Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is fully committed to helping the Scottish hydrogen sector develop.

The Hydrogen Action Plan, published in December 2022, confirmed that the Scottish Government will support the emerging hydrogen sector through a programme of capital funding, designed to accelerate and maximise the production of renewable hydrogen in Scotland.

The first tranche of our hydrogen investment programme, the Hydrogen Innovation Scheme was launched in 2022 to support research and innovation in hydrogen production, storage, and distribution. In May, the First Minister announced that over £7m in grants had been offered to 32 projects. Details of these projects are published on the Scottish Government website: Emerging Energy Technologies Fund - Hydrogen Innovation Scheme: successful projects - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . All grants are paid in arrears, and will be awarded on successful completion of key project milestones.

The next tranche of the hydrogen investment programme, the up to £90m Green Hydrogen Fund, will launch later in 2023. This fund will focus on supporting renewable hydrogen production from Scotland’s abundant renewable energy resources, seeking to give Scotland first-mover advantage.

Our investment is aimed at driving Scotland’s hydrogen production capability to meet an ambition of at least 5GW of renewable and low carbon hydrogen by 2030 and 25GW by 2045.

The total quantity of discards below Minimum Conservation Reference Size from Scottish vessels is not currently estimated. The Marine Directorate of the Scottish Government estimates the total weight of bycatch (catch that was not considered suitable for commercial sales) below Minimum Conservation Reference Size for demersal trawlers and seine netters for each year, using data collected by scientific observers on-board fishing vessels. Fishing trips by vessels using other gears are not surveyed. The estimates for 2022 are given in the table below. These estimates are for fishing trips by UK vessels landing into Scotland and Scottish vessels landing abroad, however the estimates for solely Scottish vessels are likely to be of similar magnitude.

Estimates of the total weight of bycatch (kg) below Minimum Conservation Reference Size, rounded to the nearest tonne, caught in 2022 in ICES subarea 4 and division 6a by UK vessels landing into Scotland and Scottish vessels landing abroad, fishing with demersal trawls or seines.

Officials have met with the International Association for the Evaluation of Education Achievement, who direct PIRLS and TIMSS, to begin the process of rejoining the studies.

The next cycles of PIRLS and TIMSS will be in 2026 and 2027 respectively. Results for PIRLS 2026 are expected in December 2027 and results for TIMSS 2027 are expected in December 2028. At this point, comparisons can be made with participating countries from across Europe and beyond.

The Scottish Government is currently developing proposals on bovine EID and aims to consult on this issue in late 2023/early 2024. Scottish Ministers will consider the findings of the consultation and alongside wider implications, such as the UKIMA before reaching a preferred position on bovine EID.

The Scottish Government is actively engaged with a number of industry groups on electronic identification in livestock, including the Bovine EID Industry Working Group. The Scottish Government has also supported a pilot on bovine EID, looking into the effectiveness of different technologies. The findings were published in a report by ScotEID on 15 September 2023.

The launch of our National Mission on Drugs in January 2021 has meant that some of the commitments set out in the Rights, Respect, Recovery Strategy and the action plan for it, refreshed in December 2020, are being delivered in a different way.

In July 2022 the Scottish Drugs Deaths Taskforce ‘Changing Lives’ Report, was published. This report recommended that The Scottish Government should develop a workforce action plan. In response to this recommendation, Scottish Government’s Drugs and Alcohol Workforce Action Plan will shortly be published, setting out the steps we will take to address prevailing challenges.

The launch of our National Mission on Drugs in January 2021 has meant that some of the commitments set out in the Rights, Respect, Recovery Strategy and the action plan for it, refreshed in December 2020, are being delivered in a different way. Many of the milestones are being delivered through the National Mission and others are being picked up as part of more recent Government commitments.

The Medication Assisted Treatment standards published on 31 May 2021 and are a set of standards aimed at providing a framework to ensure that MAT is sufficiently safe, effective, acceptable, accessible and person-centred to enable people to benefit from treatment for as long as they need it.

The standards are evidence based and were developed through extensive consultation with multiagency partners that deliver care, and, with the individuals, families and communities with experience of problematic drug use.

The Scottish Government has committed to full and sustained implementation of MAT standards 1-10 in community and justice settings by April 2026. To help local areas achieve this, the MAT Implementation Support Team (MIST), based within Public Health Scotland (PHS) is supporting the roll out of the standards ensuring local areas have systems, protocols and procedures in place to be able to continuously improve services based on evidence.

In order to demonstrate implementation of the MAT standards, local areas provide process, numerical and experiential evidence to MIST which helps to inform an annual National Benchmarking Report, published by PHS. Process evidence includes formularies, clinical guidelines, care pathways, standard operating procedures, policies and other supporting documentation.

The National Benchmarking Report for 2022/2023, published in July 2023 reported that the 29 ADP areas assessed against each of the 10 MAT standards, 66% (96/145) of MAT standards 1–5 were fully implemented and 88% (127/145) of MAT standard 6–10 were partially implemented.

The launch of our National Mission on Drugs in January 2021 has meant that some of the commitments set out in the Rights, Respect, Recovery Strategy and the action plan for it, refreshed in December 2020, are being delivered in a different way. Many of the milestones are being delivered through the National Mission and others are being picked up as part of more recent Government commitments.

The Partnership Delivery Framework to Reduce the Use of and Harm from Alcohol and Drugs which was approved by COSLA Leaders and Scottish Ministers in 2019, sets out clear arrangements for quality assurance and quality improvement work to be undertaken at a local level.

The Drugs Death Taskforce recommended in their final report, Changing Lives , that; The Scottish Government should develop a National Specification outlining the key parts of the treatment and recovery system that should be available in every local area, ensuring it also delivers on the principles of quality, choice, access and parity of treatment with other health conditions.

We have made a commitment in our Cross Government Plan that we agree that a National Specification for services would help set these requirements out more clearly. This would also provide more accountability, particularly for those with lived and living experience and their families who will be able to see clearly what they can expect to be available in the treatment and recovery system.

We are working with partners to scope out the components of a Specification for further development and consultation. This process will need to involve a range of local and national partners and most important amongst those will be people with experience of using the services and their families.

The area of forest that has been felled in Scotland is not monitored on an annual basis. Scottish Forestry is the Scottish Government agency responsible for the regulation tree felling and monitors the area approved for felling each year. After approval for felling is issued, the landowner has flexibility to decide on the timing of felling.

Felling approvals are issued in a number of ways, including as standalone Felling Permissions, where felling is approved for a two year period, and Long-term Forest Plans, where felling is approved for a ten year period. Local Authorities may also approve felling as part of planning permission, but these figures are not collated. As approvals can be valid for over several years, the area of forest felled in a particular year is not available.

For the last seven years, including private sector approvals and forests managed by Forestry and Land Scotland, the areas approved for felling are as follows. Of this area, 96-98% is for conifer forest:

Rights, Respect and Recovery sets a clear expectation that all people accessing services with a substance use condition should receive holistic, person-centred care. MAT standard 9 builds upon this, stating that ‘all people with co-occurring drug use and mental health difficulties can receive mental health care at the point of MAT delivery.’ The government is taking forward a number of measures to ensure that people with co-occurring mental health and substance use conditions receive this joined-up care.

We have funded Healthcare Improvement Scotland to test new models of care in five health boards – Tayside, Grampian, Lanarkshire, Greater Glasgow & Clyde, and Lothian.

The government also published a rapid review into mental health and substance use services in November 2022. This included a literature review, a survey of practitioners in substance use services, and a set of recommendations.

Finally, the government has recently commissioned Healthcare Improvement Scotland to produce an exemplar protocol which will set out how mental health and substance use services should work together. This will build on existing best practice and support local areas to implement the recommendations from the rapid review and the criteria of the MAT standards.