Chamber and committees

As set out in Section 14 and Section 15 of The Deposit and Return Scheme for Scotland Regulations 2020, submitted applications with regards to the appointment of scheme administrators are reviewed and decisions made by Scottish Ministers. The Regulations do not provide for public funding or financial support for appointed scheme administrators. This is entirely appropriate for a scheme that has industry responsibility at its heart. As such, subsidy control matters are not relevant in the appointment of a scheme administrator.

Within Transport Scotland, we only have FTE records available from 2016, due to data retention policies. From 2016 to December 2022, Ferries existed as a team within the Aviation, Maritime, Freight and Canals (AMFC) Directorate. I have provided the FTE separately for both the Ferries team and the AMFC directorate as a whole. From December 2022, a new Ferries Directorate was formed, this FTE figure is shown below. All figures are as at March of each year.

In 2018, the Scottish Government undertook a public consultation to explore options for establishing a deposit return scheme in Scotland, to which 16 recycling and waste management organisations submitted representations. An analysis of these consultation responses is available on the Scottish Government website here . The Scottish Government receives and responds to ongoing correspondence from stakeholders regarding DRS and is happy to consider any request for further information, in line with its obligations under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 and the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004.

The vast majority of funding to local authorities from the Scottish Government is provided via a block grant and we do not stipulate how local authorities should utilise their individual allocations.

It is the responsibility of each local authority to manage their own budget and to allocate the financial resources available to them on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities. The Scottish Government has no plans to establish a national pothole fund.

The overall funding package for local authorities of almost £12.7bn for 2022/23 represents a rise of £1.06bn or 9.2% in cash terms, or 6.3% in real terms compared with 2021/22.

The Scottish Government regularly engages with UK Government counterparts at ministerial and official level on many matters concerning the space sector, including the subject of regulation. Most recently I wrote to the UK Space Agency and my counterpart at the former BEIS in February, following a meeting with them in January.

On 16 March 2023, I wrote to the Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority to ask what immediate actions are being taken to reassure government, industry and their customers and investors, that the UK regulator will not inhibit either our global competitiveness as a spacefaring nation nor our spaceports or satellite manufacturers commercial prospects.

The rules and regulations that govern the resilience of the GB electricity grid are a matter reserved to the UK Government and the Scottish Government has no responsibility in relation to the operational management of wind farm sites.

At the meeting on 15 February 2023, Scottish Government officials were given reassurances by Scottish Power Renewables that they are taking forward work on alternatives to the use of diesel generators.

Scottish Government officials continue to seek regular updates from Scottish Power Renewables on this work as it progresses.

a) For 2022-23, core funding for university research was increased to £299 million to maintain and strengthen Scotland’s excellent research base, with levels maintained for 2023-24. This funding is used for a range of purposes, including the provision of state of the art research facilities and lab equipment, and development opportunities for student and early career researchers who are the future of Scottish life sciences.

b) To ensure there are facilities available to support university spinouts the Scottish Government has invested in Research Pools, Innovation Centres and in the Alliance for Research Challenges. The aim is to create a critical mass of excellence, pulling together academic and industry expertise in areas of global importance, including Life Sciences.

In addition, investment through the City Region Deals is supporting a number of bespoke life sciences infrastructure projects including £10 million investment towards BioHub, an Aberdeen City Region Deal project. Located at the University of Aberdeen's Foresthill Health Campus, it will provide the support and physical infrastructure to help attract and retain life sciences spin outs in Scotland. As part of the Tay Cities Region Deal, Scottish Government agreed to provide £25 million towards facilities at the University, including £20.2 million towards an Innovation Hub to host and support spin-out and developing companies, including laboratory infrastructure.

As well as expert advice and help from our enterprise agencies to support business growth, through the Tech Scaler initiative we will provide intensive, structured commercial education to ‘start-up’ businesses in Scotland, to support them in growing and scaling-up to the full extent of their ambitions.

The next statistical release on the Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme in Scotland will be published by the Scottish Government on 23 March 2023.

Additionally, the Scottish Government publish a calendar of forthcoming statistical releases. The calendar can be found here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/official-statistics-forthcoming-publications/

Evusheld ® was developed and tested before the emergence of the Omicron variant. The RAPID C-19 group and the COVID-19 UK expert panel have considered a full range of evidence, including clinical trial data, in vitro (in the lab) analysis and observational studies, and have advised that there is insufficient evidence available to support procurement and deployment of Evusheld ®. As a result, there is currently no established NHS supply arrangement for Evusheld ® in the UK.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC, as part of Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS)) have agreed to maintain the collaboration that started through RAPID C-19 by collaborating on a single health technology appraisal (STA) of Evusheld ® for the prevention of COVID-19. NICE and the SMC will produce separate guidance and advice documents, but the recommendations will be aligned. Draft guidance was published on 16 February 2023, and does not recommend its use. Final guidance on the STA is expected to be published in June 2023.

There has been a significant, long term move towards procedures carried out as day-cases and reducing lengths of stay, to the benefit of patients meaning less time spent in hospital.

This includes significant progress in the delivery of same-day discharge arthroplasty, allowing patients to be safely discharged home on the same day as their procedure, increasing capacity within Orthopaedics.

The Centre for Sustainable Delivery will enable us to see 140,000 new outpatients each year, an increase of 55,500 procedures per year by the end of this plan - a 20% increase over pre-Covid levels – and Specialty Delivery Groups have been set up to drive opportunities across regions on same day surgery, for example in gynaecology pathways.