The Scottish Government has not engaged in any discussions with Norwegian Government ministers or officials regarding the Rosebank oilfield.

We are committed to a just energy transition for the North Sea. Collaboration with our Nordic partners on this transition – including in relation to offshore wind, Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage, port infrastructure and hydrogen – is a key area of activity for the Scottish Government.

There has not been a reduction in Scottish Government's funding awarded to Creative Scotland. Over the last five years, Scottish Government has provided over £33m to Creative Scotland to compensate for the continuous shortfall in National Lottery funding.

As a result of rising costs and pressure on budgets across government, we are unable to make up the ongoing shortfall this year.

On 27 September the Board of Creative Scotland agreed to provide £6.6m for this financial year from its funding reserves, which totals £17m, to cover the shortfall in National Lottery funding. This means that none of Creative Scotland’s Regularly Funded Organisations will receive reduced funding this financial year.

Subject to the usual Parliamentary processes we will provide the National Lottery shortfall funding of £6.6m to Creative Scotland in 2024-2025.

The review is in-progress and is being led by a representative stakeholder group, chaired by Neil McInroy, Global Lead for Community Wealth Building with The Democracy Collaborative, and also Chair of the Economic Development Association of Scotland (EDAS).

The review process commenced in June 2023, with the first two meetings of the group being held in September and October. It is anticipated that the work will complete, with findings and recommendations published in Spring 2023.

The Scottish Government is developing the approach for implementing the priorities set out in the Purpose and Principles for Post-School Education, Research and Skills, which addresses some of the recommendations by James Withers, including on national and regional skills planning.

As I stated in my opening remarks in the debate about Scotland’s skills system on 25 th October, I am keen to engage widely on the approach to implementing change as we narrow in on the potential routes to reform.

Local Authorities, colleges and employers, alongside other partners, have an important role in regional skills planning and I will engage with them in the coming weeks to gather their views and discuss this matter.

It is important that we take the time to work closely with industry, with investors and with our partners across the public and private sectors to ensure that we get our approach to this right. This process is already well-underway and we will update parliament once it has been completed.

a) Presently, Scottish Government's overall fleet is comprised of 69% ultra-low and zero emission vehicles. Zero emission vehicles make up 26% of the total Scottish Government fleet.

b) Data held by Transport Scotland on the % of zero emission vehicles in Scottish Government agency fleets at the end of 2022 is summarised in the following table.

The Energy sector is reserved to the UK Government and therefore the resilience of the UK’s energy network is the responsibility of the UK lead Government department, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

The Scottish Government contributed to the Storm Arwen Ofgem review and supported the recommendation that work is undertaken by the Energy Emergencies Executive Committee (E3C) to review current distribution and transmission network infrastructure standards and guidance, including those for vegetation management and overhead line designs, to identify economic and efficient improvements that could increase network resilience to severe weather events.

Any further information relating to progress of this recommendation is a matter for Ofgem.

The Children’s Parliament delivers objectives from two Scottish Government funding streams: United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) Implementation Programme; and the Children Young People and Families Early Intervention & Adult Learning and Empowering Communities fund (CYPFEIF & ALEC).

UNCRC Implementation Programme funding objectives for 2022-23:

• Empower children to be heard and to influence policy making
• Support duty bearers to build knowledge, skills and confidence to deliver children’s human rights
• Raise awareness of children’s human rights among children and wider society
  

CYPFEI & ALEC funding objectives set for 2022-23:

• Children have improved knowledge and understanding of their human rights and increased opportunities to participate in democratic processes
• Public bodies increase knowledge and understanding about the needs and concerns of children and use this to make public services more responsive to children's needs
• Children's Parliament extends the reach and influence of children voices across Scotland and internationally

The Scottish Government recognises the crucial role that innovation plays in enabling the sustainable development of Scottish aquaculture. We will continue to work with our enterprise agencies, innovation centres, and other relevant stakeholders to find ways that encourage innovation that helps the industry address its most pressing challenges while creating opportunities for Scottish businesses.  

For example, the Scottish Government recently sponsored Scotland's Pavilion at Aqua Nor 2023, the world's largest aquaculture technology and trade exhibition, providing £85,000 from the Marine Fund Scotland to allow Scottish businesses to locate together, demonstrate their innovation and science capabilities and make an impact.

The Scottish Government will publish a dedicated self-harm strategy and action plan by the end of 2023, with the aim of ensuring people who self-harm, or who are at risk of self-harming, receive effective and compassionate support. This builds on our investment of £1.5m (since 2021) in the Self-harm Network Scotland , which is showing positive outcomes in supporting people who self-harm and those who care for them.

Research evidence, including insights from people with lived experience, confirms that often people who self-harm do not seek support from statutory services. We also know that for many people who attend hospital for self-harm treatment will not need to be admitted. Furthermore, there are differences in recording practices between clinicians and Health Boards. These factors mean the data on self-harm admission in hospitals is currently incomplete and unreliable, and for these reasons the data on self-harm received by Public Health Scotland from inpatient and emergency care settings is not routinely published.

Addressing these data issues will be a key priority in our self-harm strategy and a priority of the action plan will be to review, and improve data, including in hospital settings, to drive improvements in support and service responses for people who self-harm.