Chamber and committees

Over the period 2019 to 2021, all UK nations saw an increase in the number of alcohol-specific deaths. The increase for the whole of the UK over this period was 27.4% with the increase for Scotland being 22.1%. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggests, on their website, that the impact of restrictions related to COVID-19 may be a factor in the increase in alcohol-specific deaths seen across the UK.

The Scottish Government has a range of alcohol harm prevention and treatment policies and interventions intended to reduce harm. Recent research estimated our world-leading Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP) policy has saved hundreds of lives, and likely averted hundreds of alcohol-attributable hospital admissions each year and is having an effect in our most deprived areas. We are currently consulting on the Scottish Government’s preferred position on MUP which is a continuation of the policy and, in the event of continuation, at a price of 65 pence per unit of alcohol. On support and treatment, in 2022-23, we made £106.8 million available to Alcohol and Drugs Partnerships to support local and national treatment initiatives. We have been involved in a UK-wide group on reviewing and updating clinical guidance for alcohol treatment, which is now out for consultation . We are exploring the evidence around Managed Alcohol Programmes, and we are undertaking a review of the Alcohol Brief Intervention programme to ensure the programme is as impactful as possible in Scotland.

Scottish Government supports the use of digital solutions to overcome barriers to treatment for those impacted by problematic use of alcohol, such as the use of Near Me video appointments and With You’s online wechat service. However, we recognise these must be applied appropriately, with adequate training for staff and ensuring online safety and safeguarding for service users.

The recently published consultation on United Kingdom alcohol treatment guidelines which are expected to come into effect in 2024, highlight the need to consider digital practices and implement them carefully. The consultation will run until 8 December 2023: UK clinical guidelines for alcohol treatment - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) .

The rise in the prison population is driven by a complex set of factors, including the court backlog caused by reduced court capacity over the pandemic. Progress has been made in reducing this backlog through the justice recovery fund. This has allowed an increase in court business resulting in the fall of the number of outstanding scheduled trials by a third since last January. Other factors include the increase in average sentences imposed for certain offences and growth in the number of serious sexual offence and domestic abuse cases prosecuted in the courts. While both arrivals and departures increased over the first 8 months of the year, arrivals outpaced departures, resulting in a rising population. As the outlook for the population remains highly uncertain the Scottish Government continues to monitor it.

The Early Interventions for Children and Young People working group are currently developing recommendations of what good quality early intervention support services should be available across Scotland for young people with emerging problematic drug and alcohol use.

In Spring 2023, the working group began engaging with young people, using a co-design approach, to gather their views of what good support should look like. These findings, along with existing international evidence of good practice will be used by the working group to develop standards of support for children and young people.

The co-design work will conclude in January 2024.

The working group will then outline the minimum principles of support that is required by local areas to meet the needs of children and young people, providing early intervention support in a way young people want.

Alcohol Focus Scotland’s objectives as set out in their grant letter for 2022-23 were:

• Advocate for the continuation and optimisation of minimum unit pricing in Scotland
• Build community capacity to engage in the licensing process
• Improve the accessibility and effectiveness of the licensing process
• Encourage strategic action to reduce the availability of alcohol
• Build support for controls on alcohol marketing as recommended by the Expert Network.
• Engage with communities of interest to explore and publicise experiences of alcohol marketing
• Expand the evidence base and our policy advocacy work to protect children and young people from the impact of alcohol
• Increase awareness of the impact of alcohol on children and young people
• Build capacity of practitioners to identify and work with children and young people
• Improve knowledge of alcohol and understanding of risks
• Build capacity of practitioners to identify and work with children and young people
• Support the routinisation of Alcohol Death Reviews, and the sharing of knowledge from them, across Scotland
• Support interventions to reduce alcohol-related deaths

The licensing regime for growing hemp is a reserved matter controlled by the UK Home Office, however we recognise the potential benefit for hemp production in Scotland as a sustainable crop with multiple uses.

The Scottish Government has not engaged in any discussions on this issue with the UK Government. Currently, industrial hemp is not a major crop in Scotland; although there are a small number of independent growers who grow hemp for a variety of reasons and we are keen to speak with those interested in growing hemp to find out more about this crop.

The Scottish Government is interested in understanding the evidence behind the benefits of hemp. As such, as part of the Strategic Research Programme, we have funded several projects via the Scottish Environment, Food and Agriculture Research Institutes (SEFARI) Gateway Fellowship programme. These include a study entitled “Potential Market Opportunities for Hempseed and Fibre in Scotland” published in October 2022 in partnership with the University of Aberdeen and the Scottish Hemp Association. More about this study can be found at the following link: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/news/16425/ .

The objectives of the grant funding provided to SUSE throughout 2022 were to:

1. Provide the governance and project management function for the PSP.

2. Progress Apt through the PSP stages, which include:

• Designing and developing pilot projects for delivery throughout the grant period;
• Ensuring that those projects are evaluated;
• Refining and finalising pilot projects before outlining procurement options for the public sector.

3. Ensure that the PSP has a public corporate identity, including by:

• Creating and maintaining a website hosting such information that is deemed necessary by the steering group.

4. Appointment of PSP Development Manager to:

• Effectively support employers with "complex" needs;
• Engage an additional 40 employers to the PSP Workstreams;
• Capture baseline data on employers.

5. Ensure that the Apt continues to deliver interventions for employers:

• Continue delivery of pilot projects;
• Further development of a strong evidence base to support each pilot project;
• Production of a design blueprint which describes the range of tools, products and services offered by the PSP across their journey

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-22375 on 3 November 2023. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

The Scottish Government allocated an additional £500k in capital funding to Museums Galleries Scotland in both 2021-22 and 2022-23.This was in recognition of the important contribution museums make to our communities, and was directed towards crucial repair and maintenance work, to reduce museum running costs and increase resilience.

Government officials will continue to engage with and discuss the sector’s capital needs with Museums Galleries Scotland. The creation of an ongoing open access capital fund will be considered as part of future capital budget processes.

The capital outlook is extremely challenging as the UK Government did not inflation-proof their Capital Budget which has resulted in a projected 6.7% real terms fall in our capital funding over the medium term between 2023-24 and 2027-28.

The Scottish Government has provided funding to Women’s Aid East and Midlothian through the Third Sector Homelessness Fund and the Delivering Equally Safe Fund.

Women’s Aid East and Midlothian was funded through the Scottish Government’s Third Sector Homelessness Fund between 2021 and 2023. The objectives of Women’s Aid East and Midlothian's funding in 2022-23 was to:

• Deliver rapid access, permanent housing for women and children with complex needs and provide intensive and flexible support.
• Promote and increase the use of trauma-informed responses throughout Scotland for women and children experiencing domestic abuse.
• Prevent women and children experiencing domestic abuse from homelessness by implementing Housing first as a preventative approach.

Since October 2021, Women’s Aid East and Midlothian have been funded through the Delivering Equally Safe Fund, which will run until March 2025. The objectives of the fund are:

• Women and children affected by violence are identified (early)
• Women and children’s safety needs are met
• Women and children’s wider wellbeing needs are met
• Fewer people adhere to gender stereotypes
• People have increased understanding of all forms of VAWG (causes, consequences, and appropriate responses)
• Power, decision-making and material resources are distributed more equally between men and women.
• Tolerance of VAWG is reduced and people are more likely to recognise and challenge it
• Perpetrators are identified early
• Perpetrators are supported to change their behaviour
• Perpetrators are sanctioned / held to account
• Violence against women and girls is reduced / eradicated
• Negative impacts on women and children who have been affected by violence are reduced / eradicated

Additionally, Women’s Aid East and Midlothian received indirect funding through the 100 Days (Covid emergency) funding. In 2021, the Scottish Government awarded £2,250,000 of funding over three years to Scottish Women’s Aid through the 100 Days (Covid emergency) funding. The funding was provided to frontline services for women and girls affected by gender-based violence to deal with additional pressures that occurred during the pandemic. Scottish Women’s Aid divided the funding amongst local Women’s Aid organisations, including Women’s Aid East and Midlothian.

The objectives of the 100 days (Covid emergency) funding were:

• fund additional staff to respond to an increase in demand from victims of abuse for support services
• improvements to organisations’ IT and digital resource
• additional training to allow services to be augmented so that people could quickly and easily access help.