Chamber and committees

The cost of funding a Scottish domiciled student from entry to university through to graduation is set out in the first table. The cost of funding a student from the Rest of the UK (RUK) from entry to university through to graduation is set out in the second table.

The Scottish Government is fully committed to ensuring a sustainable medical supply pipeline into the NHS. In response to overall UK undersupply of medical graduates, the Scottish Government has been expanding university medical school places since 2016 and has created 269 additional medical undergraduate places (a 32% increase over 2016 levels).

The recent Programme for Government also sets out a further commitment to increase medical school places by 100 per annum over the course of the Parliamentary term and to double the number of widening access places.

The COVID-19 booster will be administered by both Health Boards and GP practices. Health Boards will seek to make best use of their locally available resources when planning delivery whilst being mindful of the need to protect core GP services.

The following table displays the numbers of applications submitted and approved in each scheme year during the period the New Entrants Start-Up Grant Scheme was open for applications.

There is no formal right to request an appeal under the Rural Payments (Appeals) (Scotland) Regulation 2015 as these do not apply to the rejection of an application for a contract. If applicants query the reason for the rejection of an application then local staff will consider this informally but numbers of these are not recorded. The number of applications recorded as rejected in each Scheme year for the Crofting Agricultural Grant Scheme is provided in the following table for information.

The National Care Home Contract is negotiated annually between Scotland Excel, COSLA (Convention of Scottish Local Authorities), Scottish Care and CCPS (Coalition of Care and Support Providers in Scotland). The Scottish Government is not a contractual party to this agreement.

Decisions on future local government finance settlements will be the subject of negotiations with COSLA on behalf of all 32 local authorities and announced as part of the outcome of future Scottish Budgets and/or Spending Reviews.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is a globally respected organisation and the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is the world’s most comprehensive data resource on the status of species. The List does not however, include all Scottish species and for most of those that are included, assessments are for Great Britain as a whole.

In addition to Red List accounts, NatureScot also considers other factors when providing advice on priority setting, including information on species’ status in Scotland, as well as social and economic factors. This enables the inclusion of species for which there are not yet IUCN assessments available, and allows the Scottish Government to respond to new threats that may not yet be recognised in the Red Lists, which are typically updated every 10 years.

The UK Atomic Energy Authority’s (UKAEA) has identified five potential site for the UK’s first prototype nuclear fusion reactor. This includes one location in Scotland at Ardeer. The Scottish energy strategy, published in December 2017, confirmed the Scottish Government’s continued opposition to new nuclear stations under current technologies. Our priority continues to be to support energy efficiency, develop Scotland’s huge renewable resource and to promote storage and flexibility.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-03786 on 12 November 2021. 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 is working closely with colleagues within the Northern Ireland Executive to establish data feeds that will allow for the automatic exchange of vaccination information between Scotland and Northern Ireland.

People can request proof of the dose or doses received from Northern Ireland. Work is underway to enable people to upload evidence of their doses to NHS Inform and access a vaccine certificate. This upload was completed on 30 September 2021.

People can now update their record of vaccination in Scotland with Covid-19 vaccinations received out-with Scotland, but within the Common Travel Area. More information on how to do this can be found at Request an update to your coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination record | The coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine (nhsinform.scot) .

For the purpose of vaccine certification, we accept proof of vaccination from Northern Ireland.