The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. It is the responsibility of local authorities to enforce compliance with the register of tobacco and vapes in their local areas.

The revised Stop and Search Code of Practice (the Code) includes clear safeguards for officers for the conduct of strip and intimate searches. It requires that such searches must be conducted by a constable of the same biological sex as the detainee. It also makes clear that no officer is required to search a person of the opposite sex, even if this request is made, without the officers’ express consent. In addition, the revised Code stresses that if an officer declines to carry out this search, this decision should be respected and they should face no career detriment as a result.

As outlined in my response to question S6W-44015, audit recommendations regarding this decision will be implemented by Glasgow City Health & Social Care Partnership (HSCP) officers, who are accountable to the Glasgow City Integration Joint Board (IJB) Finance, Audit and Scrutiny Committee.

All of the audit recommendations were accepted by Glasgow City IJB management, with implementation completion dates of 31 January 2026 to 30 June 2026.

The HSCP has advised that wider organisational learning will also be applied as an outcome of this implementation process.

The Scottish Government provides funding to Health Boards and Local Authorities and it is ultimately for local partners to agree a joint, integrated budget which will enable them to meet the needs of local people in line with their Strategic Objectives. It would therefore not be appropriate for the Scottish Government to intervene in relation to specific local decisions.

While we cannot intervene in decisions made by IJBs, we have facilitated engagement between health boards and HSCPs around the commissioning of support services for Huntington’s Disease. We continue to encourage all partners to work together to find solutions that put the needs of local people at the centre of decision making.

No central assessment has been made of the impact of paediatric long COVID on paediatric health and social care services. Responsibility for service delivery rests locally with NHS boards which configure services taking into account local circumstances and the reasonable needs of their patient populations.

We are providing £4.5 million funding to NHS boards on a recurring basis to support the delivery of specialist support for long COVID, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and other similar conditions. In allocating this resource, NHS boards have been asked to consider what would be needed to extend provision for these conditions to paediatric services if there is an identified need for this in their board. Boards have also been asked to consider how they may collaborate to provide a more efficient and effective service, whether this may be for the most complex cases and/or for specific populations e.g. paediatrics.

Local Authorities are responsible for developing, delivering and maintaining flood protection schemes in their communities. This is because they are best placed to respond to local resilience needs. Therefore the Scottish Government has not had any discussions with SEPA regarding its guidance on flood defences and the wider flooding risk in the Langholm area.

Dumfries and Galloway Council put forward a flood protection scheme for Langholm in its 2015 Local Flood Risk Management Plan, but it was withdrawn due to a lack of community support for the scheme.

The Council have confirmed that there are no further works planned in terms of a flood protection scheme for Langholm. Council maintenance of road gullies in the area is planned after an incident of surface water flooding in late 2025.

The number of homes completed through the demand led Rural and Islands Housing Fund by local authority area since 2023-24 is as follows:

Each structure on the trunk road network is inspected every two years. Any defects found are recorded and categorised in terms of severity and extent. Currently, of the 2069 bridges on the trunk road network, 1939 are recorded as having defects. An assessment of the extent and severity of these defects is used to prioritise works and produce one and three year programmes for repair. 270 bridges are deemed to have defects severe enough to programme specific works. Programmes are updated every year taking into account data from the previous year’s inspections.

Spreadsheet A contains a list of structures with defects along with their positions on the trunk road network.

Spreadsheet B contains a list of structures with programmed repairs along with the year in which they are due to commence, , with some schemes devised to address similar defects on multiple structures.

These can be found in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. Number 66564)

The Rural and Island Housing Grant Scheme is expected to provide support to individuals including first time buyers, families, rural returners and others to help them access affordable owner occupation in the rural and island communities of their choice.

The development of this new grant scheme will be taken forward with rural and housing partners. It has an indicative budget of up to £20 million over four years and will be demand-led.

The Rural and Islands Housing Fund is a demand-led fund. The following table shows how much the Scottish Government has spent on the Rural and Islands Housing Fund in each year since 2023-24, broken down by local authority area:

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) describes long COVID as “a multi-system condition with a range of debilitating symptoms… people may have wide-ranging and fluctuating symptoms following an acute COVID-19 infection, which may vary in nature over time”. The ongoing impact of long COVID can be debilitating for some with impacts on daily activities and quality of life reported to include fatigue, breathlessness, anxiety, depression and cognitive impairment.

National population health surveys are currently the most appropriate source of data on the proportion of a population experiencing the long-term effects of COVID-19. The annual Scottish Health Survey (SHeS) is the most robust source of data on self-reported long COVID prevalence in Scotland, including among children. Long COVID is defined for this survey as symptoms that develop during or after a COVID-19 infection that continue more than four weeks after the infection and are not explained by something else. The most recent data for 2024 was published in October 2025. The data for children (aged under 16) are available via the survey dashboard. The question asked respondents who had had COVID-19 whether they currently had long COVID. 1% of children aged under 16 were reported to have long COVID. This is the lowest self-reported prevalence rate among all age groups shown in this survey. The overall adult self-reported prevalence rate was 7%.

The Scottish Government does not have access to data about long COVID held in NHS electronic systems. It is in any case difficult to identify people who have long COVID from within NHS records: not everyone with long COVID will attend their GP, and not all cases or symptoms will be recorded as long COVID. Research undertaken in Scotland, England and Wales has consequently shown that long COVID among adults is under-recorded in GP electronic systems compared with findings from surveys such as SHeS which ask about self-reported prevalence. It is reasonable to assume that long COVID among children is also likely to be under-recorded and is therefore difficult to assess accurately from health records.