Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government does not analyse statistics on waiting times for NHS dental examinations within General Dental Services (GDS) as this service is delivered across around 1100 dental practices, each with local differences in patterns of prescribing and service delivery.

Infection control requirements have meant that practices are still working at considerably reduced capacity, necessitating the triage of patients according to clinical need to some extent, including the availability to dental check-ups for individuals with historically poor oral health.

Currently 2089 single track kilometres of Scotland’s Railway are electrified. This allows some 75% of Scottish passenger journeys to be made by electric train.

Works to electrify the East Kilbride and Barrhead Routes have commenced, though electrification of these routes will not be completed within 2021. Development work for electrification of the Borders Line and Fife Circle routes is also underway.

We do not currently publish this information. The vaccination data published is subject to continual review, development and quality assurance. PHS are exploring the feasibility of publishing data on the number of people who have not attended their vaccine appointment in a future PHS COVID-19 weekly report.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6T-00019 on‎ 26 May 2021. The answer is available on the Parliament website at: Official Report - Parliamentary Business : Scottish Parliament

NHS Inform website provides guidance on what vaccination status records can, and cannot be used for. This is available at: www.nhsinform.scot/covid19status

The need for enhanced infection prevention and control measures to reduce the transmission of coronavirus in a dental setting has had a serious impact on the level of clinical training that students have been able to undertake during the 2020-21 academic year. Due to this, schools have had to make the difficult decision to require dental students to repeat a year in order to prioritise student learning and patient safety.

We recognise that this is disappointing and that it is a significant ask of students, which is why we are providing an enhanced bursary, of up to £6,750, during the 2021-22 academic year. Students will have the opportunity to apply for a bursary to the value of their normal student loan award which they will not have to repay. Students with particular circumstances will continue to be eligible for other sources of bursary support such as the Dental Student Support Grant (DSSG) and SAAS bursaries.

Answer: As detailed in the SNP manifesto, the new administration is committed to publishing a refreshed Energy Strategy to map out Scotland’s energy transition.

Early medical abortion at home and the changes adopted in March 2020 to enable women to take the first abortion drug, mifepristone, at home where this was felt to be clinically appropriate for them and where the patient wished to do so has been an important measure to ensure abortion services continued to be delivered throughout the pandemic, without delays. The ‘Pills by Post’ service is an English service, which is not provided in Scotland. While many NHS Boards in Scotland are following similar arrangements, medication is in most cases delivered or collected from a clinic, rather than being sent by post.

The Scottish Government launched a public consultation on the future arrangements for early medical abortion at home on 30 September 2020, which closed on 5 January 2021. Responses to the consultation have been published on the Scottish Government’s Citizen Space website. The future arrangements for early medical abortion at home are being considered in light of the findings from the consultation and other available evidence and the Scottish Government plans to confirm our approach this summer.

The number of people who have been rejected for Home Energy Scotland loans as a result of poor credit scores is 886 out of a total of 9335 applications since 2017.

The Scottish Government commissioned an independent review of the non-domestic rates system in 2017 chaired by Ken Barclay, which provided recommendations aimed at improvements to better support business growth, long term investment and reflect changing market places. We accepted the majority of these recommendations and have already implemented a number of key reforms such as three-yearly revaluations from 2023 with a one-year tone date, the introduction of the unique Business Growth Accelerator and Fresh start relief, and the introduction of the UK’s first Day Nursery relief.

It is important that the Barclay reforms are fully implemented and evaluated before a further review is undertaken.

The Scottish Government remains committed to a competitive and sustainable rates regime, and has delivered the lowest poundage in the UK for the third year in a row by taking the unprecedented step of reducing the poundage mid-revaluation in 2021-22. We also introduced the Intermediate Property Rate for properties with a rateable value between £51,001 and £95,000, ensuring that 95% of properties pay a lower rate than anywhere else in the UK, alongside the most generous package of reliefs.