations in each year since 2022, and what assessment it has made of these figures.

Question reference: S7W-00032

Asked by: David Linden, MSP for Glasgow Baillieston and Shettleston, Scottish National Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 14 May 2026
Current Status: Answered by Jim Fairlie on 26 May 2026

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the supply and demand for allotments in Glasgow.

The provision of allotments is the responsibility of local authorities as set out in the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 (“the 2015 Act”), Part 9.

Section 111 of the 2015 Act requires local authorities to maintain a waiting list of persons who ask to lease or sublease an allotment. Section 112 then requires local authorities to take steps to manage the number of persons on that list.

In accordance with section 121 of the 2015 Act, local authorities report annually on the provision of allotments in their areas. The legislation clearly defines the mandatory information to be included in the annual allotment reports which includes;

the location and size of each allotment site,
the number of allotments on each allotment site,
the rent payable,
the number of people on the waiting list and how many have been waiting 5 years or more,
the number of allotments on each allotment site that are accessible by a disabled person,
the number of allotments adjusted to meet the needs of a tenant who is a disabled person,
the income received, and expenditure incurred, by the authority in connection with allotment sites,
such other information as may be prescribed.

Annual Allotment Reports are available online from the Glasgow City Council website. Those reports are required to include information on the demand for and supply of allotments in Glasgow. The Scottish Government does not collect this information centrally and does not hold historic data on allotment provision.