Chamber and committees

The Hydrogen Innovation Scheme received a total of 74 applications with 32 successful projects offered grant funding.

Unsuccessful applicants to the scheme were directed to potential alternative sources of assistance, including available business grants and other funding calls and the SME Loan and Cashback Scheme which provides interest free loans (from £1,000 up to £100,000) to small and medium sized Scotland based businesses.

The successful Hydrogen Innovation Scheme applicants were informed throughout April and May 2023. All grants are paid in arrears, and will be awarded on successful completion of key project milestones.

Application guidance was made available to all applicants to the Hydrogen Innovation Scheme via the Scottish Government’s Website. In partnership with Energy Technology Partnership and the Enterprise Agencies, the Scottish Government hosted a webinar on 5 July 2022 to provide further guidance to prospective applicants and to direct them to additional sources of support. All applicants to the scheme were able to seek additional support from Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, South of Scotland Enterprise and/or the Energy Technology Partnership.

Any healthcare products being used by NHS Scotland require the undertaking of due diligence to ensure the safety of everyone concerned. This involves seeking clinical advice and undertaking a full health technology assessment (HTA).

In the first instance, all health technologies must be registered with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) before being placed on the market.

Following that, we refer enquiries around health technologies to the Scottish Health Technologies Group (SHTG), who are part of Healthcare Improvement Scotland. SHTG undertake HTAs, providing evidence support and advice on the use of new and existing health technologies. This includes analysing the benefits, costs, ease of implementation as well as considering any unintended clinical consequences which may arise.

It is ultimately for the 14 Territorial Health Boards across Scotland to decide whether to procure and apply this intervention as part of their treatment for patients. Health Boards receive support from Healthcare Improvement Scotland and SHTG in making such decisions.

The SHTG has not provided advice on the use of Trucheck to date.

The Managed Service Network for Children and Young People with Cancer (MSN CYPC), has not received any additional funding from Scottish Government to carry out a robust workforce review and mapping exercise of posts across the network. The exercise is being completed with support from the Scottish Cancer Network, using existing resources.

Approaches to measuring green jobs are still under development and as a result estimates on how many green jobs exist differ.

A definition of green jobs was published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in March in 2023 “Green jobs” update, current and upcoming work - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk) . ONS will now develop a detailed framework to underpin this definition, including the identification of appropriate activities (what the definition does and does not cover) and grouping them into useful sub-categories.

In the meantime our focus is on extracting the greatest number of job opportunities linked to the net zero transition, including via grants from the Green Jobs Fund to create new green jobs throughout Scotland and the Just Transition Fund to support people’s jobs and livelihoods in the North East.

NHS Tayside cancer services are currently operating at a stable level with mutual aid from other Health Boards for Systemic Anti-Cancer Therapies for breast cancer. The health board continues to pursue all recruitment opportunities and positive discussions are ongoing about possible future appointments.

Our key priority throughout the stocks and negotiations is always to protect Scottish interests by securing sustainable catching opportunities.

Bluefin tuna quota is allocated to the UK via International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) and for 2023 the UK Government intends to trial a small-scale commercial fishery for Bluefin tuna in UK waters with 39 tonnes set aside quota for this purpose. All UK vessels, including the Scottish fishing fleet, will be able to apply for the trial this year.

My officials have been fully involved in discussions within the UK to ensure that, upon the opening of the application process, applicants will be assessed in a fair and transparent manner to select who will be issued with one of the 10 Bluefin tuna licences. Each licence will regulate the maximum quota which may be fished for the period of the 2023 trial, and which will also be non-transferrable. Under this scheme, Bluefin tuna quota is therefore currently managed at a UK level, rather than being apportioned between UK Fisheries Administrations.

Prior to the commencement of the trial, it is essential that a precautionary management approach is fully developed to ensure that Bluefin tuna fishing is sustainable, and that vessels are fully compliant with all relevant measures.

This information is not held centrally by the Scottish Government and is a matter for Public Health Scotland. The most recent pancreatic cancer survival rates, published in July 2022 and covering individuals from 2015 to 2019, can be found at the following link: https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/media/13872/estimates-of-survival-from-pancreatic-cancer.xlsx.

The Creative Industries Leadership Group (CILG) last met on 8 June 2022. As of Summer 2022, the work of CILG has been paused and will be addressed as part of a wider strategic review of stakeholder engagement that is being undertaken by culture officials.