Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is aware of the significant impact that Omicron has had on the culture and major events sector. The Scottish Government has announced a financial package worth £65 million for this sector. The split of the funding is as follows:

• for cultural businesses, organisations, venue and independent cinema support and grassroots venues - £31.5 million
•  National Performing Companies (for Christmas losses and touring fund re-purposing) - £2 million
• Freelancers - £10 million
• Events sector - £19.8 million
• Museums, galleries and heritage - £1.7 million

Applications for the Covid19 cancellation fund for freelancers was launched on 6 January 2021. Further information on this is available at the following link: COVID-19 Cancellation Fund for Creative Freelancers | Creative Scotland

The other funds will take more time to establish but work is being done to expedite this process.

Patients can already store gametes (egg and sperm) through NHS fertility services with informed consent (regulated by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) and by law under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 (as amended)) under the following circumstances:

• Storage of personal gametes for use in NHS Assisted Conception Treatment by couples that fulfil the access criteria.
• Storage of gametes for patients who require fertility preservation treatment.
• Storage of gametes donated altruistically by sperm or egg donors for use in NHS Assisted Conception Treatment.
  

The statutory targets to reduce Scotland’s economy-wide emissions to net-zero, set under the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 and Climate Change (Emissions Reductions Target) (Scotland) Act 2019, are set at the national level and are not disaggregated to local authority levels.

New regulations, which came into force on 9 November 2020, require around 180 Scottish public bodies by November 2022 to report, where applicable, the body’s target date for achieving zero direct emissions of greenhouse gases (or such other targets that demonstrate how the body is contributing to Scotland achieving its emissions reduction targets) and, where applicable, targets for reducing indirect emissions of greenhouse gases. It is for those public bodies to determine where best to target their resource and effort to support achievement of respective targets to reduce emissions.

Since 2015-16, around 180 listed Scottish public bodies have been required to report annually on compliance with their statutory climate change duties. To assess progress on emissions reduction, the Scottish Government funds the Sustainable Scotland Network (SSN) Secretariat to produce an annual analysis of the submitted reports. Reported emissions from the public sector continue to decrease, with Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions down 28.5% since mandatory reporting began in 2015-16.

The Scottish Government has not had any general discussions with the UK Government regarding the potential impact that our regulations and guidance for businesses and workplaces on reducing the risk of COVID-19, might have on their employees in Scotland. However there have been discussions with individual departments about restrictions throughout the pandemic.

All businesses in the UK have a duty to manage workplace risks under existing health and safety legislation, and those with offices or business locations (with staff) in Scotland must also ensure that they adhere to the specific requirements set out in the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Requirements) (Scotland) Regulations 2021 .

Furthermore, information on the UK Government website signposts to Scottish guidance and UK wide employers are reminded to keep in mind their employees needs to abide by regulations and guidance published by the employee’s local administration.

We recognise the pandemic’s impact on the economy and businesses across a wide range of sectors. So far, the Scottish Government has provided £79.3 million directly to taxi and private hire drivers and operators in response to the pandemic. Further support of up to £28 million was announced on 5 January 2022 from within the £375 million package of funding announced on 21 December 2021, bringing total support for the sector to over £107 million. The Scottish Government is also calling on the UK Government to re-introduce schemes such as the Self-Employment Income Support Grant in order to make further support available. We work closely with delivery partners to make payments to eligible businesses at the earliest opportunity, which is of course our established approach.

In response to the Omicron variant, travel restrictions were reintroduced to limit importation of the virus into Scotland and across the UK. Following four nations discussions on 5 January 2022, the decision has been taken to remove these measures.

From Friday 7 January, travellers who are fully vaccinated or under the age of 18 are no longer required to take a pre-departure Covid test or self-isolate until they've received a negative ‘day 2’ test result upon arrival. Additionally, the day 2 test can now be a lateral flow device (LFD) test rather than a PCR test from Sunday 9 January. Anyone who tests positive on their lateral flow test will need to isolate and take a free confirmatory PCR test.

There are no changes to travellers who are not eligible under the fully vaccinated travel policy. These individuals must take a pre-departure test, self-isolate upon arrival into Scotland for 10 days and take two PCR tests on day 2 and day 8. People travelling to Scotland should check the guidance before making their journey, as rules can change at short notice: https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-international-travel-quarantine/pages/overview/ .

At the present time there are 20 patients from Scotland who are awaiting a lung transplant. Due to the very small numbers of patients who have an underlying diagnosis of Cystic Fibrosis who meet the criteria for listing for transplantation, to prevent inadvertent patient identification the most specific answer that can be given is that this is fewer than five individuals. These patients are being managed jointly by the Scottish Cystic Fibrosis Specialist Centres and the transplant clinical team in Newcastle.

The Scottish Government is committed to working to improve outcomes for people with rare conditions, including cystic fibrosis. We are developing an Scottish Action Plan for Rare Disease based on the four priorities of the UK Rare Disease Framework: faster diagnoses, increased awareness, better care co-ordination, and access to specialist treatments and care.

From September 2021 we have introduced quarterly reporting of suspected drug-related deaths, providing far more timely data on the DRD crisis/situation for the first time. This report uses management information from Police Scotland on suspected drug deaths. The second publication of these suspected figures was in December 2021 and covered the period from July to September 2021 ( Suspected drug deaths in Scotland: July to September 2021 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) ). The next report will be published in March 2022 and will cover suspected deaths up to the end of December 2021.

We continue to work with Police Scotland, Public Health Scotland and National Records of Scotland to review the surveillance data we have, review quality and determine whether additional information could be published in the future.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-05040 on 11 January 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