Chamber and committees

The First Minister has written once to the new Prime Minister. The letter, dated 6 September 2022 and focusing on the cost crisis, was published on the Scottish Government website and a link is provided below.

Cost crisis: letter to new Prime Minister - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The Scottish Government is aware that the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) now recommend that the four UK countries should move toward the implementation of a targeted screening programme for lung cancer in adults aged 55-74 with a history of smoking.

The Scottish Government welcomes this recommendation, though notes that the UK NSC also acknowledges the significant complexities that must be worked through ahead of implementation. Scotland will play an active part in that work. The Scottish Government will also follow the advice of the National Screening Oversight (NSO) and Scottish Screening Committee (SSC) who will consider how the recommendation can best be taken forward in Scotland.

In the meantime, we have agreed to fund a one year extension of the University of Edinburgh’s feasibility study, LungScot, into targeted lung health checks for high risk individuals. This will help to inform future approaches.

I refer the member to the answer to S6W-10989 on 3 October 2022. 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 .

Protecting children from online harm is a key priority for the Scottish Government. We are committed to ensuring the safety and wellbeing of Scotland’s children and young people.

In October 2021, a National Hub was established to review all deaths of children. This will channel learning in order to reduce preventable deaths of, and harm to, children and young people. It is jointly operated by Health Improvement Scotland and the Care Inspectorate with £550,000 funding from the Scottish Government.

Recognising that public engagement is vital, we ran a communications campaign giving advice to parents and carers on how to help keep children safe online. Across February and March, that campaign reached hundreds of thousands of Scots. It linked to the Scottish Government’s Parent Club website and a newly created Online Safety Hub .

With regards to education, the technologies area of the curriculum includes learning on internet safety and cyber resilience. Children and young people will learn about the safe and responsible use of different technologies, including the internet and social media, as part of their broad general education under Curriculum for Excellence. Education Scotland’s DigiLearn website provides training, resources and tailored guidance to support teachers to embed cyber resilience and internet safety learning across the curriculum.

The regulation of the internet is a reserved matter and falls to the UK Government. The UK Government’s Online Safety Bill was introduced to the House of Commons on 17 March 2022, and has begun its passage through the Houses of Parliament. The legislation contains a number of important provisions which have the potential to keep children in Scotland safer online while enjoying the benefits the internet has to offer. The Scottish Government continues to work with UK Government counterparts and Ofcom on the implications of this legislation for Scotland.

The requested information on how many nurses have (a) joined and (b) left the NHS in each year since 2007 is not centrally available.

Information on how many Nursing & Midwifery staff have (a) joined and (b) left the NHS since 2012 can be found in the following link: NHSScotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence

While funding for the national collections is a direct responsibility of the Scottish Government, other museums and galleries are core funded from a variety of sources including local government. The Scottish Government is in discussion with Museums Galleries Scotland to understand the current challenges facing smaller organisations. Museums Galleries Scotland provides development and project funding to the sector on behalf of the Scottish Government. In view of cost increases museums across Scotland are facing, Museums Galleries Scotland has decided to pause its planned grants programme in order to review whether it is the most effective way to meet the needs of the sector at this challenging time. They are working on this as a matter of urgency and will announce any revisions to their programme to the sector as soon as possible.

I refer the member to the answer to S6W-10989 on 3 October 2022. 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 .

The Scottish Government’s absolute priority is ensuring the wellbeing and safety of displaced people from Ukraine. Our aim is to reduce overall hotel stay lengths and for people to be settled in accommodation in communities as soon as possible and for as long as they wish to stay.

The contract notice with Corporate Travel Management (CTM) (North) Ltd, was published on 09 August 2022. The contract is the primary route used to source and provide travel-related services for displaced people from Ukraine including accommodation in hotels and on the M/S Victoria I and M/S Ambition.

The full contract has a value of up to £100 million with a start date of 8 July 2022 and an end date of 12 December 2024.

While the Scottish Government has not been made aware of fair work concerns by the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) in relation to Reach PLC, it is keen to ensure fair work practices are adopted across the news publishing industry.

The Scottish Government is pleased that the pay negotiations between the NUJ and Reach resulted in a revised pay offer being accepted by NUJ members at Reach on 26 September.

Employment legislation is reserved to the UK Government, however, the Scottish Government will continue to use its Fair Work policy to improve workers’ rights and protections.

We are clear that all employees must be paid fairly for the work they do. That is why the Scottish Government continues to support payment of, at least, the real Living Wage to build a more resilient economy, a more equal labour market, and to foster inclusive growth.

There are no plans to extend the Air Discount Scheme to cover travel by apprentices. Where employers and learning providers are unable to fund travel and subsistence costs for apprentices attending off job formal learning opportunities, Skills Development Scotland will reimburse the costs for residents of Shetland and other Highlands and Islands areas. This would include the full cost of air fares where no public transport alternative is available.