Chamber and committees

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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

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Question reference: S6W-43517

Asked by: Jackson Carlaw, MSP for Eastwood, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 February 2026
Current Status: Answer expected on 16 February 2026

To ask the Scottish Government what engagement it has had with (a) Scottish Athletics and (b) Scottish Schools Athletics regarding the consumption of caffeinated chewing gum, including discussion on any potential health risks that it poses for young people participating in athletics.

Question reference: S6W-43516

Asked by: Jackson Carlaw, MSP for Eastwood, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 February 2026
Current Status: Answer expected on 16 February 2026

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will review any health risks associated with young people in Scotland consuming caffeinated chewing gum, in light of the warning issued by the Nottinghamshire County Council Trading Standards department on 9 October 2025 regarding such products.

Question reference: S6W-43518

Asked by: Jackson Carlaw, MSP for Eastwood, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 February 2026
Current Status: Answer expected on 16 February 2026

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will commission research into any impact of fast release caffeine products on children and young people, including caffeinated chewing gum, in particular for those who participate in athletics, sport and physical activity, to determine whether their use by under 18s should be banned.

Question reference: S6W-43493

Asked by: Jackson Carlaw, MSP for Eastwood, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Monday, 02 February 2026
Current Status: Answer expected on 16 February 2026

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-40490 by Jenni Minto on 25 September 2025, whether any meetings have since taken place with UK ministers to discuss the 2024 Hughes Report, and what progress has been made towards (a) delivering compensation for mesh injured women and (b) the UK Government contributing to a redress scheme for Scotland.

Question reference: S6W-43151

Asked by: Jackson Carlaw, MSP for Eastwood, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Friday, 16 January 2026
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 27 January 2026

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will confirm the total number of existing (a) residential, (b) commercial and (c) industrial properties that are considered at risk of flooding, based on SEPA's use of the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 emissions scenario, broken down by local authority area.

SEPA recently completed an update to their National Flood Risk Assessment. This was summarised in their December 2025 National Flood Risk Assessment 2025 report.

The report includes data on the number of properties at risk in a medium risk current day scenario* and the number of properties at risk in 2100 under a medium risk climate change scenario**. These are broken down by local authority and residential/non residential properties in Table B, rather than split by property type. Local authority distribution of flood risk in the appendix of the report. A subset of relevant data from that table is replicated below.

SEPA plan to publish more detailed data in March 2026.

Local Authority	Total Properties at Risk	Residential	Non-Residential	% of Total Properties at Risk	Properties at Risk by 2100
Aberdeen City	20400	18200	2200	15	31400
Aberdeenshire	19800	13000	6800	11	29100
Angus	6600	4300	2300	9	11500
Argyll & Bute	12200	8200	4000	18	17700
City of Edinburgh	39100	36500	2600	14	64500
Clackmannanshire	5100	4500	600	18	7500
Comhairle nan Eilean Siar	1700	1300	500	9	3100
Dumfries & Galloway	19500	11600	7900	17	27200
Dundee City	8600	7400	1300	10	13900
East Ayrshire	8300	6400	1900	12	12500
East Dunbartonshire	5700	5000	700	11	8800
East Lothian	7800	6200	1600	12	12400
East Renfrewshire	4600	4200	400	10	6700
Falkirk	10000	7800	2200	12	18900
Fife	18700	14800	3900	9	29500
Glasgow City	52900	49100	3800	15	82000
Highland	20600	13600	7100	12	37000
Inverclyde	6300	5500	800	15	10200
Midlothian	4300	3600	700	9	7200
Moray	7900	4800	3200	13	13600
North Ayrshire	8700	7100	1600	10	14700
North Lanarkshire	18900	16500	2300	11	30100
Orkney	2200	1500	800	13	3500
Perth & Kinross	12700	8400	4300	13	20800
Renfrewshire	11600	10400	1200	12	19100
Scottish Borders	14700	9500	5200	17	20200
Shetland	1100	600	500	7	1700
South Ayrshire	7000	5200	1900	10	12300
South Lanarkshire	18600	15400	3200	10	29100
Stirling	7500	5600	1900	14	12900
West Dunbartonshire	8400	7300	1100	17	11900
West Lothian	7800	6500	1300	8	13400

* defined as areas with more than 0.5% chance of flooding each year

** The climate change scenario is based on SEPA's future flood maps which use a variety of climate change scenarios including the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 emissions scenario (UKCP18) and scenarios from UKCP09. More details about SEPA's future flood maps and the scenarios used can be found in National Flood Risk Assessment 2025 and future-flood-maps-summary_v4.pdf.

Question reference: S6W-43225

Asked by: Jackson Carlaw, MSP for Eastwood, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 January 2026
Current Status: Answer expected on 4 February 2026

To ask the Scottish Government what workforce assessment it has carried out of hairdressing businesses, and what its position is regarding whether there will be sufficient fully-qualified hairdressers to meet future demand.

Question reference: S6W-43224

Asked by: Jackson Carlaw, MSP for Eastwood, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 January 2026
Current Status: Answer expected on 4 February 2026

To ask the Scottish Government what consideration it has given to the support that it can provide to hairdressing businesses towards (a) training apprentices and (b) the recruitment and retention of staff, including what assistance it can offer to reduce the cost of this.

Question reference: S6W-43226

Asked by: Jackson Carlaw, MSP for Eastwood, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 21 January 2026
Current Status: Answer expected on 4 February 2026

To ask the Scottish Government how many hairdressing courses there have been at colleges in Scotland in each year since 2021-22, also broken down by how many students have (a) enrolled on and (b) graduated from these.

Question reference: S6W-42638

Asked by: Jackson Carlaw, MSP for Eastwood, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 16 December 2025
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 12 January 2026

To ask the Scottish Government whether it can provide an estimate of the (a) highest, (b) lowest and (c) average cost of flood insurance for existing residential properties in circumstances where SEPA's high emissions scenario has placed the homes in an area that is deemed to be at a high risk of flooding.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the specific costs of flood insurance for residential properties. Insurance premiums are set by individual insurers who use commercial risk maps, developed by a number of providers, for pricing purposes.

SEPA’s flood risk maps are produced to inform public awareness, planning, and flood risk management. They are not commercial risk maps and are not developed for insurers to use to set premiums.

The Scottish Government continues to work in co-operation with the UK Government and the other devolved administrations to ensure flood insurance remains widely available and affordable. This includes engaging with the UK Flood Re scheme. Every insurer that offers home insurance in the UK must pay into the Flood Re scheme, raising £160m annually that is used to cover flood risks in home insurance policies for properties that might otherwise find it difficult to get insurance. Over 22,000 properties in Scotland were part of the scheme in 2025.

While insurance regulation is a reserved matter, the Scottish Government continues to engage with the UK Government and industry partners to ensure that the needs of households in Scotland are fully considered.

Question reference: S6W-42637

Asked by: Jackson Carlaw, MSP for Eastwood, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Tuesday, 16 December 2025
Current Status: Answered by Gillian Martin on 12 January 2026

To ask the Scottish Government what engagement it has had with SEPA over its adoption of Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5, in which a global temperature rise of 4.3 degrees centigrade is anticipated, as set out in the document, Climate change allowances for flood risk assessment in land use planning Version 6, and what its position is on whether the principal environmental regulator has chosen to use an overly precautionary emissions scenario, when COP30 projections had a maximum temperature increase of 2.8 degrees centigrade.

SEPA has a statutory duty to reduce overall flood risk and will provide advice accordingly to planning authorities in its role as a statutory consultee on development proposals. SEPA’s guidance has been taken forward with an approach consistent with advice from the Climate Change Committee.

NPF4 policy aims to strengthen flood resilience and reduce the vulnerability of existing and future development to flooding. The planning system requires decision makers to weigh up all relevant policies, for example, flood risk, quality homes, brownfield development and town centre living, in applying balanced planning judgement.

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