The Scottish Government continues to take whole population and targeted approaches to tackle alcohol-related harms. We have laid legislation seeking the agreement of Parliament to continue Minimum Unit Pricing, and set the price per unit at 65 pence. Members of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee voted to approve those orders on 26 March 2024 and I am pleased that there is cross party support for this policy.

We will continue to engage with all stakeholders, including public health organisations and the alcohol industry, around potential restrictions to alcohol marketing. This will take the form of targeted engagement, with the aim of consulting on a more specific set of proposals later this year.

We have asked Public Health Scotland to investigate the reasons behind the apparent 40% reduction in the number of people accessing specialist alcohol treatment.

We are working with stakeholders to develop a National Service Specification, informed by the forthcoming UK alcohol treatment clinical guidelines. They will aim to provide clarity on the types of treatment and recovery services available.

The resource for Mental Health and Wellbeing in Primary Care Services was published in June 2022. The resource was developed to support staff working as part of a multi disciplinary team within GP settings. The resource provides a directory of additional sources of help, which patients can access, to complement the support, assessment and treatment they receive from the team. It brings together a range of national resources and tools that support and improve mental health and wellbeing. Section 7 of the resource contains links to sources of support specifically for Perinatal and Parent Support. The resource was promoted via the Mental Health in Primary Care National Oversight Group, Mental Health in Primary Care Leads and NHS Board Mental Health Leads.

The Scottish Government recognises the document is not exhaustive and there will be a number of local resources and tools that staff will also want to use. The resource can be found at the following link the link for the resource Resources for Mental Health and Wellbeing in Primary Care Services (www.gov.scot) .

In addition to this wider work, there is also a resource dedicated to promoting third sector perinatal and infant mental health services. This resource is available to provide information to families and professionals, including in primary care, to raise awareness of over 110 local third sector services. In the last year the resource page has received 2,693 views. Inspiring Scotland have been promoting the tool on X and in their recent newsletter which reaches NHS staff as well as wider partners. The resource can be found here: Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Third Sector Service Directory - Inspiring Scotland .

The Scottish Government has worked with NHS Education for Scotland (NES) to develop ‘Perinatal mental health curricular framework : a framework for maternal and infant mental health’. This framework sets out the different levels of knowledge and skills required by members of the Scottish workforce who have contact with mothers and their babies, to enable them to support mothers, babies and their families to have positive well-being and good mental health during the perinatal period.

The Scottish Government has also worked with NES to advance training on Perinatal and Infant Mental Health. Training in evidence-based approaches and interventions is delivered to staff across sectors and across practice types including informed, skilled, enhanced and specialist, as appropriate to their role.

This includes education and training within Perinatal and Infant Mental Health through e-learning modules which are available on TURAS, covering seven topic areas of essential knowledge. We have also worked with NES to create a specialist Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Learning Programme which allows NES to track the progress of staff in Specialist Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Services including Mother and Baby Units, Community Perinatal Mental Health Teams and Maternity and Neonatal Psychological Interventions.

During 2024-25, NES will continue to promote training at all levels across the sectors that support the development of positive relationships and attachment in the early years. This will be achieved through increasing workforce capacity to deliver evidence-based parent-child relationships focused interventions and approaches from the antenatal period, through infancy and across childhood.

Public Health Scotland published a summary of evidence on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on alcohol consumption and harm in Scotland and England looking at data up to around 2021. This found that, overall, alcohol consumption decreased following the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, changes in drinking behaviours were polarised with some increasing their alcohol consumption and others decreasing . This was associated with drinking behaviour before the pandemic: those who increased their alcohol consumption tended to drink more before the pandemic, and those who decreased consumption tended to drink less. Over the COVID-19 pandemic, alcohol-related hospitalisations decreased, and alcohol-related deaths increased – potentially due to changing patterns of consumption and to the decrease in access to services over the pandemic.

More recent data shows that:

• For all adults, prevalence of hazardous or harmful drinking has generally decreased over time, with levels dropping from 34% in 2003 to 22% in 2022.
• In 2022/23, there were 31,206 alcohol-related hospital admissions (stays) in Scotland, a decrease of 11% since 2021/22.
• In 2022, 1,276 people in Scotland died from alcohol-specific causes, a 2% increase from 2021 and the highest number of annual deaths recorded since 2008

It is not possible to know the extent to which these trends are attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, increases in alcohol-specific mortality since 2019 are observed across many other countries including all 4 nations of the UK, other European countries, the US and Canada. It is widely observed, including by The Office for National Statistics, that these rises are likely in part to be the result of increased alcohol consumption during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Public Health Scotland’s evaluation has found that the evidence points to minimum unit price having a positive impact on health outcomes. It is estimated to have cut alcohol consumption, alcohol-attributable deaths and likely to have reduced hospital admissions during the study period.

Following the 2024-25 budget settlement, the Scottish Government reviewed a number of budget lines in Education and Skills. In relation to Gaelic the outcome of this review is that there will now be no reduction to the MG ALBA funding for 2024-25. There will also be no reduction of the Gaelic, Education and Culture budget line which would have had an impact on the funding of Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Storlann and other organisations and the Scottish Government has now provided additional funding to enable Bòrd na Gidhlig to continue its support for the Gaelic Officers’ Scheme in 2024-25.

Monitoring compliance with Fair Work First principles, including the requirements to pay workers at least the real Living Wage and provide appropriate channels for effective voice, is the responsibility of individual grant managers across government and of relevant funders across the wider public sector. It takes place within existing grant assurance and monitoring processes, as with any other condition of grant, such as agreed outcomes.

Where an exception to the real Living Wage requirement is approved, the relevant funder is asked to record these. Officials are in the process of commissioning this information which will be collated and published in due course. There are no exceptions to the effective voice requirement, however funders may apply flexibility to recognise the different forms of voice appropriate for different organisations.

The Electricity Act 1989 preserves the requirement for local planning authorities to be consulted and for a public inquiry to be required in particular circumstances. The Scottish Government is clear that the views of local planning authorities are an important consideration in the decision making process.

Transmission Owners in Scotland have worked with Scottish Government officials to consider the challenges around the consenting of major grid developments through a short life working group established in October 2022. The group made multiple recommendations including setting out clear steps to enable the determination of applications within 12 months and the need for legislative changes to the UK Electricity Act 1989. The UK Government has committed to a review of Scottish consenting processes under the UK Electricity Act 1989, and we are working closely with them as they consider the scope of the review.

We have also laid a statutory instrument in the Scottish Parliament which introduces new measures to simplify the planning process and extend the existing Permitted Development Rights (PDR) for electricity undertakings. Subject to parliamentary scrutiny, the changes are expected to come into effect on 24 May 2024.

The purpose of the Scottish Government’s policy on free instrumental music tuition is ensure that fees and charges are not a barrier to learning an instrument at school.

The policy has transformed instrumental music tuition in Scotland’s schools by funding all councils to eradicate unfair music tuition charges. The most recent Instrumental Music Survey published in December 2023 Instrumental Music Survey shows the number of pupils participating is at a record high.

The policy means that Local Authorities should not charge fees for instrumental music tuition at school.

The Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service (SCTS) record solemn criminal proceedings using a Digital Audio Recording System. While the record of proceedings will be retained by SCTS, they are not routinely transcribed.

Transcription is done by an external agency and the details of the procurement contract are entirely a matter for SCTS. I can advise that SCTS has utilised a Crown Commercial Services (CCS) Framework RM1557 contract, available to all Government organisations. The benefits of this contract are, scalable services enabling pay for what you use, and the ability to increase or reduce what you need easily alongside a quick and easy route to market.