Chamber and committees

The UK government announcement related to the proposed scheme in England. Wales has also confirmed their scheme will include glass.

The Scottish Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) business case suggests that including glass will save over 1.2 megatonnes CO2 equivalent over 25 years, and will significantly increase the quantity and quality of glass recyclate. We will continue to work closely with the UK and devolved governments to maximise interoperability of the schemes when they go live, and hope that the UK government will, over time, follow the other UK nations and reconsider its decision to exclude glass.

This question relates to operational matters that are the responsibility of the Scottish Court and Tribunals Service (SCTS) corporate body. The question has been passed to the Chief Executive of the SCTS who will reply in writing within 20 days.

Scottish Government gives very serious consideration to the maintenance of plant and animal health and welfare through a range of biosecurity measures that aim to prevent the introduction and spread of harmful organisms.

On Plant health Scotland’s Chief Plant Officer for Scotland provides advice to Scottish Ministers and ensures strategic and tactical leadership, across forestry, crops and the natural environment, to minimise the risk and impact of plant health biosecurity threats in Scotland. The CPHOS works closely with UK Plant Health service colleagues to co-ordinate the Scottish Government’s plant health response in terms of policy, inspections and surveillance activities. Scotland’s Plant Health Centre of Expertise provides rapid call down evidence to inform policy and SG invests £50 million a year into a portfolio of strategic research.

On animal health and welfare, in both wild and farmed populations, SG funds ongoing disease surveillance and risk communication work through the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) and SRUC, as well as working with the other UK Administrations to collate data on current threats through International Disease Monitoring and Veterinary Risk Groups. Outputs from these groups inform policy decision making, both with regards to our borders and within Scotland. In addition the EPIC Centre of Expertise on Animal Disease Outbreaks is funded to provide epidemiological advice which informs actions to protect health and welfare.

On the specific examples, ash dieback is present across Scotland and management efforts are now focused on mitigating safety risks from diseased trees. Scottish forestry recently published advice for forest managers, Scottish Forestry - Ash dieback in Scotland . The Scottish Government provides funding through its Forestry Grant Scheme to control grey squirrels, Sustainable Management of Forests – Species Conservation – Grey Squirrel Control (ruralpayments.org) where they are a threat to the red squirrel population. The Forestry Grant Scheme also grant aids removal of regeneration, Seedling Tree Removal (Mechanical) (ruralpayments.org) where it will affect the hydrology of a raised bog or blanket bog, and hinder the recovery of the open bog habitat.

In December 2021 the Animal Disease Policy Group (ADPG), which includes a range of avian influenza experts and representatives from UK administrations, agreed to collect and store samples from non-avian wildlife through the existing Diseases of Wildlife Surveillance (DoWS) scheme for retrospective testing. This would allow a better understanding of the epidemiological situation regarding influenza viruses in non-avian wildlife species while limiting the pressure on veterinary resource or the National Reference Laboratory (NRL) Weybridge allowing the prioritisation of testing of wild birds and poultry. ADPG took the decision in July 2022 to commence the retrospective testing of stored samples of mammal carcasses at the NRL. The samples had been collected as part of routine wildlife surveillance in 2021 and 2022. In February 2023 it was reported to Scottish Government that four seals from Scotland have returned positive findings of HPAI H5N1 from this retrospective testing programme.

Despite these findings, the risk of the H5N1 strain to non-avian species, including humans, remains low. The positive identification of HPAI in mammals remains an unusual event and available genomic surveillance data, reported by APHA in the UK, indicates that there is no widespread mammalian adaption of the virus.

Scottish Government continues to monitor the UK and international situation regarding HPAI in avian and non-avian wildlife. Since the beginning of 2023, APHA have moved to a system of real-time testing through the GB wildlife surveillance scheme of mammalian samples collected including seals.

The Scottish Government expects health care professionals to deliver high quality person-centred care in line with best practice guidance. The NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) guideline on management of rheumatoid arthritis in adults (NG100) is available on its website: www.nice.org.uk. The Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) guideline on management of psoriatic arthritis in adults (SIGN 121) is available on its website: www.sign.ac.uk.

The Forestry and Land Scotland contract for the sale of venison from Scotland’s national forests and land was awarded by a competitive tender following substantial stakeholder engagement / market research.

The stakeholder engagement / market research considered all aspects of the venison market both in Scotland and the UK and involved the following (amongst others):

• Association of Deer Management Groups (ADMG)
• Lowland Deer Network
• Scottish Quality Wild Venison
• Scottish Venison Association
• Approved Game Meat Handling Establishments (AGHE) processing venison
• Ardgay Game
• Highland Game
• Simpson Game
• Lincolnshire Game
• Hubertus Game
• Ben Rigby

Following the stakeholder engagement / market research a tender strategy was developed, which detailed how the contract would be structured to maximise the benefits in line with the Scottish Venison Strategy.

The Scottish Government values the commitment that foster carers make to providing safe and loving homes for children and young people who are not able to stay with their own families. As part of Keeping The Promise, we are taking action to support children and young people to maintain the connections and friendships that are most important to them.

Whilst the Scottish Government has not published specific guidance on maintaining contact with former foster carers, the principle of helping children and young people maintain positive relationships is at the heart of the Staying Together and Connected guidance published in July 2021. This guidance has been supported by a National Implementation Group whose work is due to conclude in Spring. Part of the Group’s work has been to consider what more we can do to better understand, map and support the key relationships that are important to children and young people.

The Why Not? Trust has developed a Directory called Why Not? Reconnect which provides adults, who experienced foster care in their childhood, the opportunity to reconnect with those foster families who cared for them. The Directory is funded through the Promise Partnership Fund, a Scottish Government Fund aimed at delivering work to Keep The Promise.

Work to develop the prospectus is drawing on a range of officials across the organisation who will contribute to varying extents as part of their wider responsibilities in supporting the Scottish Government. The exact number of officials contributing as part of their wider responsibilities is not known as the Scottish Government has no need to record this information.

The Constitutional Futures Division coordinates work on the Building a New Scotland series. As of 22 February 2023, it comprises 24 civil servants, including one Deputy Director. This equates to 23.3 FTE .

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-15269 on 8 March 2023. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at Questions and answers | Scottish Parliament Website .

We remain committed to significantly increasing the rate of restoration as one of the transformative changes needed to meet the targets set out in the Climate Change Plan. In 2020 we set out ambitious plans to invest more than £250 million over ten years to restore at least 250,000 hectares of degraded peatlands by 2030.

Against this target, we have delivered around 64,000 hectares to date at an annual rate of around 6,000 hectares in recent years. This falls short of our annual target of 20,000 hectares. There are a number of reasons for this, including the fact that peatland restoration is a sector in its infancy and has not yet developed significant supply capacity. Contractor capacity is limited, as is the field of technical advisers and agents to support land owners and managers through restoration projects.

Our Peatland Programme is working to address the many barriers to transforming restoration rates in order to meet both current and future targets. We are taking actions to boost supply and demand, to create new levers and incentives through agriculture and land reform, and to increase private investment.