Chamber and committees

The numbers of babies reported in the Scottish Birth Record (SBR) as having a diagnosis of ‘foetus and newborn affected by maternal use of drugs of addiction’ or ‘neonatal withdrawal symptoms from maternal use of drug addiction’ in Scotland during the period 2006-07 to 2016-17 are provided in the following table. The figures presented cover three year aggregates to avoid disclosing small numbers in each individual year. Further suppression of small numbers has been applied as per ISD’s Statistical Disclosure Control policy in order to protect patient confidentiality.

Number of babies affected by maternal use of drugs, financial three year aggregates, 2006-07-2008-09 to 2014-15-2016-17 1,2,3

Public Health Scotland (PHS) provides details on the number of people who have been vaccinated by Health Board and age profile. This information is detailed here COVID-19 Daily Dashboard | Tableau Public .

City of Edinburgh Council (CEC) is benefitting from over £2.39 million of funding for its “Edinburgh EV Infrastructure Network Project” through Transport Scotland’s Switched on Towns and Cities challenge fund. Due to the scale of Switched on Towns and Cities projects the programme is delivered as a multi-annual funding stream, with work on-going across all 5 successful projects. City of Edinburgh Council is due to deliver 66 charge points of varying types (equating to 132 parking bays) at various locations across the city for use by residents, the public and also taxis. The project is due to complete later in 2021.

Whilst we work towards our net-zero transport targets, the Scottish Government will continue to align support with the vision and priorities set out in the National Transport Strategy 2 and Sustainable Transport Hierarchy. This represents a strong presumption towards enabling and promoting the use of active, sustainable and public transport modes over the use of private cars, regardless of their fuel type. Reflecting on the varied transport challenges and opportunities across Scotland’s urban and rural communities, this means we would expect to see car use in our largest cities reduce.

We have invested over £45 million into electric vehicle infrastructure across Scotland. And through our funding programmes we have awarded £3.6 million to Edinburgh City Council to invest in EV infrastructure. The UK Government recently published data that demonstrates Scotland is well ahead of the rest of the UK with 43 chargers per 100,000 of population, compared to around 30 in England.

In addition, we have now made available additional funding to match the UK Government Office for Zero Emission Vehicles On-Street and Residential Charging Scheme, which has the potential to enhance the availability of charging for those without access to off-street parking. Once completed, EV infrastructure projects that are currently approved will see the number of chargers per 100,000 of population in Edinburgh City increase by over 50%.

We are also aware that vehicle registration data can be influenced by centralised registration of company car fleets and may not be a true reflection of where vehicles are ultimately located and used. In addition, fleet vehicles will be included in vehicle registration data but charger numbers relate only to publicly available charge points and do not reflect domestic or business charging units.

Whilst we work towards our net-zero transport targets, we will continue to align support with the vision and priorities set out in the National Transport Strategy 2 and Sustainable Transport Hierarchy. This represents a strong presumption towards enabling and promoting the use of active, sustainable and public transport modes over the use of private cars, regardless of their fuel type. Reflecting on the varied transport challenges and opportunities across Scotland’s urban and rural communities this means we would expect to see car use in our largest cities reduce.