Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government has not provided funding to local authorities in the last six months to provide free bus passes or rail cards to people seeking asylum and does not hold information on whether local authorities have received funding from elsewhere.

However, Refugee Survival Trust and partners have been provided with funding from the Paths for All Smarter Choices Smarter Places Open Fund. This has enabled them to begin a pilot scheme to provide free bus travel to people seeking asylum living in Glasgow through the provision of three month bus passes, along with information and digital support to access and use the pass.

The Pilot will run until summer 2023 and will help inform options on how to deliver our Programme for Government commitment to consider how best to provide free bus travel to people seeking asylum across Scotland.

The Scottish Government has identified space as a priority in our Inward Investment Plan and the National Strategy for Economic Transformation.

We are committed to delivering the joint Scottish Space Strategy, developed in partnership with industry and academia, which sets out our ambition to grow the space sector in Scotland by capturing £4 billion of the global space market and 20,000 jobs by 2030.

We actively engage with the industry, both directly with individual companies and through our economic development agencies and collectively through Space Scotland as the industry body.

The SDI Inward Investment team is engaging with Lockheed Martin to learn more about the company’s plans to develop a satellite manufacturing facility in the UK and illustrate the advantages of locating a manufacturing site into Scotland.

Many of the calls received at the Mental Health Hub, via the NHS 24 111 line, are driven by a range of complex and interrelated social factors, including financial worries.

Callers to the Hub are connected to a Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner (PWP), a specially trained advisor who can offer advice and support on coping with a range of mental health symptoms.

PWPs are able to signpost callers to sources of support and advice for financial worries, such as the Citizens Advice Bureau, when appropriate to do so.

The number of individuals successfully completing the Maritime Occupations Modern Apprenticeship framework across each year since 2018/19 is detailed in the following table. All MA statistics are published on the SDS website at Modern Apprenticeships | Skills Development Scotland . Year-end statistics for‎ 2022-23 are expected to be published in May 2023.

As noted in my statement on February 7, the Levelling Up Funds should be devolved to the Scottish Government to disburse in partnership with our regions, including Glasgow City Region. Scottish Ministers are calling for a meeting with UK Government Ministers to discuss the future of this fund, requesting that the remaining £90 million be devolved for Scottish Government, for us to work with regions like Glasgow to ensure investment is targeted towards priority projects in areas where it will provide the greatest impact.

The Scottish Government is currently working with partners to produce a Student Mental Health plan to be delivered in Spring 2023. The Student Mental Health and Wellbeing Working Group, that I chair, is driving this work forward. Membership includes NUS Scotland, Think Positive, Universities Scotland and Colleges Scotland. The Plan will provide a framework for mental health services in universities and colleges and will be linked to the wider Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy.

The Scottish Government intends to launch a public consultation on the Bill in the second half of 2023. We will confirm the exact dates of the consultation in due course.

The consultation will provide an opportunity for people across Scotland to express their views on policy options that could be included in the draft Bill, as well as on whether the Bill should establish a Learning Disability, Autism and Neurodiversity Commissioner.

A decision on the timing of the Bill’s introduction to Parliament will be taken by Cabinet in the context of setting the content of future legislative programmes.

Regional partners have confirmed the initiation of the procurement process for planned work at Windmillcroft Quay, on the south bank of the Clyde at Tradeston. The £50 million allocated via the Glasgow City Region Deal will secure the integrity of the Clyde waterfront, consolidate the quay walls, and contribute to wider development of the river corridor that intends to create a high quality urban, public space that will attract investment and create inclusive economic growth and jobs. Regional partners lead on the procurement process and the detail of what this will include, and are aiming to award the contract by the end of 2023, with works beginning on site in 2024.

We know that currently not everyone has the same experiences or outcomes when they engage with mental health services and supports. We want to ensure that everyone’s needs are met, including those with learning disabilities and autism.

We are committed to publishing a new Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy in Spring 2023, building on the implementation of our Mental Health Covid Transition and Recovery Plan. The new strategy will allow us to look ahead to make sure we are doing the right things to meet changing mental health needs over the coming years; and will set out a clear vision for future population mental health, wellbeing and care; and our priorities to help us get there.

In September 2021, the Scottish Government published the National Neurodevelopmental Specification for Children and Young People which sets out seven standards for service providers to ensure that children and young people, who have neurodevelopmental profiles with support needs, receive the support that they require. To support implementation, we have provided funding to NHS Boards to build capacity to provide access to specialist neurodevelopmental professionals.

We are now developing quality standards to support general adult secondary mental health services. These aim to improve the quality and safety of mental health services, and will be part of a suite of standards and specifications for mental health services, building on the work of the CAMHS service and neurodevelopmental specifications.

The Scottish Government has worked with people with lived experience and stakeholders over the last 18 months on a new leadership and engagement framework to develop policy around mental health support for autistic people and people with learning disabilities.

This new way of working puts people’s voices and experiences firmly at its heart and is about real sustainable change and has included literature reviews, workshops to collect views and experiences, reports and an evaluation of the process. Currently there are working groups to implement the actions following the workshops and reports.

The Scottish Government welcomes the results of this survey from Scotland’s two main autism charities. This Bill extends further than autism and includes people with a learning disability and potentially a wider range of neurodivergent conditions. However, from our scoping work with a range of stakeholders we understand that even within the autism community there are a range of views on how this might be taken forward and no wider consensus regarding the benefit of a Commissioner.

We have undertaken significant engagement to date, scoping the Bill with a range of stakeholders. The report analysing the findings of these engagement events will be published soon.

We are establishing a lived experience panel to work closely with us to co-design and deliver a consultation paper later this year, which will set out options for the Bill, including the potential role and duties of a Commissioner.