Chamber and committees

Yes, the felling of trees is regulated through the issuing of Felling Permissions, under the Forestry and Land Management (Scotland) Act 2018. Permission must be granted before felling, thinning or deforesting an area of woodland; the sale and transfer of land has no impact on this requirement. The potential effects on flood risk would be taken into account when assessing applications to fell trees.

We are jointly funding a £250,000 endometriosis research project with Wellbeing of Women and the recipient of the grant will be announced in March. The funding for the research will cover a period of 3 years, from financial year 2022/23, after which the findings will be published.

Additionally, in January 2023 our Chief Scientist Office announced funding for the ENDOCAN project, led by researchers at the University of Edinburgh, that will investigate whether a large scale, UK-wide trial to determine whether a cannabinoid can reduce endometriosis-associated pain. Funding of £299,509 has been committed to this 30 month project.

The Endometriosis Advisory Group (EAG) was established to support the action in the Women’s Health Plan to strengthen collaborative working between regional specialist endometriosis centres, territorial and special NHS boards and primary care providers, to drive improvement in patient pathways and achieve equitable access to care and treatment.

The EAG first met in April 2022 and have since been involved in communications on an ad hoc basis to assist in the understanding of the systems currently in place for endometriosis, from education to current practice and pathways.

As per previous years, in order to lessen the burden on NHS teams over the winter period from November 2022 to the end of February 2023 we commenced a light touch process to help monitor and prioritise communications. After this period of time we will reinstate communication and meetings with the EAG.

The EAG offer their expert advice and knowledge to help inform and guide policy processes and as such there is no formal findings or report which the EAG has produced.

As noted in my answer to question S6W-14449, work on the two-year report on the activities of the National Performing Companies was suspended due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

I will consider whether this work should be restarted given the National Performing Companies all publish their own annual reports on their individual websites including information relating to their community and education programmes, financial figures and key artistic achievements.

MV Hebrides is 99 metres in length, 15.8 metres wide and her operational draught, which is the vertical distance between the waterline and the bottom of the vessel’s hull, is 3.3 metres.

Further information is available on CalMac’s website by following the link: https://www.calmac.co.uk/fleet/mv-hebrides

This is a question for the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland. She advises me that current ownership for each local authority is provided in the following table. This is provided from a combination of titles in the Land Register and General Register of Sasines, and as the areas held in Sasines are indicative rather than definitive it provides a best estimate.

Whilst it is possible to retrieve historic ownership details for specific plots of land, Scotland-wide views of the Land Register showing aggregate ownership by specific parties at five, 10, or 20 years ago are not maintained, and the nature of the General Register of Sasines means it is not feasible to retrieve historic ownership information en masse .

Analysis has been undertaken to estimate how many guests on MS Ambition will likely be matched into longer term accommodation based on the availability of hosted and Responsible Social Landlord properties in Glasgow and the surrounding areas. Analysis into the availability of accommodation for guests disembarking MS Ambition remains ongoing and is being revised as new data becomes available via the monitoring of the disembarkation process.

As part of the Scottish Diabetes Group, we have established work streams to identify efficiencies and opportunities within the Scottish Ambulance Service. This work is still in very early stages, however there is an established process in NHS Fife and NHS Grampian that links Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) data from the patient report form with SCI-Diabetes. This system ensures local diabetes teams have information about patients presenting to SAS with hypoglycaemic episode, in order to provide rapid, informed and appropriate follow up care. We are working closely with SAS and NHS Boards to further increase this connection across Scotland.

The Scottish Diabetes Group will take forward actions to improve services provided by NHS24 for people living with diabetes in the next year.

Since November 2022, Scottish Government officials and Glasgow City Council engage regularly to undertake a Joint Assurance Review to ensure exit planning for the exit of the MS Ambition remains on track.

Scottish Government and Glasgow City Council have been meeting with guests to help them make an informed decision about their next accommodation and where possible, we are seeking to move a displaced people according to their needs. The lack of suitable properties in Glasgow however means that it is unlikely that everyone on board MS Ambition will be able to be accommodated in Glasgow.

Should guests be unable to secure alternative accommodation or not accept an offer of accommodation from the Scottish Government matching team or Glasgow City Council, they will be allocated alternative welcome accommodation before 31 March 2023.

Scottish Government officials and Glasgow City Council have been engaging regularly since November 2022 to undertake a Joint Assurance Review to ensure exit planning for the disembarkation of the MS Ambition remains on track.

The Scottish Government and Glasgow City Council have been meeting with guests to help them make an informed decision about their next accommodation and where possible, we are seeking to move a displaced people according to their needs. This has been supplemented by ongoing and regular discussions between the Scottish Government, Glasgow City Council, regional local authorities, and CoSLA, where host and accommodation matches for MS Ambition-based Ukrainians are identified as efficiently and effectively as possible.