The Natural Capital Market Framework will seek to strengthen Scotland’s interim principles for ‘Responsible Investment in Natural Capital’. If passed by Scottish Parliament, the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill will also help to realise many of these Interim Principles, especially those relevant to land use, community engagement and community benefit.

For example, the Bill includes provisions that would place legal responsibilities on the owners of large landholdings to set out how they use their land and how that contributes to key public policy priorities, like addressing climate change and protecting and restoring nature. The Bill will also ensure the owners of large landholdings will have to engage with local communities about how they use the land, and it will prohibit certain sales of over 1000 hectares, until Ministers can consider the impact on the local community.

Removing the timing restrictions on off-peak fares helps to simplify ticket options and supports flexible working practices which have grown in popularity. Such simplicity is also helpful in providing more flexible choices for families.

Based on registrations for November 2023 Computing Science week, the numbers provided in S6W-27321 are the accurate number of schools registered for each event during this week. It is difficult to be definitive on how many schools engaged as schools may also have participated by watching the recordings of sessions or by creating their own activities.

Yes, the Minimum Income Guarantee Expert Group's report will be published in due course.

The Scottish Government does not receive direct payments from the operator of the current Clyde and Hebrides Ferry Services contract. Any financial transactions of this nature would be accounted for on completion of reconciliation at the end of each Contract Year.

Education Scotland will continue to work with local authorities and external partners to promote themed weeks. Dates will be promoted from August 2024, through our networks (Computing Science and Primary Computing Science networks on Glow, Local Authority National Technologies Network, professional networks such as ADICOS, Computing at Schools and CompEdnet), stakeholders and Education Scotland and Digilernscot social media.

Education Scotland will hold another Computing Science Event in November 2024. This year there will be 2 weeks – week 1 (4 to 8) will be targeted at computational thinking / no code/low code creative computing activities focusing on ELC and Primary and week 2 (11 to 15) will be focussed on coding activities for primary and secondary. Education Scotland will also be hosting 3 Computing Science Conferences (West, Central and North locations tbc) on 16 November 2024.

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to review pathways for patients to help improve earlier diagnosis of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB).The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring everyone living with dementia receives the person centred support and care they need, regardless of which form of dementia they have. Our Dementia Strategy highlights that each individual person's experience of their dementia will be different and care and support needs to reflect that.

The current diagnostic pathway of dementia with Lewy bodies is through an individual’s GP. Clinical guidance on diagnosing suspected dementia with Lewy bodies is contained in the Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) which covers assessment, diagnosis, care and support for people with dementia and their care partners. The SIGN Guideline was developed by Healthcare Improvement Scotland and partners in 2023.

The Scottish Government has also established a cross-governmental; cross sectoral steering group to help shape the Scottish Government’s role in contributing to the research and development of greater understanding around dementia risk, earlier dementia identification, diagnosis, and treatment, including the trialling of new treatments which can slow the progression of some dementias.

Information is not held centrally on the number of abandoned vehicles reported to local authorities. Management information is available from Police Scotland on the number of police recorded incidents of abandoned vehicles. This is provided below, split by the local authority within which the incident occurred.

It should be noted that not all abandoned vehicles will relate to cars and an incident may relate to more than one abandoned vehicle. This information was consistently recorded across all police divisions from the calendar year of 2019 onwards and therefore the figures provided below relate to the period 01 January 2019 to 18 June 2024. As such the 2024 figures relate to only a partial year.

Recorded incidents of abandoned vehicles, 01 January 2019 to 18 June 2024.

The Scottish Government’s National Carers Strategy published in December 2022 sets out our cross-government approach to carer support and recognition, with an emphasis on the need for collaboration between national and local government, the third sector, wider public and private sector. The Strategy sets out the importance of all employers being positive about carers in the workforce and outlines our commitment to fund and promote the Carer Positive employer accreditation scheme.

The Scottish Government funds Carers Scotland to run the scheme, raise awareness and engage with prospective employers. It does this through direct engagement, speaking at networks and events, and via one-to-one support. To date there are now more than half a million employees working in 275 Carer Positive organisations across Scotland. A full list of Carer Positive employers is published on the Carer Positive website .

The Scottish Government remains committed to promoting the scheme, and to ensuring that people who provide care for loved ones are able to do so in a meaningful and sustainable way whilst still being able to work, study and have full lives away from caring.