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.

I refer the Member to the answer to question S6W-21286 on 13 September 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

In line with the National Standard for providers of funded Early Learning and Childcare (ELC), it is a requirement that “children have daily access to outdoor play and they regularly experience outdoor play in a natural environment as part of their funded ELC offer ” .

Tackling poverty and protecting people from harm is one of three critical and interdependent missions for the government – alongside our focus on the economy and strengthening public services. We recognise that families with a child under the age of one are more likely to live in poverty and, as set out in Best Start, Bright Futures, our second Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan, are taking forward a range of action to help.

We have already significantly strengthened support through devolved social security. The Scottish Child Payment is worth £25 per eligible child per week with 316,000 children benefiting as of 30 June 2023. Programme for Government 2023-24 commits to further increasing the value of the Scottish Child Payment in line with inflation next year and to introducing regulations that remove income thresholds from Best Start Foods from February 2024, supporting an additional 20,000 people.

In addition we have delivered over a quarter of a million Baby Boxes to expectant parents – providing them with more than £400 worth of essential items for their newborn – and are committed to investing £500 million in Whole Family Wellbeing to improve holistic family support so that families get the right support, in the right way and at the right time.

Over 11,000 families have benefited from the Family Nurse Partnership since it began in 2010 and we have committed to further expansion over the next two years to reach more young mothers and fathers.

We have also implemented the Universal Health Visitor Pathway across Scotland, to ensure that all families get a minimum of 11 home visits – eight in the first year of life and three child health reviews up to age 5 – and we are supporting health visitors to have more meaningful conversations around financial inclusion through piloting dedicated training to increase their skills and confidence in discussing money worries and provide related guidance.

Between 2019 and 2023, we have invested £26 million in the development of perinatal and infant mental health services across Scotland.

Additionally, we have led work in Scotland to raise awareness of the unique nutritional needs of infants, and engaged a wide range of stakeholders to take action to develop Emergency pathways on Infant Food Insecurity, integrated into wider, locally directed and holistic income maximisation and food insecurity supports.

As set out in our Programme for Government, we will continue to invest in primary prevention from pre-birth through the earliest years and have set out ambitious plans to expand access to funded childcare for 13,000 more children and families by the end of this Parliament

It is estimated that 90,000 fewer children will live in relative and absolute poverty this year as a result of this Government’s policies, with poverty levels 9% points lower that they would have otherwise been. This includes lifting an estimated 50,000 children out of relative poverty through our Scottish Child Payment.

The Scottish Government will continue to do everything within the scope of our powers and budget in order to tackle and reduce child poverty, including for families with a child under the age of one.

Transport Scotland are working with support from external specialist commercial and technical advisors Turner and Townsend, to progress development of the next CHFS contract. Work is underway to the develop the next CHFS3 contract including stakeholder engagement to support this process.

Alcohol remains a priority for Scottish Government and we are treating our policies to reduce alcohol and drug deaths as twin public health emergencies in Scotland.

This is why we established a National Mission to improve and save lives, at the core of which is ensuring that every individual has access to, and choice in the type of recovery and treatment they need.

We are working to ensure people with alcohol use disorder receive the care and support in the same way that people can access for problematic use of drugs. The forthcoming Alcohol Treatment Guidelines will help ensure support for alcohol treatment, in a similar way to how the Medication-Assisted Treatment Standards ensure this for people impacted by opiates.

Following publication of the UK-wide guidelines it is our intention to draft a paper on specific alcohol treatment standards for Scotland.

Through our National Mission we are investing in residential rehabilitation that will benefit people experiencing alcohol and/or drug addiction.

Prior to establishing the framework for delivering counselling services, officials engaged with professional counselling bodies who advised that therapeutic counselling is not appropriate for younger pupils. In light of this advice, our commitment is specifically to make counselling available to secondary, primary and special school pupils aged 10 and over.

School counselling is just one of a range of services that schools may have in place to support the health and wellbeing of children and young people. We provide local authorities with £15 million per annum to fund community-based mental health and wellbeing supports for children, young people and their families.

We have also supported school staff to understand and recognise the range of mental health and wellbeing concerns that young people may experience in a new professional learning resource introduced in June 2021.

Annex C of the Infrastructure Investment Plan (IIP), published February 2021, used a taxonomy approach to assess planned infrastructure spend into low, neutral and high carbon categories, drawing on the annual carbon assessment of the capital budget. The 2022-23 annual IIP progress report, published June 2023, considers Major Capital Projects within the IIP in the context of the climate change targets.

Scottish Ministers accept that the IIP material published to date falls short of the requirement on Ministers in section 94A of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009, where they publish an Infrastructure Investment Plan, to also publish “an assessment of the extent to which investment in accordance with the plan is expected to contribute to the meeting of the emissions reduction targets”. Urgent work is underway to ensure that the duty is discharged in full and as soon as possible. The Scottish Government is also working with Environmental Standards Scotland to resolve this issue.

At present, we have no plans to establish and evaluate tests of change for alcohol treatment in the justice system.

The Scottish Prison Service is currently refreshing its Alcohol and Drug Recovery Strategy, this will ensure alcohol intervention and support are included in any recovery pathway planning across our establishments. It is anticipated that the strategy will be published later this year.

We are also supporting the UK Government on reviewing and updating clinical guidelines for alcohol treatment. The guidance will look to introduce new approaches to treatment and will apply to a broad range of settings including justice settings. The guidelines are expected to be published for consultation this year.

Following finalisation of the alcohol treatment guidelines, Scottish Government will review and use these to ensure that our justice systems are providing consistent and good care to those with problematic alcohol use.

The Local Authority Digital Office is a collaboration of Scottish local authorities, and independent of the Scottish Government. They are currently assisting the Student Placement Management Group in the planning for a replacement student teacher placement system.