Chamber and committees

Scottish Government has provided an unprecedented level of financial support throughout the pandemic to support NHS dentistry. The £50 million of COVID-19 funding was provided directly to NHS dental contractors through the financial support payments. Alongside this, practices have received £35 million of free PPE to support the provision of NHS dentistry.

In addition, £5 million of funding for ventilation improvements and £7.5 million for speed adjusting hand pieces, was made available to NHS practitioners to support recovery and help increase capacity within practices providing NHS dental services. This scope for this funding was subsequently expanded to allow practices to claim for repairs and replacement of a range of dental equipment. This funding was allocated to Health Boards and practices were advised of the process for claiming funding if they wished to submit an application.

We do not routinely monitor for giardiasis in beavers. A 2021 report on health screening of wild beavers found no animals testing positive in Britain for Giardia. However, NatureScot continue to collect beavers reported to have been found dead in the wild or killed as part of licensed control and conduct screening on these carcasses for a range of diseases and pathogens as an ongoing programme of disease surveillance in beavers.

The Scottish Government remains committed to Keeping The Promise by 2030, working in partnership with Local Authorities, The Promise Scotland, third sector, health boards and importantly the care community.

On 30 March 2022 the Scottish Government published the Keeping The Promise Implementation Plan , setting out how it will Keep The Promise by 2030. The Plan contains over 80 actions which span over a range of areas including education, health, justice and child poverty.

The Plan sets out how we will work with care experienced people in our design, delivery and evaluation of Keeping The Promise. We will continue work with stakeholders and care experienced people on our journey to Keeping The Promise by 2030.

The Scottish Government is giving consideration to how best to ensure a consistent, effective and high quality approach to social prescribing and meets the Scottish Social Prescribing Network regularly to inform its plans.

The Scottish Government is working with Creative Scotland to consider options for a National Towns of Culture scheme to build upon the Government’s strong track record of place-based cultural policy making. In developing options, the Government will consult with the cultural and creative sectors and community groups, and consider suitable means of financial support.

The Scottish Government is extremely thankful for the generosity of all those who have expressed an interest in hosting people displaced by the current conflict.

Scotland is now providing a place of safety to more displaced people per head of population than any other part of the UK. The Scottish Government is providing accommodation that is safe and sustainable whilst people are waiting to be matched suitable longer term accommodation. Significant action is underway to increase the temporary accommodation capacity as well as boost the matching system to maximise the number of people who can be placed with volunteer hosts who have completed the necessary safeguarding checks.

We want Scotland to be a safe, secure home for as long as people need and thank the people of Scotland for their continued offers of support to help us in that aim. Those homes offered are still very much needed. We are keen to see more people in Scotland volunteer as hosts if they think that they can provide a welcoming home for a displaced person or family.

For the purpose of this question, we have defined ‘appeals’ as data disputes in which either members of the public or suppliers registered to the Reaching 100% Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme (R100 SBVS) have contacted us to raise a data dispute – when they believe that the data we hold on a property’s current connection speed and/or potential voucher eligibility is incorrect.

The broadband connectivity status of the 2.8 million properties in Scotland is reported on our online address checker at www.scotlandsuperfast.com . This uses data submitted by broadband infrastructure providers through regular updates known as a rolling Open Market Review. The accuracy of this data is wholly dependent on broadband providers submitting accurate data returns.

In 2021, officials received a total of 459 data disputes. In 2022, as of 24 August, officials have received 282 data disputes. These numbers represent a total for the whole of Scotland and, unfortunately, we are unable to break this down by Scottish Parliamentary region.

The Scottish Government does not hold information relating to the amount of land that has changed from agricultural use to homes.

In our draft National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) we proposed national planning policy which included that development proposals on prime agricultural land would not be supported except in certain limited circumstances. We will lay a finalised NPF4 in the Scottish Parliament for approval in the autumn.

Table 1 – deaths from liver disease (K70 – K77) by SIMD Quintile 2019-2021

We have no plans to introduce a regulatory body to provide guidelines to the operators and/or owners of retirement villages. Existing regulatory frameworks for property factors, planning, building standards already exist. Providers of housing and housing services in the private sector, including operators of retirement villages, are expected to comply with these regulations.