Openness and transparency of vaccination programmes is essential to building trust with the public and easy access to uptake data is an important aspect of this.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) will release the first COVID-19 and Seasonal Flu Vaccination public uptake data on 24 October 2024 via PHS Vaccination Surveillance (shinyapps.io). It will provide uptake for Covid-19, adult flu and child flu, as well as total uptake by Health Board for each of the eligible cohorts (in line with eligibility recommendations from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI)).

Uptake data will be updated every Thursday, until December, at which point reporting will move to monthly. The shift to monthly data is because the vast majority of vaccinations will be completed before the festive break and historically the numbers vaccinated in January, February and March are negligible and therefore do not require weekly updates. At a later point in the winter, uptake data broken down by ethnicity, SIMD and urban/rural will also become available.

The Scottish Government understands that some members of the public may require support in order to attend a vaccine appointment. The Scottish Government funds the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) for mobile vaccination units to reach remote and rural communities, recognising the challenge some may experience in traveling to clinics. Health Boards have been asked to plan their vaccine clinics with their local communities in mind, making them as accessible as possible. It is for Boards to decide where they deploy the SAS offer within their own area, utilising their own local knowledge and data. Information on local travel support available can be found here.

The Scottish Government is working with Public Health Scotland to review options in relation to collecting data on secondary breast cancer in Scotland. This includes consideration of the NHS England audit, data available in Scotland, clinical time required, other cancer data priorities and how it can be used to improve services. We are aiming to agree the best method of data collection by the end of the current Cancer Action Plan in March 2026.

Hassockrigg Ecopark is currently not operating as a waste processing plant. NHS National Services Scotland (NSS) are carrying out essential works on the site to allow the site to operate as an NHS Scotland waste resilience plant. The site has a license and NSS are currently in a process of application for the license to be transferred under the control of NSS.

This is a matter for NHS National Services Scotland. The information requested is not held centrally.

The Nature Restoration Fund (NRF) makes funding available through two main strands: the competitive strand administered by NatureScot, and the Edinburgh Process strand, which provides direct allocations to Local Authorities and National Parks.

In total, to date, 220 projects have been offered funding from the competitive strand of the NRF, including 28 NRF-funded Scottish Marine Environmental Enhancement Fund (SMEEF) projects. This represents a total of £33,366,872 in committed funding.

The following table sets out by local authority area the 183 projects awarded competitive funding to the end of March 2024, the period for which data is currently available. We do not hold information about the amounts of funding offered in this format and this does not include the NRF-funded SMEEF projects referred to above.

Public Health Scotland's (PHS) independent evaluation of Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP) of alcohol estimated that our world-leading policy reduced wholly alcohol-attributable deaths by 13.4% and was likely to have reduced hospital admissions wholly attributable to alcohol by 4.1%.

There was strong and consistent evidence of a reduction in alcohol consumption following MUP implementation, and that the reduction in consumption was driven by the heaviest purchasing households, leading to the conclusion that MUP was well targeted. As MUP was estimated to have resulted in a decrease in alcohol-attributable deaths and hospital admissions related to chronic conditions, the evaluation took this as further evidence to suggest that MUP has reduced consumption in those that drink at hazardous and harmful levels.

Overall, the evidence supports that MUP has had a positive impact on health outcomes, including alcohol-related health inequalities.

The Just Transition Fund has allocated £75 million to date, supporting a cross-sector portfolio of projects ranging across sectors like energy, agriculture, digital innovation and construction while also supporting communities across the North East and Moray to create jobs, support innovation, and secure the highly skilled workforce of the future.

The Social Housing Net Zero Heat Fund (SHNZHF) launched in August 2020 and provides capital funding to social landlords to retrofit their existing housing stock by installing clean heat and improving their energy efficiency. Projects are eligible for up to 60% of the capital costs of clean heating systems and 50% of energy efficiency measures.

This year the SHNZHF is investing approximately £16.8m in 19 projects. To date, the fund has awarded approximately £75.3 million to 80 projects across Scotland for the installation of net zero measures to existing social rented homes.

The date set for the next funding checkpoint of the SHNZHF has not yet been set. When set it will be communicated to stakeholders through the fund website and stakeholder channels.

Social Landlords interested in developing heat networks can also access Scotland’s Heat Network Fund which makes capital funding available for the construction of new heat networks in addition to the decarbonisation and expansion of existing heat networks.

Our Area Based Schemes target areas with high levels of fuel poverty and enable improvements projects to go ahead in mixed tenure blocks benefiting some social tenants. Since 2013 we have invested over £600 million in area based schemes. This has helped around 40,000 social tenants and their neighbours to benefit from net zero measures and warmer homes that are less expensive to heat.

There is no set timescale for ministerial decisions on energy consents. The consideration to be undertaken by ministers before reaching a determination will depend on the particulars of each application.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

SPS have no specific evidence as to why the use of steroids is reportedly increasing within prisons. However, in collaboration with our Partners at Dundee University, the regular re-calibration of Rapiscan machines does support our ability to identify new substances.

We recognise the profound impact that illicit articles entering our prisons and acknowledge the continued need to support to those in our care who misuse substances and those who are on their recovery journey.