Chamber and committees

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

SPS have completed the first stage of a review of Talk To Me, our suicide prevention strategy which was gathering the evidence base. This has included a literature review, User Voice interviews, staff focus groups, an NHS survey and a workshop for families. The next step is to analyse this evidence and formulate recommendations.

Once this is complete, recommendations will be presented to the SPS lead National Suicide Prevention Management Group for consideration and ratification. This group includes a number of experts in the field such as third sector, NHS and Public Health Scotland.

The policy will be aligned with the Scottish Government Suicide Prevention Strategy and Action Plan.

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

Any death of an individual whilst in the care of the SPS is a tragedy, irrespective of the cause. Unfortunately, there have been 34 deaths in custody between month 2019 and month 2023 confirmed as drug related, either by postmortem or by a Medical Certificate Cause of Death. This is approximately 16% of deaths in custody. SPS do not record drug category or categories implicated in deaths.

All deaths in custody are subject to a Fatal Accident Enquiry, the findings of which are published on the Scottish Courts website.

The Staff Governance Standard, which is applicable to all staff employed in NHSScotland, requires health boards to appropriately train and develop staff, as well as provide a safe working environment. The Scottish Government monitors compliance annually to ensure health boards, as employers, are meeting this standard. This includes providing the necessary training for staff according to statutory requirements.

The Scottish Government engages regularly with the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) to ensure progress on prison infrastructure projects. SPS works closely with contractors and external advisors to ensure value for money, benefits realisation and timely progress.

Until the main construction contract is signed, costs and time-scales are likely to fluctuate due to site identification, design changes, and market condition changes.

The Scottish Government continues to make significant investment in Scotland’s NHS while recognising the need to reform the way we deliver services to meet the changing needs of the people in Scotland. The Government has been clear in the Policy Prospectus and Programme for Government : reform is required. Scottish Ministers have outlined that given the growing demand our health service faces, the NHS requires major reform to ensure that we have a sustainable health service able to deliver the best possible care for patients.

The Scottish Government Programme for Government made the commitment to consult on phasing out the use cages for gamebirds and laying hens. This work is now progressing and the consultation on phasing out cages for laying hens and the call for evidence on gamebirds and quail are expected to go live in the early spring.

The proposed consultation on phasing out farrowing crates for pigs was originally intended to have been delivered jointly across all UK administrations. However, progress on a number of important pieces of animal welfare legislation have been significantly delayed or has ceased due to delays in UK Government timetabling, such as the Kept Animals Bill. DEFRA have confirmed that it now has no immediate plans to take forward the work on farrowing crates.

Regardless, the Scottish Government is pressing ahead on improving the welfare of all animals in Scotland, including pigs, and on 20 November 2023 published the Scottish Government Guidance for the Welfare of Pigs . We are also in the process of updating the Welfare of Farmed Animals (Scotland) Regulations 2010 to include this updated pigs’ welfare guidance.

We continue to listen and work with the industry and stakeholders on how best to achieve improvements in animal welfare as well as monitoring industry information to allow us to determine how to ensure best practice is delivered.

Since May 2023 discussion and work has been ongoing with regards to refining the workplan for and membership of the Gender Equality Taskforce to ensure that it is able to enact the long term systemic change that is needed. The next meeting of the Gender Equality Taskforce is scheduled for 18 April 2024. Contributory work on preventing and responding to gender-base violence in schools has been taken forward by the short-life Gender-Based Violence in Schools Working Group, with a framework for schools to be published in the coming weeks.

STPR2 is a long term framework for transport infrastructure, to drive the capital investment decisions for our strategic transport system. It presents the Strategic Business Case for its recommendations, which each in turn will require their own development for delivery. The focus of Recommendation 40 is on improving the safety, resilience and reliability on the A75 and the A77, with Cuckoo Bridge noted as an example location for this.

Transport Scotland is currently developing proposals for safety improvements at the Cuckoo Bridge Roundabout, this includes partial signalisation and active travel improvements. The delivery of these will be subject to available funding being in place.

The review on abortion law will begin once the Scottish Parliament has considered the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) (Scotland) Bill.

In the meantime, the Scottish Government is working towards convening an expert group, which the Women’s Health Champion, Professor Anna Glasier, has agreed to chair. The Scottish Government is also starting discussions with other stakeholders who are likely to advise the expert group on particular topics. The expert group will be asked to set out options and any recommendations for reforms. These recommendations, along with other stakeholder input, will be considered by Ministers before setting out any proposals for potential reform.

The Women’s Health Champion, Professor Anna Glasier, has not met with the First Minister. The Champion meets with myself on a quarterly basis.