Chamber and committees

To uphold the rights of children and young people who require secure transport, and to meet the Secure Care Standards and the Youth Justice Standards , the Scottish Government and COSLA led Secure Care Group seek to identify and develop solutions to the issues surrounding secure care transport in Scotland. A service specification is in development which will include an appropriate recording and monitoring process.

The Scottish Government is currently consulting on proposed children’s care and justice legislation, including seeking views on whether legislative reform is needed around the use of secure transport.

The Transvaginal Mesh Removal (Cost Reimbursement) (Scotland) Act 2022 (the 2022 Act) came fully into force on 3 May 2022. The 2022 Act gives powers to Scottish Ministers to make a scheme to reimburse women for the costs incurred in connection with qualifying mesh removal surgery.

The Transvaginal Mesh Removal Reimbursement Scheme 2022 has now been laid before Parliament – laying number SG/2022/87. The scheme will open for applications on 6 June 2022 and will remain open for a period of 18 months.

Reimbursement will mean that those women who previously felt they had no other option but to have mesh removal surgery out with NHS Scotland will no longer be at a financial disadvantage because of that choice. Women will be able to apply for reimbursement of the costs of surgery, and associated expenses, for themselves and one person who travelled with them. It should be noted that anyone who is eligible to apply and has previously made a successful application to the Mesh Fund will not be excluded from applying for reimbursement and any previous payment from the Mesh Fund will not be deducted. The Mesh Fund will close to new applications on 31 May 2022.

NHS National Services Scotland (NSS) are the administrators of the Scheme and application forms and further information on how to apply will be available on the mesh pages of their website Mesh Scheme | National Services Scotland (nhs.scot) .

The cut-off date, by which surgery has to have been arranged in order to be eligible for reimbursement, is specified in the Scheme and has been set at 3 June 2022. This will ensure that any woman who has made their own arrangements for surgery on or before this date will not be penalised for doing so and gives those in the process of making arrangements time to finalise them before the scheme opens. Section 1(3)(c) of the 2022 Act provides that the cut-off date could not be before the date of Royal Assent, which was 3 March 2022.

To be clear, anyone who wishes to have mesh removal surgery outside of NHS Scotland after 3 June 2022 should seek to do so through the official referral process as they will not be reimbursed if they make their own arrangements after that date.

It is expected that anyone seeking mesh removal after this date discuss their case with local clinicians within their own Health Board. If considered appropriate at that stage, they would then be referred to the Complex Pelvic Mesh Removal Service in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde for consideration by a full multi-disciplinary team (MDT). If, after careful consideration by both the MDT and the patient, it is agreed that surgery is appropriate, the patient can choose to be treated by the service already available in NHS Scotland or to be referred to a specialist NHS centre in England or to an independent provider. Each of these options will be available free of charge. I would encourage anyone who wishes referral to one of these services to make their wishes known to their clinical team, if they have not already done so.

Official Statistics on Scottish greenhouse gas emissions are published annually ( Scottish Greenhouse Gas statistics: 1990-2019 ) and are used to monitor progress to Scotland’s statutory emissions reduction targets. These statistics are based on a disaggregation of the UK Greenhouse Gas Inventory, which is overseen by the UK Government Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and compiled in line with international scientific guidance.

At the time of writing, the UK Inventory does not allow for the isolation of data for emissions from waste incineration plants as opposed to other energy sector emissions. Decisions around the UK Inventory are a matter for BEIS and are informed by the UK National Inventory Steering Committee, which includes representation from Scottish Government officials.

Since the World Health Organisation declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on 11 March 2020, the Scottish Government has not provided any grants or loans to Petroineos.

Further to the response provided to S5W-34970, since February 2021 Zero Waste Scotland has awarded tailored consultancy support to two SMEs through the Circular Economy Business Support Service in order to help develop circular textiles propositions. Each support service provided to these organisations had a value of approximately £10,000.

As set out in the 2021-22 Programme for Government, we plan to introduce a new £2 million Textile Innovation Fund in the first half of 2022 to support businesses working in this sector to address issues associated with textile waste and throwaway culture.

The Scottish Government has delivered record investment into NHS dental services with a 9 per cent increase in the budget for NHS dental services in 2022-23.

From April, we have introduced revised payment arrangements which reward NHS dental teams according to their activity. Combined with the relaxation of infection, prevention and control measures, they are having a substantial positive impact in improving access and ensuring the sector is able to quickly return to more normal levels of activity and clear the backlog.

The Scottish Government recognises the role that re-introductions of native species can play in nature restoration, but has no current plans to reintroduce lynx or any other large carnivore species into Scotland.

We welcome the publication of the ‘Lynx to Scotland’ report and commend it for its careful and balanced assessment of a complex topic. As the report notes, there are major barriers that would need to be satisfactorily addressed before any such reintroduction could be taken forward. The Scottish Government has always been clear that any reintroduction of a species such as lynx could only take place following full consultation that ensured the views of those who are likely to be most affected are properly taken into account.

It is a criminal offence to release a species such as lynx in Scotland unless the release is licensed by NatureScot.

The Scottish Government is committed to tackling gender inequality and embedding a human rights approach to tackling child poverty.

Our second Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan, ‘Best Start, Bright Futures’ , is underpinned by extensive impact assessments – informed by consultation with stakeholders and individuals with direct experience of poverty. This includes an Equality Impact Assessment presenting summary consideration across policies and proposals included with the Plan focusing on how policies may impact, either positively or negatively, on different sections of the population in different ways, through the lens of Protected Characteristics, which includes sex. The above along with our Evidence Review on What Works , Cumulative Impact Assessment , Children’s Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessment , Fairer Scotland Duty Impact Assessment and Islands Impact Assessment , helped inform development of the Plan and will continue to guide its implementation and delivery.

As set out in ‘ Best Start, Bright Futures ’, we are committed to focusing on the impact of all interventions through the lens of our six priority families and will seek to ensure that systems work for these families in particular. This includes a substantive focus on lone parent households, the majority of whom are headed by women, and mothers under the age 25 both of which are at greatest risk of poverty and encapsulate many of the inequalities affecting women more broadly. This includes barriers relating to entering and sustaining employment, childcare, housing and transport.

Through this focused approach, we will be able to drive down levels of child poverty whilst delivering significant progress on our wider equality and human rights ambitions – particularly in relation to advancing equality and human rights for women, disabled people and minority ethnic people.

We are committed to continue to engage with our partners, including gender representative stakeholders and women with experience of poverty, to ensure an intersectional and gendered approach is embedded in the development, implementation and monitoring of the actions set out in the plan. This includes, for example, establishing a Lived Experience Panel in Summer 2022, with members from each of the six priority family groups, including young mothers and lone parents, to help inform our employability policy.