Chamber and committees

World Expos are overseen and regulated by the Intergovernmental Organisation - Bureau International des Expositions (BIE). BIE membership is reserved so any bid to host a World Expo would need to be progressed by the UK Government and any participation by Scotland in that process would have to be at their invitation.

We are not aware of any bid being considered by the UK for the World Expo in 2035 and would refer the member to the UK Government for any further information on this.

As is stated in The Strategy for Our Veterans, published in 2022, the Scottish Government is committed to ensuring all armed forces personnel and veterans who serve and live in Scotland are able to access the best possible care and support, including safe, effective and person-centred healthcare.

NHS inform includes pages about Health rights for veterans in Scotland , which provide guidance on medical and practical support available for veterans. This information is reviewed and updated regularly.

The Scottish Government recently launched a General Practice Armed Forces and Veterans Recognition scheme. This scheme will help increase understanding, among staff in general practice, of the health issues faced by veterans and armed forces families as a result of military service and includes some of the support services that may be available. General Practices who wish to be part of the Scheme can contact [email protected] for more information.

All Scottish NHS health boards are signatories to the Armed Forces Covenant, which states that members of the veterans and armed forces community should face no disadvantage when accessing and receiving treatment for health problems as a result of service to their country. The Scottish Government meets regularly with NHS Armed Forces and Veterans Champions to support them in meeting their duties under the Covenant.

We committed in the Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy to put appropriate governance arrangements in place to oversee implementation and track progress. We will therefore establish a Mental Health and Wellbeing Leadership Board during the first year of the Delivery Plan that will:

• Provide national leadership and strategic oversight of priorities.
• Ensure activity delivers clear benefits, aligned with the Strategy’s vision, outcomes and principles.
• Provide constructive support and challenge to ensure progress against actions set out in the Delivery Plan.
• Play a key role in evaluating the impact of interventions and sharing learning.

As we have set out in the Delivery Plan (published November 2023), we intend for membership of the Leadership Board to include representation from a range of Scottish Government portfolio areas, Local Government, NHS Boards, Integration Joint Boards (IJBs) and the Third Sector.

LED parapet lighting installations are currently in place and attached to the Carnoustie Street, West Street and Eglinton Street flyovers on the M74 motorway in Glasgow.

Transport Scotland’s Operating Company for the Glasgow area, Amey Ltd, has identified some faults in these assets as part of their ongoing inspection regime. Amey is currently developing a programme for these repairs and I have asked officials at Transport Scotland to provide with a further update by the end of January.

We are engaging with the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and other stakeholders, to ensure that the issues identified and recommendations made in the recent ‘State of Nation: the Psychiatric Workforce in Scotland’ report are considered as part of our ongoing work to implement the new Mental Health and Wellbeing Workforce Action Plan.

As part of work already underway, we have established a Psychiatry Working Group to consider how we can better support the recruitment and retention of psychiatrists in NHS Scotland. This Working Group are actively considering the issues raised in this report.

In addition to this, in 2022-23 we increased the number of Core Psychiatry training places by a further ten. This year we will fund another 15 Core Psychiatry training places. We also continue to work with NES and the Royal College of Psychiatry to encourage medical students to consider a long-term career as a psychiatrist.

The most recent publication of Mental Health Workforce data (5 December) shows that under this Government and since 2007, the number of Psychiatric Consultants across All Specialities in NHS Scotland has increased by 18.6% to 535.5 whole time equivalent posts.

The Scottish Government commissioned NHS Education Scotland (NES) to develop and run the National Digital Platform. The following table details spend incurred by NES by financial year on the design, development, and support for the National Digital Platform (NDP) since the initial commission in 2018.

Official designations of party affiliations are held in one central system and shared across many other parliamentary systems. There are technical considerations about making this change across these systems, including the fact that the change would not be retrospective. Parliamentary officials will explore options with you as to how the designation could be represented in an appropriate manner.

Information on the incidence or occurrence of rare conditions such as cystic fibrosis is not held centrally by the Scottish Government, however, it is estimated that approximately 900 people in Scotland have cystic fibrosis.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-23215 on 11 December 2023. 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.

a) The Scottish Government collect data on police recorded crimes. In 2020-21 the police recorded 30,344 crimes of drugs possession, in 2021-22 they recorded 23,747 crimes of drugs possession and in 2022-23 they recorded 22,356 crimes of drugs possession. Scottish Government also publish additional information on Drugs Seizures and Offender Characteristics . The most recent publication contains data relating to the 2020-21 and 2021-22 financial years. Table 4b of this publication (copied below) provides estimated numbers of drug possession crimes by drug classification. The data presented in this table is based on a random sample of cases recorded by the police. As this analysis is based on a sample of police records (rather than all records), the counts presented in the table are estimates. The true value may differ slightly from the findings presented below due to sampling error.

Estimated number of drug possession crimes by drug classification, 2020-21 to 2021-22

Financial planning for the significant challenges our public finances continue to face took place in advance of the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Finance's update on the 2023-24 in-year budget changes on 21 November.

The difficult decisions which have had to be made have allowed us to help balance the Scottish Government's budget while still progressing implementation of our mental health and wellbeing strategy from a revised direct budget of £260.3 million.

The in-year budget changes impacted on a number of planned new programmes which could not proceed as anticipated. Planned increased funding to existing programmes were also not able to be progressed.

Despite the savings made, we have continued to focus on delivery of our mental health and wellbeing strategy and recently published delivery plan, which includes commitments around mental health services and specific programmes of work around learning disability and autism, and cross-cutting trauma work.