Chamber and committees

We understand the impact of domestic abuse on survivors’ housing situation, whether they require emergency accommodation, temporary or permanent accommodation. We know that the National Helpline and the local services we fund through the Equally Safe Fund can provide support in this area, but we are clear that more needs to be done.

We are funding Fife Council’s Improving the way we work project, which will address the key findings and subsequent action plan from the “Change, Justice, Fairness” report, a community research report commissioned by Fife Council from Scottish Women’s Aid involving women with lived experience of domestic / sexual abuse and homelessness. We have committed to sharing the lessons from this project with other local authorities.

In terms of systematic change, our Ending Homelessness Together Action Plan published in November, will transform how those at risk of homelessness receive help. Our work in this area include a commitment to developing a pathway to prevent homelessness for survivors of domestic abuse. The response to Parliamentary Question S5W-23871 on 15 July 2019 provides more detail. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

On 26 August 2019 the Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Communities attended the launch of Domestic Abuse: a good practice guide for social landlords , which aims to support social landlords in recognising and supporting survivors of domestic abuse. This is a joint publication of the Association of Local Authority Chief Housing Officers (ALACHO), the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH), the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA), Shelter Scotland and Scottish Women’s Aid and supported by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA).

The Scottish Government’s position on woodland creation and maintaining existing woodland cover are outlined in Scotland’s Forestry Strategy 2019-2029 . Scotland’s woodland creation target is set out in the Climate Change Action Plan: 10,000 hectares per year until 2020-2021 and then increasing by steps to 15,000 hectares per year by 2024-2025. Scotland exceeded this target in 2018-19 by creating 11,210 hectares of new woodland – 84% of the new woodland created in the UK.

The Scottish Government recognises forestry’s vital role in Scotland’s response to the global climate emergency as well as in supporting the rural economy, which is why the current Climate Change Action Plan includes the ambitious forestry expansion plans described above. The Scottish Government has committed to updating the Climate Change Action Plan within six months of Royal Assent to the new Climate Change Bill, and a consideration of the government’s forestry ambitions will be included as a part of this process.

Access to adequate food is an internationally recognised human right and is key to the fulfilment of other rights. The Scottish Government is therefore committed to ensuring everyone in Scotland has the opportunity to eat well and maintain a healthy diet as an key component of our Good Food Nation ambition. To do this we are taking action both at a population-wide level and through delivering targeted support specifically to those who need it most, including taking action to ensure people affected by food insecurity can eat well.

The Scottish Government already takes a human rights approach to tackling food insecurity by promoting the living wage and through the design and delivery of our new Scottish social security system. We have also committed to setting up a National Taskforce for Human Rights Leadership and its work will include consideration of the right to food, as an integral part of the right to an adequate standard of living.

Our school meal uptake is higher now than when current Scottish school food regulations were first introduced in 2008 and we are leading the way by becoming the first part of the UK to set a maximum amount of sugar and processed red meat that can be made available during the course of the school day.

The current regulations already include strict upper limits in relation to sugar and school caterers must plan their menus in a manner which prevents children and young people from consuming excessive amounts of sugar, fat, or salt over the course of the school week.

We will be amending the regulations further to make school meals even healthier and more closely aligned with the Scottish Dietary Goals.

The improvements to school food and drink are a key part of our commitment to strengthening children and young people’s healthy eating habits and halving childhood obesity by 2030.

I found the visits to the Brownlee clinic and Waverley Care’s street support team informative and was impressed by the collaborative working taking place between the NHS and 3 rd sector organisations. I continue to take a close interest in measures to tackle the HIV outbreak in Glasgow. My officials are in contact with the Incident Management Team and clinicians leading on the response in Glasgow in order to understand what more can be done to tackle the ongoing transmissions of HIV in this vulnerable population.

The two NHS Health Boards with waiting lists for access to PrEP are NHS Highland and NHS Lothian.

NHS Highland has a four week waiting time, and NHS Lothian has a five month waiting time.

Responsibility for enforcing tattooing and skin piercing, including acupuncture, legislation lies with Local Authorities.

This falls within the remit of Local Authorities who have the statutory responsibility under The Civil Government (Scotland) Act 1982 (Licensing of Skin Piercing and Tattooing) Order 2006 which came into force in Scotland on 1st April 2006 and gives Local Authorities the power to license individuals who carry out skin piercing or tattooing activities as a business.

The information requested is not held centrally. However, the number of NHS Scotland hospital admissions with pneumothorax (spontaneous tension pneumothorax and other pneumothorax ) and the number of hospital admissions with traumatic pneumothorax are shown in Table 1 and Table 2 respectively.

Table 1

Number of NHS Scotland hospital admissions with spontaneous tension pneumothorax and other pneumothorax in each year since 2015-16, by health board and financial year.

The Scottish Government is committed to consult and legislate on restricting the advertising and promotion of e-cigarettes. This will make Scotland the first country in Europe to do so. The proposed restrictions will not apply to any public health campaigns or adverts, and the proposal is to allow advertising at point of sale provided it is not seen from outside the premises.

The Scottish Government will launch this consultation around the end of 2019. The restrictions proposed will cover domestic advertising of e-cigarettes – on bill boards, on leaflets, on bus shelters etc. Advertising on TV, on the radio, on-line and in newspapers and magazines is already banned.

As set out in the Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan first year Progress Report 2018-19, we will consider how we can utilise the remaining Tackling Child Poverty Fund to scale up existing programmes; to maximise impact, and invest in new initiatives to address child poverty.

Work to identify areas for investment is ongoing and these will be announced in due course.