Chamber and committees

The National Lottery is reserved to the UK Government.

The Scottish Government were advised that the Gambling Commission’s board had named Allwyn Entertainment Ltd as the preferred applicant in March 2022.

In accordance with relevant legislation, this decision has been made by the Gambling Commission’s Board.

As per the FOI (FOI/202200277291) referred to in the question, CES have already been asked about disclosure of the document and at that time did not consent to it due to the ScotWind clearing process still being underway. Publications of those documents at this time may, unduly, influence the application process. Once the process of granting option agreements is over, CES’s assessment of what can and cannot be released may change .

The National Lottery is reserved to the UK Government.

To date there have been no discussions between the Scottish Government and the distributors or funding recipients in Scotland regarding the possibility of Good Causes funding being raised from sale of lottery tickets by a company with reported links to Russia.

The National Lottery is reserved to the UK Government and this information is not held by the Scottish Government.

Ministers were alerted to a decline in National Lottery ticket sales and to a consequent reduction in National Lottery good cause income in December 2016.

A mitigation strategy has been in place since October 2016 for a collaborative approach bringing together DCMS, the Gambling Commission, distributors and Camelot to address falling sales.

This includes Camelot undertaking a strategic review to return the lottery to growth; distributors promoting the link between National Lottery and Good cause projects; DCMS and the Gambling Commission are working with lottery distributors on potential levels of income if current trends continue.

Good cause returns for 2019-20 and for 2020-21 were better than expected and a total of £1,887 million was raised in 2020-21.

There are around 25,000 Civil Servants who are part of the reserved Public Sector in Scotland [1] . The UK Government has not provided details on how their planned Civil Service reduction will affect their staff working in Scotland.

The UK Government’s plans to reduce Civil Service headcount will not have a direct impact on civil servants who serve the Scottish Government, as the responsibility lies with Scottish Ministers and the Permanent Secretary when it comes to determining our workforce size. We continually engage with our trade unions on matters impacting our workforce, in line with our partnership agreement, and remain committed to making the best and most efficient use of our resources.

The UK Government spending review in November 2021 sets out the multi-year funding envelopes for devolved administrations. The Scottish Government is continuing to plan on this basis. The UK Government reviews its spending plans at each fiscal event and amends UK Government department and devolved administration budgets accordingly.

[1] Source: Public Sector Employment In Scotland Statistics For 4th Quarter 2021 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-08691 on 7 June 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 monitors and considers the available evidence about the housing market and listens to the views of stakeholders on an ongoing basis in order to inform its approach on Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT).

Decisions on rates and bands for LBTT are taken as part of the Scottish Budget process.

In 2022, the National Events Programme, which has now closed for applications, would allow an eligible airshow to apply for EventScotland funding of up to £25,000. EventScotland are supporting the Largs Viking Festival (27 Aug – 4 Sept) and the Making Waves festival in Irvine (22-24 July). Both festivals include an air display as part of their event and are receiving funding via the National Events Programme.

For future years, the Resource Spending Review (RSR) published on 31 May provides a high level direction of travel and sets out Scottish Government priorities. The RSR delivers what certainty the Scottish Government can against the challenging context of the spiralling cost of living, Covid recovery and the Ukraine crisis and within the limits of the fiscal framework. The Scottish Government will work with the events sector and our public bodies on the detail of the spending review and what this means for budgets for individual programmes and projects.

The Scottish Government welcomes the announcement from the UK Government on the ambition to develop an Action Plan on ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), and fully supports its two core principles. We plan to work with the UK Government to explore areas of potential shared interest and learning, particularly in terms of research into ME/CFS.

We also welcome the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guideline for ME/CFS and are considering how best to review the existing Scottish guidance in light of this. On 12 May 2022, NICE published an implementation statement to support the implementation of the ME/CFS guideline. We intend to contact health boards in Scotland to raise awareness of the implementation statement and the key recommended changes to practice within the guideline.

We recently commissioned an external organisation to consult with the third sector, those with lived experience and clinical stakeholders to consider how we move forward in reviewing the existing Scottish guidance and on addressing priorities for service improvement in ME/CFS care. We will continue to work closely with stakeholders on how we progress the findings of this consultation and consider what other activity is required to support implementation of the NICE guideline recommendations.