Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-30096 on 1 October 2024. 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 clear that there is no place for religious or racial intolerance, including Islamophobia, in Scotland’s schools.

Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence aims to develop a society based on social justice, equality and respect, and provides opportunities for pupils to develop their understanding of various forms of discrimination and their intersectional impact, including Islamophobia. The curriculum is clear in saying that responsible citizens must understand different beliefs and cultures, and have respect for others.

Education Scotland provides teachers with a range of resources to help them navigate sensitive or controversial topics, including discrimination on the basis of religious belief, and to help foster good relations. Recently their online Inclusion, Wellbeing and Equalities Professional Learning Framework has been updated to specifically include a Developing Religious Literacy component.

In addition, by taking an intersectional approach, the work of the Scottish Government’s Anti-Racism in Education Programme addresses many of the issues at the heart of Islamophobia. Actions which have been taken forward include:

• Developing a set of Anti-Racist Principles for the curriculum;
• Providing racial literacy professional development, through the award winning Building Racial Literacy Programme;
• Publishing an Anti-Racist Action Guide aimed at empowering local authorities to better support their minority ethnic workforce;
• Developing guidance to address racism and racist incidents in schools, to empower the workforce to recognise and tackle racism and prejudice in all of its forms.

I met with representatives from Young Lives vs Cancer on 25 September 2024 to discuss their campaign.

Under the existing patient travel expenses schemes, financial support for travel to hospital is available for patients and authorised escorts, according to eligibility criteria and medical requirements. The families of patients with cancer aged under 18 who are receiving inpatient care can also already access financial support through the Young Patients Family Fund (YPFF).

Scottish Government has provided funding to Young Lives vs Cancer of £213,600 over two years (2023-2025) through the Children, Young People Families and Adult Learning (CYPFAL) fund. This funding supports the provision of advice on potential welfare benefits as well as direct grants to improve the emotional and mental wellbeing and reduce financial worries of young patients with cancer and their families.

There are no plans to expand the eligibility criteria for the YPFF at this time.

A refresh of the Rail Services Decarbonisation Action Plan, informed by current progress with rolling stock procurement, is currently expected to conclude in early 2025.

The Scottish Government supports Screen Scotland, our dedicated public agency for screen, through Grant-in-Aid funding, with £10.25m in Financial Year 2024-25.

As set out in our Programme for Government, we will continue to support Screen Scotland to deliver their Strategy to 2030-31, ensuring the screen sector can reach our goal of £1 billion Gross Value Added to the Scottish economy by 2030, up from £627m in 2021.

Screen Scotland will also continue their excellent work in skills and education, making a career in film and television more accessible for more young people in Scotland, and helping our sector to stay globally competitive for future generations.

Since it was first established in 2018, Screen Scotland, has been instrumental to the success of our screen sector. By nurturing locally-originated content as well as attracting international inward investment, Screen Scotland ensures that the sector continues to grow strongly and sustainably.

I have provided answers to the information you are seeking in previous parliamentary replies and refer you to these as follows:

• how to access the Scottish Government’s official statistical publications on short-term let licensing application data (S6W-24548 responded to on 30 January 2024 and S6W-27007 responded to on 30 April 2024)
  
• how to access information about short-term let licences on local authority public registers (S6W-23003 responded to on 4 December 2023)
  
• what the Scottish Government holds about licence breaches and Police Scotland investigations (S6W-28008, S6W-28009 and S6W-28010 responded to on 11 June 2024 and S6W-28120 responded to on 18 June 2024, some of which also refer members to S6W-27902 answered on 11 June 2024).
  

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 dedicated to Keeping The Promise, by ensuring that all care experienced children and young people grow up safe, loved and respected.

We welcome the Permanently Progressing report and are committed to ensuring permanent homes are secured for children and young people in timescales that are right for them.

We are funding the Association of Fostering, Kinship and Adoption to produce a series of Good Practice in Permanence Guides. These guides will support the workforce to deliver change in the way children, young people and families experience their care journey. This will include promoting consistent and effective practice within children’s services to ensure that permanence is achieved quickly for children, where this is in their best interest.

The citation of witnesses is a matter for Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Office. As outlined in the 2022 Vision for Justice, and Programme for Government 2024-25 Serving Scotland, the Scottish Government is supporting justice partners to drive key areas of reform to make our criminal justice system more efficient and work better for everyone who experiences it.

Our vision is our criminal justice system will work better for everyone who experiences it, cases will take less time, more cases will conclude early, and fewer witnesses will have to come to court. Summary Case Management (SCM), which provides a new approach to summary criminal cases and aims to improve the summary criminal process to benefit justice users; and DESC (Digital Evidence Sharing Capability), which is a critical enabler for criminal justice reform and allows digital evidence to be collected and shared at every stage of a criminal case at the earliest opportunity are two of the key programmes the Scottish Government is working together with justice partners to deliver this vision.

As set out in the 2024-25 Programme for Government, the Natural Environment Bill will include provisions to modernise the way in which deer are managed in Scotland.

In January the Scottish Government consulted on a range of potential reforms to deer management, including the introduction of new powers designed to secure effective deer management that supports Scottish Government nature and climate objectives (Deer Management Nature Restoration Orders). The 'Managing Deer for Climate and Nature: consultation' closed on 29 March 2024. We received around 1600 responses and the full analysis report of the responses was published on 9 September 2024.

The Scottish Government is currently giving careful consideration to all of the consultation responses, which will inform the development of the provisions to be included in the future Natural Environment Bill.

We have no plans to publish all correspondence and advice on the development of planned legislation. The minutes of the Strategic Deer Board relevant to the legislation are published on the Scottish Government website.

As the Health Board makes the arrangements with independent dental contractors and bodies corporate, it is for the Board to have direct discussions with the rural practices.

Each NHS Board has a Director of Dentistry. Officials meet all NHS Boards regularly to discuss local issues, potential solutions and manage risk, which the Director of Dentistry attends.

The Scottish Government also regularly meet with the official representative body, British Dental Association Scotland, to discuss a range of matters including recruitment and retention across rural and island Scotland.