Chamber and committees

In January, it was confirmed by local authorities that all circa 50,000 learning, teaching and play spaces were equipped with a CO2 monitor.

The Scottish Government has allocated significant funding of £13.8 million to local authorities in relation to improving ventilation in schools.

Ministers have very much appreciated opportunities to visit the GWCT Scottish Game Fair in previous years.

I am currently considering attendance at the GWCT Scottish Game Fair alongside other Parliamentary commitments and will respond to outstanding invitations in due course.

We plan to publish the proposed new cancer strategy in early Summer 2023. We do not have a specific date.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

Officials and Ministers are in regular contact with business, including some of the biggest producers, and sector organisations in relation the delivery of the Deposit Return Scheme. The lack of clarity around an Internal Market Act exclusion has regularly been raised at these meetings and causes uncertainty and inhibits planning and preparation.

All Healthcare Improvement Scotland’s resources are reviewed regularly by the clinical team supporting HIS. The high risk medicines framework has been reviewed and has been identified as a useful resource for teams to use within their local settings. These are live resources and the Scottish Patient Safety Programme team welcomes feedback or suggestions for further developments.

As Circularity Scotland is a private company, any compensation to businesses they have arrangements with is a matter for them and it would not be appropriate for the Scottish Government to intervene in such commercial arrangements between private companies.

I recognise the impact that delays and disruption have regrettably had on our island communities and I am committed to investing in our ferry services. Indeed, my focus currently is on building resilience within the network.

I have noted the calls for compensation however, any such scheme would need to be carefully considered. It would require stark choices around how such a scheme would be prioritised for funding, over efforts to provide that network resilience.

The Scottish Government welcomes the increase in uptake of breast screening, set out in the latest available data published by Public Health Scotland. However, we recognise that work is required to address the inequalities arising those from more deprived areas being less likely to attend for screening.

NHS Ayrshire and Arran’s Public Health Team are currently examining the available data to establish areas where there are potential inequalities present that could reduce access to the Breast Screening Programme. This is likely to highlight areas of social and financial deprivation, and geographical isolation, which will allow for more targeted approaches to increasing uptake to take place.

The South West breast screening programme has an active social media campaign to raise awareness of the breast screening programme. In addition, appointments are available in the morning and evenings during the week to help accommodate access to screening. Alongside this, the Breast Screening Modernisation Programme and Equity in Screening strategy will consider inequality in uptake in the programme more generally.

National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) signals a turning point for planning, placing climate and nature at the centre of our planning system and making clear our support for all forms of renewable, low-carbon and zero emission technologies. NPF4 policy 11 makes clear that potential impacts on communities, nature and other receptors remain important considerations in the decision-making process. All applications are already, and will continue to be, subject to site-specific assessments.

Technical requirements for assessing potential wind turbine impacts such as noise, or interactions with aviation or defence interests, are set out in topic specific guidance and more general information on the status of these issues can be found in our Onshore Wind Policy Statement (Dec 2022), Chapters 6&7.