– in the Scottish Parliament on 16 January 2025.
Today, Scotland’s nurses have spoken. A damning report from the Royal College of Nursing lays bare our broken national health service. First-hand accounts from more than 500 Scottish nurses...
Last week, I raised the case of Robert, a retired policeman from Lanarkshire, who spent five and a half hours on the floor in accident and emergency before being given morphine and a bed. The...
Presiding Officer—[Interruption.]
To ask the First Minister what assessment the Scottish Government has made of the potential economic impact of Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners’ reported £800 million investment in...
To ask the First Minister, in light of the rise in the number of people under 50 being diagnosed with bowel cancer, what proposals the Scottish Government has to extend the national bowel...
To ask the First Minister how the Scottish Government is responding to reports that 182 sexual assaults, including rapes, have taken place in hospitals in the last five years. (S6F-03721)
Yesterday, the Scottish National Investment Bank announced a welcome £20 million investment into XLCC, the company that is developing the United Kingdom’s first high-voltage direct...
I was contacted this week by a constituent in Prestwick. He attended an appointment with his general practitioner on 30 December with a lesion on his back suspected to be skin cancer. His GP made...
Last week, I led a members’ business debate on diabetes technology, in which I highlighted that Scottish intercollegiate guidelines network guideline 170, which gives people with type 1...
Yesterday, the Secretary of State for Scotland, Ian Murray, claimed that the Scottish National Party Government had not yet asked for Department for Work and Pensions data to end the two-child...
I am sure that the First Minister is aware of the surprise announcement by Lloyds Banking Group concerning the closure in 2026 of its base in Dunfermline, which currently employs 1,500 people....
Thirty million United Kingdom homes are heated by gas, and half of the gas that we need is imported. The less gas we produce here, the more we will rely on the USA for fracked gas. Does the First...
My constituency was one of the areas most severely hit in the 2001 foot-and-mouth disease outbreak. My brother and I were directly affected because our farm was only a stone’s throw away...
Question Time is an opportunity for MPs and Members of the House of Lords to ask Government Ministers questions. These questions are asked in the Chamber itself and are known as Oral Questions. Members may also put down Written Questions. In the House of Commons, Question Time takes place for an hour on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays after Prayers. The different Government Departments answer questions according to a rota and the questions asked must relate to the responsibilities of the Government Department concerned. In the House of Lords up to four questions may be asked of the Government at the beginning of each day's business. They are known as 'starred questions' because they are marked with a star on the Order Paper. Questions may also be asked at the end of each day's business and these may include a short debate. They are known as 'unstarred questions' and are less frequent. Questions in both Houses must be written down in advance and put on the agenda and both Houses have methods for selecting the questions that will be asked. Further information can be obtained from factsheet P1 at the UK Parliament site.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
