Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government does not prescribe approaches to items of practice on matters such as providing homework to children and young people.

In April 2023, Education Scotland published an update on ‘Engaging Parents and Families: A toolkit for practitioners’, which is available on the National Improvement Hub along with case study examples of learning at home. This resource, which includes a short review of the evidence surrounding homework, also provides schools and practitioners with good practice examples of effective approaches to learning at home.

Accordingly, decisions on providing homework are a matter of broader policy and approach that schools and headteachers are empowered to make decisions on. This is in line with other such decisions that headteachers make at a local level on learning and teaching practice, including the curriculum design, the vision, aims and rationale of the school or setting.

Hydrogen will be a key part of the net zero journey. Complementary alongside electricity, hydrogen will potentially play a role in heating some homes and buildings, this role depends upon strategic decisions by the UK Government and we continue to urge the UK Government to accelerate decisions on the role of 100% hydrogen in the gas grid. These decisions will be supported by testing and demonstration.

The Scottish Government has helped fund a number of key hydrogen demonstration projects over the past few years. These investments have been critical in gaining an understanding of hydrogen production and hydrogen system integration into wider energy systems. Projects such as SGN’s H100 Fife project, with aims to fit 100% hydrogen boilers into 300 homes in Leven, will help to understand the role hydrogen can play in decarbonising heat using the gas network and the Kirkwall Airport project, which demonstrates the potential for a renewable hydrogen combustion engine to support the decarbonisation of the Highlands and Islands Airport Limited (HIAL) locations.

The Scottish Government has an ambition of at least 5GW of hydrogen production capacity by 2030 and 25GW by 2025. The Hydrogen Policy Statement (2020) and the Hydrogen Action Plan (2022) set out how we will work collaboratively with the energy sector to drive progress over the course of this Parliament.

The Hydrogen Action Plan is supported by a programme of capital funding, designed to accelerate and maximise the production of renewable hydrogen in Scotland.

Funding to date includes:

• over £7m in grants offered via the Hydrogen Innovation Scheme to 32 projects that will drive innovation in renewable hydrogen production, storage, and distribution;
• over £6m awarded via the Just Transition Fund to HydroGlen, a green hydrogen farming pilot;
• and £15m awarded via the Energy Transition Fund to accelerate Aberdeen Hydrogen Hub.

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

The Scottish Government is fully aware of the impact that high energy prices are having upon many Scottish consumers. We estimate that from July to September 2023 there will be around 850,000 fuel poor households in Scotland which equates to 34% of all households.

While energy markets policy remain reserved to the UK Government, there are severe limits on the actions that we can take to help those facing the most serious impacts. However, we are taking measures where we can.

For example, we have tripled our Fuel Insecurity Fund to £30 million for this year and replaced DWP’s Cold Weather Payment with our new Winter Heating Payment, which will help around 400,000 low-income individuals.

I will also be chairing three working groups over the summer to discuss the impact of high energy prices on Scottish energy consumers. These will focus on the challenges facing those living in vulnerable circumstances, in the more rural areas of Scotland, and non-domestic consumers. The groups will identify collaborative action that we and our partners can continue to take, as well as maintaining a consensus on those areas where the UK Government must bring its reserved powers to bear.

I recently met the UK Government Minister for Energy Consumers and Affordability and repeated our call for further action to support and protect those who have been most affected by the ending of the Energy Bills Support Scheme.

The fact that the energy price cap from July to September is lower than the Energy Price Guarantee means that the UK Government now has greater scope to support those most in need. This includes introducing a much needed social tariff for vulnerable consumers, which should be funded through taxing significant windfall gains rather than passing the cost on to taxpayers.

I refer the member to the answer to the question S6W-19074 on 23 June 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 .

There have been no charges for using hospital car parks in Scotland since the start of the pandemic and the Scottish Government has no plans to reintroduce them.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on how many GPs in Scotland are able to assess seafarers for an (a) ENG1 and b) ML5 medical certificate, broken down by NHS board. The Maritime and Coastguard Agency is a UK Government agency.

It is for Healthcare Improvement Scotland's Community Engagement Team (HIS-CE) (formerly the Scottish Health Council) to answer questions on what proposed service changes NHS Boards have consulted them about.

The Scottish Government would expect that all health boards, including NHS Ayrshire & Arran, follow the national Planning with People guidance, which includes the need to engage with HIS-CET when considering service change.

The guidance is available at the following: https://www.gov.scot/publications/planning-people-community-engagement-participation-guidance/

The Scottish Government regularly talks to NHS Boards including NHS Lanarkshire and NHS Forth Valley regarding performance of services.

We do not hold any information about specific discussions regarding facture liaison services.

NHS Ayrshire & Arran engaged with the Scottish Government in late February about their interim arrangements for transferring the three Intensive Care Unit beds from University Hospital Ayr to University Hospital Crosshouse.

The Board has also engaged with the Scottish Government in recent years about their proposals to retain interim changes (made during the pandemic) to the model for delivery of local systemic anti-cancer therapies (including chemotherapy). The Board launched a formal consultation on the proposals which ran from 13 February to 19 May 2023 and the details can be accessed at: https://jointheconversation-nhsaaa.co.uk/sact-public-consultation-2 .