Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government has been working with a range of sectors and specialist organisations to develop guidance on enhancing ventilation within enclosed spaces.

This guidance includes a range of practical solutions to enhance air flow and can be achieved by straightforward solutions, such as the opening of windows or vents. This seeks to provide cost effective solutions to overcome poorer ventilation, and support employers to consider options to reduce the risk of transmitting airborne viruses for staff and customers.

As we progress through the pandemic, we will of course keep under consideration whether this guidance needs to be supported by discreet funding for such projects.

The Scottish Government has a number of loan schemes open to those interested in RHI which will continue to be available when the RHI ends in 2022.

They include: The Renewables Loan which supports the installation of renewables measures in Scottish domestic properties. Households can fund up to two renewables systems for each home, to a maximum of £17,500 in total and up to £6,000 funding for an energy storage system.

To help first time adopters over the first hurdle to renewables, we also have developed an additional incentive, the Renewable Heat Cashback Scheme, which can offer up to 75% (to a maximum of £7,500) cashback funding.

For commercial properties, we have the SME Loan and cashback scheme. The loan scheme provides unsecured, interest free loans of up to £100,000 to Scottish Small to Medium size enterprises, not-for-profit organisations and charities to finance the installation of renewable heating and energy efficiency measures. Since the inception of the SME loan scheme, it has paid over £29 million in loans, funding more than 1000 projects.

In October 2008, the cashback scheme was launched to stimulate uptake of the Energy Efficiency and Renewables Heat measures in non-domestic properties. SMEs can apply for a 75% cashback grant of up to £10,000 towards the cost of a renewables heating system and a further 30% cashback of up to £10,000 for energy efficiency measures.

Data on Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) accreditations broken down by local authority is routinely published by The Department of Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS): Renewable Heat Incentive statistics - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) .

Data is published on a monthly basis with supplementary statistical information published on a quarterly basis.Data is available via this link back to June 2019, and earlier data is available from BEIS on request.

We are working closely with Local Authorities, the Health and Safety Executive and Police Scotland to ensure we are taking a joined up approach to enforcement of regulations and wider workplace health measures. We have committed to £2.9m in funding to support Covid related work carried out by Local Authority Environmental Health and Trading Standards Officers to year end 2021-22. We continue to engage with the Local Authorities to understand how this funding is being used to ensure they have the capacity to support businesses including hospitality to comply with the regulations and guidance. Local authorities are responsible for prioritising enforcement work within their area, and they are doing so using a risk based and 4 Es approach (Engage, Explain, Encourage and Enforce).

The UK Government announced that the UK would participate in the COVAX initiative in September 2020.

COVAX is a World Health Organisation (WHO) initiative to ensure that poorer countries have equitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments and vaccines.

The initiative is designed to support the research, development and manufacturing of COVID-19 vaccines and negotiate their pricing.

On 8 June, UNICEF sent an open letter to G7 countries, urging them to donate 20% of their vaccines doses to COVAX by August.

To date the UK has committed over £500m to the Covax initiative, the UK has also announced it will donate at least 100 million surplus coronavirus vaccine doses within the next year, including 5 million beginning in the coming weeks.

In September 2020, the Scottish Government began a review of its approach to international development, and in December marked £2M of its International Development Fund (IDF) to support partner countries’ COVID-19 responses.

The Scottish Government has engaged with a range of sectors, including catering and hospitality representatives, promoting the benefits of effective ventilation to reduce the risk of transmission within enclosed spaces. I would encourage all sectors to review the guidance we produced on ventilation, as this contains useful information and assets which could easily be incorporated within training courses.

The guidance can be found at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-ventilation-guidance/

We continue to engage with sectors and review this guidance as new evidence emerges regarding how these systems can prevent the spread of COVID-19 and other airborne viruses.

The COVID-19 pandemic impacted globally, including on our international development partner countries, and our programmes based there.

This necessitated a re-fresh of the Scottish Government's approach to International Development, to ensure that we focus our work on areas where we can make the biggest contribution and difference in our partner countries against the backdrop of the new reality of COVID-19. To that end the Scottish Government Programme for Government announced on 01 September 2020 our intention to review our approach to International Development. I announced the results of this Review to the Scottish Parliament via S5W-35666 on 3 March 2021. Through that review I met with representatives of our partner country Governments, and civil society, to discuss their priorities for building back fairer and stronger from COVID-19. Further information on the Review can be found here: ( International development: Coronavirus (COVID-19): review of international development programme - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) ).

Separately, in December 2020 the Scottish Government provided £2 million of funding to UNICEF for their response to the Pandemic in Malawi, Rwanda and Zambia, which included funding to help prepare the health systems in Malawi, Zambia and Rwanda for the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine ( Aid for COVID-19 response in Africa - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) ).

We have also tried to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on our project partners by pivoting funds to make available total funding of £991,594 from the International Development Fund and Humanitarian Emergency Fund where we were able to do so. The Humanitarian Emergency Fund in particular provided a total of £240,000 to the: Disasters Emergency Committee; Mission Aviation Fellowship; Mercy Corps and SCIAF towards their COVID-19 response efforts for vulnerable communities. Further information on this pivoted spend can be found here . Scotland has also sent life-saving oxygen and ventilation equipment to India ( 100 oxygen concentrators and 40 continuous positive airway pressure ((CPAP) ventilators ) as part of a UK-wide effort to support them in the fight against COVID-19.

Finally, we have also committed to not only maintain, but in fact increasing our International Development budget by 50%, to £15 million, which is intended to assist with COVID-19 preparedness in our partner countries. This is in contrast to the UK Government's ODA funding being cut from 0.7% of GNI to 0.5% of GNI which will have such disastrous effects on the world's most marginalised and vulnerable communities at a time of great need.

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

Our inclusive approach to the COVID-19 vaccination is outlined in the letter to Mr Choudhury dated 8 th June. Our approach is constantly adapting in response to data, feedback from stakeholders and other evidence sources.

Equality data  COVID-19 statistical report 2 June 2021 - Data & intelligence from PHS (isdscotland.org)

The Scottish Government has worked in collaboratively with Public Sector and Third Sector colleagues to produce a number of assets as part of the marketing and communications strategy for the COVID-19 vaccination programme, some of which are outlined below:

1. In partnership with BEMIS and the Ethnic Minority National Resilience Network (EMNRN) we have gathered feedback from ME organisations to shape inclusive communications, which has influenced messaging and available formats. For example, we have used the insight to create a ‘Vaccine Explainer Video’ which provides key facts about the Covid vaccines for those who may be hesitant, or for those more likely to have been exposed to myths/misinformation. This video is currently being produced in BSL and in multiple community languages.

2. Key campaign information leaflets about the vaccine have been translated in various languages and accessible formats for inclusion on NHS Inform vaccine content for distribution via stakeholders.

3. Translated versions of the Roll Up Your Sleeves TV Campaign videos were produced in 7 community languages (Arabic, Cantonese, Hindi, Polish, Romanian, Urdu and Punjabi), with further translations development for the campaign targeting 18-49 year olds.

4. Translated versions of the ‘What to Expect at a Vaccination Site’ Walkthrough Video was created in partnership with PHS and MECOPP, with development including considerations to accessible wording and content.

5. A Ramadan Film was created in April 2021 in partnership with the British Islamic Medical Association – This video was to reassure Muslims who were concerned about getting the vaccine while fasting.

6. A Stakeholder Toolkit specifically created for ME communities for Phase 3 of Roll Up Your Sleeves was launched in April 2021 to all relevant stakeholders. The toolkit included social media posts which signposted to the language-specific pages PHS created.

7. A Myth Busting Film fronted by Dr Punam Krishan was launched in May 2021 and was reviewed by ME groups to ensure accessible wording/content and translated into 10 community languages. It addresses concerns about the vaccine such as not containing pork or animal origin and that it won’t alter DNA. This was shared on Dr Krishan’s IGTV, through SG channels and shared via PHS and NHS Boards.

Other examples of initiatives can be found in the Vaccine Deployment Plan: Coronavirus (COVID-19): vaccine deployment plan: update - March 2021 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Vaccination data in Scotland are collated by Public Health Scotland (PHS) and published daily. Data on vaccination take-up may be cross referenced by Joint Committee of Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) Priority Group, NHS Board, Local Authority, age group, and sex. These data are accessible on the vaccinations tab of the PHS COVID-19 Daily Dashboard: https://public.tableau.com/profile/phs.covid.19#!/

The vaccination data published are subject to continual review, development and quality assurance.