Chamber and committees

As outlined in my response to S6W-27647 on 31 May 2024, and in my recent letter to Ms Gosal, I would welcome the opportunity to meet with you to discuss further alongside your policy paper which outlines this particular ask. 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 .

The Scottish Government absolutely recognises the serious damage which violence against woman and girls causes to individuals and society, as evidenced through the aims of our Equally Safe Strategy and its delivery mechanisms.

As I have outlined in my recent letter to Ms Gosal, I would welcome the opportunity to meet with you to discuss this area alongside your policy paper which outlines this particular ask in the context of Police Scotland.

The Scottish Government has confirmed a budget of around £1.7m per year to deliver the actions contained within the Sexual Health and Blood Borne Virus (SHBBV) Action Plan 2023-26. This includes a range of projects that support HIV transmission elimination, details of which were published with the SHBBV plan.

Within this, the Scottish Government has also provided funding for the national HIV anti-stigma campaign (£250,000 in 2022-23), the development of an ePrEP clinic (£400,000 in 2022-23), emergency department opt-out testing pilots (£145,000), online postal self-sampling for STIs and HIV (£119,000 in 2023-24, and £300,000 per year allocated in 2024-25 and 2025-26) and the Terrence Higgins Trust HIV self-test service (around £100,000 per year).

His Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) release accredited official statistics estimating the value of the UK's regional trade in goods, covering both exports and imports. These can be accessed at the following address: uktradeinfo.com/trade-data/regional/ . These statistics include estimates for Scotland and are updated on a quarterly basis.

The Scottish Government provides further analysis of this data which is available on the Scottish Government website: Total trade in goods - Scotland's International Goods Trade: Quarter 3 2023 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The latest report available to date is for quarter three in 2023. This shows that, when looking at the total export value of goods in the year ending quarter three 2023 compared to the year ending quarter three 2019, Scotland's goods exports have increased by 2.1% to £35.1 billion. When looking at Scotland's onshore economy (excluding oil and gas), goods exports have risen by 17.3% over this period, to £23.7 billion.

The Scottish Government also produces estimates of exports which include both goods and services in the accredited official statistics publication Export Statistics Scotland (ESS), Exports statistics Scotland 2021 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . The latest statistics currently available in this release are for calendar year 2021. These statistics show that the value of Scotland's international exports was 11.5% lower in calendar year 2021 compared to calendar year 2019, at £31.3 billion (excluding oil and gas).

Differences between these sources of export estimates are described in the Export Statistics Scotland Methodology, Other sources of trade data - Export Statistics Scotland: methodology - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . It is important to note that none of the data sources mentioned above account for the effect of inflation on estimates of the value of exports.

Over the period referenced, Scotland's export performance has been significantly impacted by the shocks of Covid-19, the detrimental impact of existing the EU and the subsequent trade deals, of which negotiations are not devolved. In fact, our analysis shows that in 2019 Scottish exports were growing consistently in all directions - to the rest of the UK, the EU and the rest of the world, and we have clear evidence that is no longer the case, with Brexit resulting in Scotland’s trade in goods to the EU being 12% lower in 2021, the first year of the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation agreement.

The Scottish Government remains committed to supporting exporters and continues to work with its enterprise agencies to deliver A Trading Nation, our export growth plan. Trade results produced by Scottish Development International, one of our main delivery agencies, showed that the support it provided to companies across Scotland in Financial Year 2022-23 will result in £1.73 billion of planned international sales over the next three years – a 20% increase compared to Financial Year 2021-22. This trade support enabled Scottish firms to enter 301 new markets, with a focus on the United States, Germany, Singapore and the UAE. As part of this, 335 new products and services left Scotland for these markets in that year.

The proportion of electricity consumed by households that will be generated by nuclear power stations in the rest of the UK is not possible to predict with any level of certainty in 2028. It will depend on a range of market factors.

The Scottish Government recognises that certainty of funding is critical to allow Local Employability Partnerships to plan provision effectively and to provide security for the people accessing services through No One Left Behind. That is why the Scottish Budget 2024-25 sets out our commitment to explore future multi-year funding for employability. We will be working to determine the detail underpinning this commitment in the coming months.

NHS Education for Scotland (NES) manage the nursing and midwifery Return to Practice education provision on behalf of Scottish Government.

Although the deadline has passed, the tender process is still live, and NES expects to publish the award on the Public Contracts Scotland website in the week commencing 24 June 2024.

The Scottish Budget confirmed that the financial outlook for 2024-25 across Government is particularly challenging with future prospects continuing to be volatile. As such, the 2024-25 budget is a single year spending plan and no decisions have been made in relation to the budget for the Strengthening Communities Programme from 1 April 2025.

Whilst the main objective of safer drug consumption facilities (SDCF) is to provide medical attention in the case of an overdose there is also a significant body of evidence for the important role SDCFs play in reducing the sharing of injecting equipment. This reduces the risk of HIV and hepatitis C transmission.

The SDCF in Glasgow will provide people who inject drugs, including cocaine, with sterile injection equipment, advice on injecting technique and other vital harm reduction advice. Current approaches to harm reduction with regards to injecting cocaine will be discussed with academics and presenters from the Cocaine & Crack Cocaine Conference on 4 June 2024.

The Latest data from Public Health Scotland indicate that sexual acquisition is the most common exposure category for new HIV diagnoses in Scotland, however people who inject drugs remain at risk of HIV and other blood borne viruses.

There has been a downward trend in diagnoses among people who inject drugs following the peak of the outbreak in NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde in 2015.

The effectiveness of interventions implemented at the height of the outbreak underline the importance of continuing to promote HIV testing, delivery of treatment and care, provision of harm reduction measures and awareness raising initiatives to this particularly vulnerable group.

SDCF provide a further opportunity for delivering these vital interventions and could therefore contribute to ending new transmissions of HIV in Scotland by 2030.

The Mackintosh Building is owned by The Glasgow School of Art, with responsibility for its own strategic and operational decision making. It has been a long standing principle that employers, building owners and managers are responsible for their own premises.

The Scottish Government and other public bodies will continue to engage closely with the Glasgow School of Art as it progresses its plans for a faithful reinstatement of the Mackintosh building.