Chamber and committees

The average length of time between the date of alleged commission of a criminal offence and the date of a final court verdict increased considerably as a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic and restrictions brought in to try to limit the spread of coronavirus.

This affected the prosecution of all types of offences, including speeding offences. Scottish Government investment has helped aid the recovery of the summary courts from the effects of the pandemic.

Scottish Ministers are concerned about the use of novel nicotine products such as nicotine pouches and, in particular, their appeal to children and young people.

The Tobacco and Vapes Bill, if passed, will introduce a range of restrictions – for example around age of sale and advertising- applicable to these products, taking on board concerns raised by members previously about novel products becoming more prevalent on the market and their appeal to children and young people.

The purchase of vaping products is already age restricted and it is illegal to sell to, or buy them for, anyone under the age of 18. Trading Officers are using every tool at their disposal - including fixed penalty notices - to ensure retailers are not selling vaping products to under 18s. Border Force and HMRC also have an important role to control the illicit vape trade and we continue to work with them on this.

We are currently the only nation in the UK with a functioning Tobacco and Nicotine Vapour Product Register. The Tobacco and Vaping Framework set out our intention to consider how the register could be improved. A refreshed digital product went live in January 2025. This will ensure that the register is a more effective and efficient tool for enforcement as well as for engagement with retailers on compliance with current and future legislation.

The Scottish Government does not collect data on the audiology workforce.

Responsibility for delivery and commissioning of services lies at a local level - with local authorities, NHS Boards and integrated health and social care partnerships. Operational decisions, including whether there is a need for audiologists, are therefore matters for those bodies to make and should take into account the numbers of patients in their local areas.

The purchase of vaping and tobacco products is age restricted. It is illegal to sell to, or buy them for, anyone under the age of 18.

Our Tobacco and Vaping Framework, launched in 2023, is our roadmap to 2034 and a tobacco free Scotland.

Our Framework is underpinned by a wide range of legislation including legislation to support the Register of Tobacco and Nicotine Vapour Product Retailers. We recently launched a new digital Register platform which will help to ensure accurate data and help Trading Standards with enforcement of current and future regulations.

A key strand of the first implementation plan of the Framework is the work that has taken place across the four nations on creating a smoke free generation and tackling youth vaping, which has led to the introduction of the UK-wide Tobacco and Vapes Bill.

Measures within the Bill include the introduction of a wide definition of a nicotine product, which is designed to cover products currently on the market such as nicotine pouches, as well as any future nicotine products. If passed with the consent of the Scottish Parliament the Bill will make it an offence to sell all nicotine products to under 18’s, stopping the next generation from becoming addicted.

The Tobacco and Vapes Bill, if passed, will also expand both the register and enforcement powers to cover herbal smoking products and nicotine products.

Each territorial Health Board across Scotland has agreed performance improvement plans in place, detailing what is being done at local level to drive improvements. The Scottish Government has a sustained focus on the delivery of these plans and meet with Cancer Management Teams in all Health Boards across Scotland frequently, including NHS Grampian, to identify challenges, explore solutions, and share best practice.

This year we have allocated an additional £30 million funding to reduce waiting times across a range of specialities, including diagnostics and cancer. As part of this, NHS Grampian were allocated almost £200,000 for the treatment of skin cancer.

If approved by Parliament, the Scottish Government’s budget for the coming year will invest a record £21.7 billion in Scotland’s health and social care services, including £200 million to reduce waiting lists and improve capacity.

In addition, our National Digital Dermatology Programme, backed by £1.8 million funding, will help to reduce long waits for outpatient dermatology appointments across Scotland’s NHS. This allows for images of skin conditions to be captured in Primary Care and securely transferred to clinicians so diagnoses and follow-up appointments can be arranged. This leads to a better and quicker service for patients – allowing clinicians to see patients in the right place sooner - and could potentially reduce demand for outpatient dermatology appointments by up to 50 per cent.

The Digital Dermatology Programme was launched in November 2024, with patients in Dumfries and Galloway and Greater Glasgow and Clyde the first to benefit from this new pathway, and is due to be deployed to all Health Boards, including NHS Grampian, by Spring 2025.

Supporting effective liaison with responders at all levels in Scotland and with the UK Government is key to the Scottish Government Resilience Room’s (SGORR’s) co-ordination of the Scottish Government response to civil contingencies emergencies. For civil contingencies emergencies with cross-border impacts, SGORR closely co-ordinates activities with the relevant UK Government response structures and other UK Government departments relevant to the response. SGORR’s role includes supporting the sharing of information as appropriate both on official and ministerial level, supporting the co-ordination of response activity with cross-border aspects, or facilitating the co-ordination of resource as required for the response.

I refer the member to the answer to the question S6W-34075 on 18 February 2025. 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

“Preparing Scotland” is a set of national guidance documents, currently under review, to assist stakeholders, including local authorities, in planning for, responding to and recovering from emergencies. It consists of a “Hub” which sets out the philosophy, principles and good practice for emergency response in Scotland, and “Spokes” that provide detailed guidance on specific matters. The spoke on “Responding to Emergencies” describes how resilience partnerships and SGORR activate, and how they meet, report and share information. In an emergency, and where the structures have been activated, local authorities engage with SGORR as part of a resilience partnership.

The Scottish Government Resilience Room has been activated 5 times in 2020; 5 times in 2021; 11 times in 2022; 8 times in 2023; 9 times in 2024; and once in 2025 to date. Of these 39 activations, 25 were for co-ordinating the response to severe weather. The remainder of the activations cover a range of civil contingencies emergencies, such as Covid-19; the 2022 power disruption on Shetland; protests threatening to disrupt fuel supply in the summer of 2023; or the worldwide IT outage in July 2024.

I refer the member to the answer to the question S6W-34080 on 13 February 2025. 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