Chamber and committees

In keeping with our statutory and other assessment requirements we published our Integrated Impact Assessments (IIA) alongside Draft NPF4, and invited comment. This included an Environmental Report, setting out the likely significant environmental effects of Draft NPF4 including on climatic factors. Our assessment findings and the comments received have been taken into account in finalising the Revised Draft NPF4 which was laid in Parliament on 8 November. The IIA is available from the Scottish Government’s website: www.gov.scot .

The Scottish Government's Infrastructure Investment Plan, which was published in February 2021, sets out the government’s infrastructure priorities for the period from 2021 to 2026. The Infrastructure Investment Plan is available online at A National Mission with Local Impact: Infrastructure Investment Plan for Scotland 2021-22 to 2025-26 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Under the Infrastructure Investment Plan the Scottish Government is:

• Doubling the annual funding for maintenance over 5 years, investing over £1 billion in enhancing or refurbishing existing facilities, and modernising key equipment.
• Investing over £220 million in the Baird and Anchor project in Aberdeen which brings together all Maternity, Neonatal, Reproductive Medicine, Breast and Gynaecology services in the Baird Family Hospital and consolidates Haematology, Oncology and Radiotherapy Day and Outpatient services in the ANCHOR Cancer centre.
• Delivering a programme of investment in National Treatment Centres in Clydebank, Inverness, Livingston, Aberdeen, Tayside, and Kirkcaldy.
• Upgrading the Edinburgh Cancer Centre, building the new national secure adolescent inpatient service in Irvine and replacing the St Brendan’s facility in Barra.
• Investing in the provision of a new health and social care community hub in Parkhead that will replace 10 different buildings across Glasgow northeast area.
• Investing over £50 million to modernise our radiology equipment nationally, and over £100 million to upgrade and replace our ambulance fleet.
• Investing £25 million in the system development required to build on the 50-fold increase in patient use of NearMe digital healthcare services.

We are carefully considering the next steps on how to address the responses to our engagement with people affected by historical adoption practices. We are in the process of obtaining some additional consultation from the Cabinet on how we should proceed with this matter.

In the meantime, we have issued a tender to commission research into support services and have also started the implementation of a new dedicated peer-support service for mothers affected.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-02957 on 12 October 2021 . 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 Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill is concerned with the use of dogs to hunt wild mammals. The Bill does not differentiate between breeds of dogs. Field trials which only involve the hunting of birds are not covered by the provisions of this Bill.

For field trials that involve the use of dogs to hunt wild mammals the participants will have to abide by the provisions of the Bill.

These provisions set out that any person who uses a dog to, for example, search for and flush a wild rabbit from cover, may continue to do so provided that the conditions set out in section 6(2) of the Bill are met, including:

• The activity does not involve the use of more than two dogs
• Any dog used in the activity is under control
• Reasonable steps are taken to ensure that any dog used in the activity does not join with others to form a pack of more than two dogs

Table 1 shows the number of patients under the age of 16 with a recorded diagnosis of tooth decay who were admitted to hospital for a tooth extraction in (a) 2012 (b) 2016 and (c) 2021, in NHS (i) Ayrshire and Arran, and (ii) Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

Table 1:

  Source: SMR01, Public Health Scotland, extract: November 2022.

My condolences go to any families who have lost loved ones through drink-driving. The Scottish Government takes this issue very seriously and any road death, no matter what the cause, is tragic.

The Scottish Government is committed to achieving safer road travel in Scotland. Scotland’s Road Safety Framework to 2030, launched in February 2021, sets out a compelling long-term vision for road safety, Vision Zero, where there are zero fatalities and injuries on Scotland’s roads by 2050. The journey to achieving this vision also includes ambitious interim targets where the number of people killed or seriously injured on our roads will be halved by 2030.

On drink driving, through Road Safety Scotland, we have campaigned on this issue for many years. These campaigns have been developed and delivered with our partners in Police Scotland to ensure that our innovative media campaigns align with Police targeted enforcement campaigns.

In 2014, this Government introduced the lowest drink-drive limit in the UK. Working closely with Police Scotland and Transport Scotland, we will continue to support the use of police enforcement initiatives and awareness-raising campaigns to help eradicate drink-driving in Scotland.

An estimate of the number of households with legislation compliant alarms will only be available when the results of the 2022 Scottish House Condition Survey are published. This is expected to be by early 2024. For social housing, the Scottish Housing Regulator will publish its annual Social Housing Charter report for 2022-2023, which will set out the information for this sector, in August 2023.

Scottish Government has provided a total of £2.1 million between Care & Repair and Scottish Fire and Rescue Service to support those in greatest need or at greatest risk of fire, to meet the new standard.

The Residential Property Developer Tax is a tax on corporate profits levied on certain companies operating across the UK primarily in the domestic construction sector. This is a reserved tax and Scottish Government has no power to introduce the same.

Public Health Scotland’s surveillance programme monitors the progress of COVID-19, flu and other respiratory infections, (including RSV), and reports regularly on the ongoing impact of those infections during the winter months. This has been incorporated into detailed modelling that has been used to support development of our winter resilience plan.

For all scenarios we know that effective and timely delivery of the seasonal flu and COVID-19 vaccines is crucial, and our winter vaccination programme is now well underway. The degree of protection wanes over time, which is why booster vaccination is needed to maintain the best protection against COVID-19 and flu, especially for those at highest risk. We continue to do all we can to encourage and support every single eligible person to come forward, ultimately, the decision to get vaccinated has always been, and remains, a matter of personal choice. We are working to ensure that more than two million eligible people in Scotland are offered and able to receive vaccines, in turn helping to protect the public and relieving pressure on the NHS.

Introduction - Winter Vaccination Programme 2022 to 2023: COVID-19 and seasonal flu deployment plan - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .