The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring our children and young people have access to healthy and nutritious food when at school. The Scottish Government ensure that all food and drink served in education authority and grant aided schools, including free and paid for school meals, meet these high standards through the Nutritional Requirements for food and drink in schools (Scotland) Regulations 2020. The Regulations are based on scientific evidence and dietary advice and designed to ensure children and young people can access an appropriate amount of energy and key nutrients as part of their school day to support their healthy growth and development.

The Regulations require 2 full portions of vegetables and 1 full portion of fruit to be served as part of a primary school lunch and a secondary school analysed lunch, building on the previous standards which required a variety of fruit and vegetables to be on offer but did not specify a required portion size. In addition, portions of fruit and vegetables must be made available in any place within school premises where food is provided at other times of the school day for example morning break provision or tuckshops. Compliance with the Regulations is monitored by Education Scotland Health and Nutrition Inspectors as part of their annual inspection programme.

As set out in our Programme for Government, we will continue to work with local authorities to ensure that school meals meet the highest standards of nutrition, recognising that this is vital to our children’s effective learning.

The Scottish Government is currently working with Local Authorities on the roll out of the next phase of Free School Meal expansion therefore ensuring more of our children and young people are provided the opportunity to benefit from healthy and nutritious meals.

Food and nutrition is an integral part of our national educational curriculum set out in the health and wellbeing experiences and outcomes detailed in Curriculum for Excellence. This will help to ensure that children and young people are provided with the knowledge, skills and experience they need to make positive dietary choices, including why it is important to consume plenty of fruit and vegetables as part of a balanced and nutritious school lunch.

Funding for mental health services is drawn from the overall funds allocated to NHS Scotland by the Scottish Government. The latest available data from the Public Health Scotland Scottish Health Service Costs shows that for 2021-22 total expenditure by NHS Scotland on mental health was £1.299 billion. The figures for 2022-2023 are yet to be published.

As part of the block funding provided to NHS Boards by the Scottish Government, NHS Boards make operational decisions on how to deploy spend, in a way which best meets local needs. The detail of this is not held by the Scottish Government.

Prevention and early intervention remain a priority for the Scottish Government.

We have placed a stronger focus on preventing mental health issues and tackling the underlying causes and inequalities through our recently published Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy. The provision of advice and support will continue to be an important part of our approach.

We continue to undertake a range of preventative and early intervention mental health work, key examples include:

• We have invested a total of £51m since 2021 in our Community Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for Adults, with approximately 3,300 grants made to local projects across Scotland in the first two years alone.
• We have allocated a total of £45m since 2021-22 for local authorities to provide over 300 community mental health and wellbeing supports and services for children, young people and their families.
• We published an ambitious Suicide Prevention Strategy and Action Plan with COSLA in 2022, with the vision of reducing suicide deaths and tackling the inequalities which contribute to suicide. The strategy is supported by record funding to double the annual suicide prevention budget to £2.8m by 2026 and we are well on track to achieving this target.
• Since 2016, we have invested over £21m in our world-leading Distress Brief Intervention (DBI) programme, which offers timely, compassionate support to people in distress who come into contact with frontline services. Over 50,000 people have already been referred for DBI support. We are on track to have DBI available in all NHS Board areas by March 2024.

This information is publicly available and can be found on the Public Health Scotland website: National dental inspection programme - National dental inspection programme - Publications - Public Health Scotland

The conditions of eligibility and access to free bus travel for people aged under 22 are set out in the National Bus Travel Concession Scheme for Young Persons (Scotland) Order 2021. There are no powers to enable local authorities to revoke a person's free bus travel card.

Over the last three years (2021-24), £51 million has been provided through the Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for adults. The following amounts have been provided in each year:

• 2021-22 (Year 1) – £21 million.
• 2022-23 (Year 2) – £15 million.
• 2023-24 (Year 3) – £15 million.

This is in addition to the £45 million allocated to local authorities since 2021 to provide community-based mental health and wellbeing support for children, young people and their families.

Future funding will be subject to the annual budget process and approval by the Scottish Parliament.

The reduction in the number of bursaries awarded in 2022-23 compared with 2018 is the result of a decrease in the number of applications received and as a result, less were approved. Information on the number of applications received and bursaries awarded is available in the Skills Development Scotland 2022-23 evaluation report. https://www.skillsdevelopmentscotland.co.uk/media/50367/stem-bursary-evaluation-report-2022-23.pdf .

Between November 2020 and March 2023, awareness of the Young Person’s Guarantee among employability staff was achieved using existing networks and communication channels. There was no funding allocated to the specific promotion of the Young Person’s Guarantee aimed at employability staff.

The Scottish Government has provided a total of £4,367,590.00 of grant funding to the Association for Real Change (ARC) Scotland between 1 April 2013-30 September 2023 to support a number of areas of their work. This is broken down per financial year as follows:

The Scottish Government announced the launch of the Young Person’s Guarantee in November 2020, with the aim of protecting young people against the immediate economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Guarantee aimed to ensure every young person between 16 and 24 had the opportunity of a job, apprenticeship, further or higher education, training or volunteering. Between November 2020 and March 2023 we invested over £175m in additional support from Covid-related funding.

We have now mainstreamed this work across Government and, through our championing of the payment of the real Living Wage (which has a higher hourly rate than the National Living Wage), we continue to promote increases in young people’s earnings.

The Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) (Scotland) Bill was introduced to Parliament on 5 October 2023 by Ms Gillian Mackay MSP. The Scottish Government has been working with Ms Mackay to draft and develop the Bill for the past 12 months, and I would like to congratulate her on reaching this important milestone.