Chamber and committees

We are grateful to everyone who has volunteered for vaccine trials in Scotland. They have all made a tremendous contribution to tackling the COVID-19 pandemic.

At present, Novavax is not approved by the MHRA in the UK. For this reason, people who participated in the Novavax Trial in Scotland have a paper certificate to identify them as a ‘clinical trial participant’ which allows them to be treated as if they were fully vaccinated for domestic and inbound travel purposes.

There are plans to enable all clinical trial participants to access the COVID status app for domestic certification which is scheduled for release in February.

If and when the MHRA approves the use of Novavax in the UK, the Novavax clinical trial participants will be able to access the COVID status app for international travel in the same way as an individual who has been vaccinated as part of the national vaccination programme. We do not have a definite timeline for MHRA approval to be in place.

Including self-referrals, a total of 1157 referrals were made to the Chest Heart and Stroke Scotland long COVID Support Service from April to December 2021. The Scottish Government does not hold this information broken down by month.

Expert advice from bodies including SAGE and the Health and Safety Executive indicates that air cleaning/filtration devices, such as HEPA filters, are not a substitute for efforts to improve ventilation in order to mitigate against the risks of COVID. Our guidance for schools reflects this advice, and makes clear that air cleaning/filtration devices should not be used as a substitute for natural or mechanical ventilation (including the opening of windows and doors).

Our updated guidance for schools does, however, make clear that air cleaning/filtration devices may be used as a temporary mitigation in exceptional circumstances when no other mitigations are achievable, while working to achieve a more sustainable solution.

The Scottish Government keeps its guidance under regular review in light of the latest expert advice, and will consider any necessary updates as research and evidence evolve.

Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) is reserved to the UK Government. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) publishes an estimate of ESA and other income-related benefits every six months, at a UK-wide level only. The latest figures published (covering 2018-2019) show that 94% of the total amount of Income Support or Income-related ESA that could have been claimed was claimed. On 8 July 2021 the DWP published their final update on cases that were potentially affected by underpayments of Employment and Support Allowance on transition from Incapacity Benefit. This information is also at UK-wide level, and shows that the UK Government has paid £613 million to those affected by the move from Incapacity Benefit to ESA.

We have been proactive in our approach to minimising carbon emissions associated with the City Region and Growth Deals programme, taking expert advice from industry on the latest national and international best practice. We have now rolled out our innovative carbon management guidance across all 12 Deals. This is an ongoing and proactive carbon management process, facilitated by our dedicated Deals Sustainable Development Manager. Support and training is being provided to all regional partners to ensure the guidance is correctly applied, and that carbon emissions are minimised in accordance with best practice.

The focus of the Scottish City Region and Growth Deals carbon management guidance is the minimisation of greenhouse gas emissions, in support of Scotland’s national target to reach net zero by 2045. The guidance is already fully aligned with the Environmental Impact Assessment process, which also addresses adaptation and ensures resilience to the locked in impacts of climate change. This enables the guidance to be used in conjunction with other sources of information (e.g. projections of future changes in climate) to undertake climate change impact assessments in accordance with relevant planning requirements and building standards.

Cyber security issues can result from, or be exacerbated by, human error and it is increasingly important for everyone to be aware of the cyber risks and to be able to mitigate them.

The Scottish Government works closely with partners such as Education Scotland, Police Scotland, Lead Scotland, YouthLink Scotland and Young Scot to raise awareness of cyber risks and of the measures people can take to protect themselves, their families and their communities.

Cyber resilience and broader digital skills are embedded into the Curriculum for Excellence. In 2017, we refreshed the Technologies curriculum to ensure that young people are learning up-to-date computing, digital and cyber resilience skills from early years onwards.

This information is not held centrally.

To date, Scottish Ministers have had no formal discussions with the survivors or stakeholders involved in the allegations of abuse at Fornethy House Residential School. The abuse of children in all circumstances and settings is wrong, and the Scottish Government takes this abuse very seriously.

Scottish Government officials have exchanged correspondence with a number of members of the Fornethy House Residential School Survivors Group in relation to the eligibility criteria of Scotland’s Redress Scheme. As the circumstances in which individuals came to be at Fornethy may vary, it is not possible to determine eligibility for the group as a whole.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting all survivors of childhood abuse. Through the Scottish Government’s Survivors of Childhood Abuse Support (SOCAS) Fund, 29 organisations across Scotland are funded to provide support to adult survivors of childhood abuse including (but not exclusive to) those who have been abused in care.

The safety of all vaccines and medicines is monitored by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) on a UK-wide basis. This includes reports from the Yellow Card Scheme which allows health professionals and patients across the UK to flag up suspected adverse reactions to any vaccine or medicine, as well as reports from worldwide use and on-going scientific evidence.

The MHRA has a range of resources and technology to support the safety monitoring of the COVID-19 vaccination programme. The use of artificial intelligence is one element of that and helps to reduce the amount of manual coding for each report to the Yellow Card Scheme on COVID-19 vaccines, thereby saving resource in processing cases and ensuring they are more rapidly available for scientific analysis. The tool is not used for assessment of data, but to help ensure that all information from reports is well structured to support analysis and is subject to robust quality assessment.

Concerns over the safety of vaccines are not taken lightly. Please be assured that the MHRA keep the safety of all vaccines under close and continual review, and would take appropriate regulatory action if new evidence emerged which called into question the safety of any vaccines currently in use in Scotland.