The Government plans to introduce a new Housing Bill this year. The timing and scope of that Bill is subject to ongoing review an consideration as we continue to deliver our emergency response to support tenants through the ongoing cost of living crisis.

The Scottish Hospice Leadership Group discussed these issues at their meeting in November 2022, which was attended by a Scottish Government official.

In the Chamber on 15 December the First Minister said that we will undertake to ensure that discussions take place directly with the sector.

The cost of responding to these types of incidents or spills are a matter for the public bodies, the relevant authorities, or agencies. The information requested is not held centrally and therefore the information requested could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

HIAL worked to limit the impact of the industrial action where possible and were able to keep Campbeltown, Dundee, Inverness, Islay, Tiree and Wick John O’Groats Airports fully operational during the strikes. They were also able to facilitate reduced operations at Kirkwall and Stornoway Airports. Safety, however, is paramount and where there are insufficient staff available for airports to operate in a safe and regulatory compliant way, flights are not able to operate.

Provision, maintenance and servicing of bikes comes from our budget to support Active Travel in 2021-2022, that amounted to £115.5m in total, and in 2022-2023 that amounted to £150m.

Specifically we have three programmes which focus on the provision, service and repair of a bike. They are the Free Bikes Commitment, Access Bikes run by Cycling UK and Scotland’s Cycle Repair Scheme (SCRS) run by Cycling UK. Their financials since May 2021 are below:

• Free Bikes Commitment - £4,495,106.72
• Access Bikes - £594,583
• SCRS - £3,215,123

I met with the Chair and Chief Executive of Loganair, HIAL’s largest customer, on 20 December 2022 to discuss the industrial action at HIAL’s airports and the measures that Loganair had put in place to minimise the disruption for passengers.

The £2m was committed to be spent over this parliament (to March 31 2026). Of the £2 million previously committed at COP26, £1.7 million has been delivered through grants. £1 million was grant funded to the Climate Justice Resilience Fund (CJRF). Created in 2016, CJRF is one of the first major funding initiatives framed explicitly around climate justice, and one of few philanthropic players that works internationally on climate resilience. They have been selected as they have extensive experience of delivering rapid, community-based finance to address climate justice.

Through the Scottish Government’s partnership with the CJRF, five project in the Global South have been grant funded grants to date; £233k to Young Power in Social Action (YPSA), £228k to Helvetas Bangladesh, £205k to Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC), £182k to Churches Action in Relief and Development (CARD) and £136k to the Loss and Damage Youth Coalition Youth Grantmaking Council (LDYGC).

Furthermore, £500k of the initial £2 million has been granted to The Scottish Catholic International Fund to directly support communities in our partner country, Malawi, facing losses and damage resulting from recent tropical storms. With participation and co-design at the heart of their programming, SCIAF and partners have built long-term relationships through the delivery of the SG funded Climate Challenge Programme Malawi with communities who are now experiencing severe loss and damages. SCIAF’s experience and existing relations will ensure Scottish Government funding has an immediate and much needed impact in Malawian communities.

Alongside grant funded projects on the ground, the Scottish Government identified a gap in global knowledge and understanding through extensive stakeholder engagement and as such, allocated part of the £2 million funding to further research on loss and damage. £75k has been awarded to the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) to investigate operationalising finance for Loss and Damage. A further £150k has been granted to the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) in Bangladesh for further research on loss and damage.

Final decisions on how the remaining unallocated funds will be spent will be made following stakeholder engagement and a thorough review of the global commitments made at COP27 to ensure that the Scottish Government creates maximum impact with our approach and does not duplicate funding efforts elsewhere.

Officials are planning to undertake stakeholder engagement events early in 2023 in order to inform the delivery mechanism and selection criteria for this funding. Recommendations will then be put to Ministers in advance of any formal agreement being made with the aim of the selection process starting in Q1 of FY 23/24. Through this process, officials will deliver a participatory, co-designed programme that fully meets the needs of the communities that it seeks to serve. The minister is happy to update parliament once a ministerial decision is taken.

The CJF in 2023-24 expects to fund the Climate Just Communities programme, which will operate in Malawi, Rwanda and Zambia; the WEDO programme, which supports women delegates to be visible and heard during significant global negotiations; and a human rights defenders fellowship, which will support environmental fellows through the existing SG-led programme. In addition, once the selection process and delivery mechanism for the £5m funding for non-economic loss and damage is finalised, initiatives can begin to be funded through this programme.

We are grateful to Scotland Versus Arthritis for their support in developing the draft Framework for Pain Management Service Delivery as members of the National Advisory Committee for Chronic Pain.

The Implementation Plan sets out, for the first time, an ambitious national direction for improvement including 18 Actions which reflect the priorities of people with chronic pain to improve the care and services they need.

This includes taking a whole-system approach to address long-standing, complex issues including improving the quality of national resources such as NHS Inform, reviewing referrals and pathways of care, investing in comprehensive national data on chronic pain and its impact, and developing a national knowledge and skills framework to drive recognition, earlier intervention and improve quality of care for people with chronic pain.

We have also redesigned our Governance structure to ensure that we can deliver these Actions at pace. This includes investing in a new Third-Sector Network in direct response to requests from charity organisations including Scotland Versus Arthritis to better support their involvement in implementing the Framework. We will continue to monitor delivery of the Implementation Plan to ensure there is rapid progress and to identify further opportunities to improve pain services.

In addition to our investment in these challenges, we have recognised the impact of arthritis, and are providing £400m to develop a network of National Treatment Centres which will provide additional capacity for hip and knee surgeries which are a significant contributor to chronic musculoskeletal pain.

As stated by Scotland Versus Arthritis in their recent briefing to MSPs, the majority of people with chronic pain are seen in primary care services. That is why we are also providing increased funding of £170 million this year to support primary care services to expand multi-disciplinary teams and provide additional pharmacists, physiotherapists and occupational therapists who can support people to better manage chronic pain and its impact. We welcome the continued input of Scotland Versus Arthritis and other third-sector partners in our shared goal of improving care and services for people with chronic pain.