Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-03825 on ‎15 November 2021. 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
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The Scottish Government has provided a significant increase in funding on Control Period 6 for Network Rail to deliver weather resilience improvements, including drainage. Network Rail is responsible for the delivery of these works, as overseen by the Office of Rail & Road (ORR). Enquiries should be addressed to these organisations.

Scotland was the first country in the UK to achieve 100% Unicef UK Baby Friendly Initiative accreditation in Maternity and Community and Neonatal services. Scottish Government has invested in the Baby Friendly Initiative (BFI) across NHS Scotland to provide support planning for sustainability. This initiative includes best practice standards for health professionals and services to support women to successfully establish and continue breastfeeding.

We have also provided more than £800k funding to our Third Sector partners over the past three years. This investment is being used to develop their breastfeeding peer support programmes as part of a tiered service of support, including face-to-face contacts.

It is for each NHS Board to plan services to meet the needs of its population including how best to utilise funding, facilities and staff to deliver these services.

The Scottish Government recognises the positive health benefits of breastfeeding for mothers and babies and expects breastfeeding support to be available to mothers whenever this is required, particularly in the early days and weeks of a baby’s life.

Information on local breastfeeding services is not held centrally. It is for each NHS Board to plan services to meet the needs of its population including how best to utilise funding, facilities and staff to deliver these services.

We provide £2.3m per year to support the 2011 Maternal and Infant Nutrition Framework Action Plan which includes breastfeeding support, and have provided more than £6m over the past four years to NHS Boards and third sector partners to improve the quality of breastfeeding support.

The Scottish Government are aware of a technical issue which affect EE 4G mobile telecoms access in Uig, Lewis. Scottish Government officials have been in regular contact with EE for the duration of the issue.

We understand this issue has taken longer to resolve than originally anticipated due to the availability of replacement parts, caused by global supply chain issues.

EE sought to provide interim solutions until the service could be fully restored which included reinstating SMS and voice services, with some limited data access.

EE have now resolved the issue by upgrading the entire module which also gives the mast site increased resilience.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-04157 on 15 November 2021. 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
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The Scottish Government regularly engage with the British Horse Society (BHS) on road safety matters. The BHS sat on the Stakeholder Working Group which assisted officials in developing the new Road Safety Framework to 2030. The BHS is also a formal member of the Framework’s Operational Partnership Group where road safety challenges faced by horse riders in Scotland are jointly examined.

We have provided over £33 million of grant funding directly to local authorities since 2014 to enable procurement of zero and ultra-low emission vehicles and associated charging and refuelling infrastructure. The following table provides the detail of funding awarded to each local authority in each year from 2014.

As referenced in the answer to question S6W-01360, we had invested £47M since 2014 to assist with the decarbonisation of public fleet vehicles. We have continued to support public sector fleet decarbonisation and the value of support provided is now over £50 million, enabling innovation and trialling of harder to reach vehicles.

A breakdown of this funding (in response to point a) can be seen in the following table.

Public bodies and local authorities will use a combination of vehicle purchase and lease for fleet operations. Vehicle fleets also go through replacement cycles and periods of rationalisation. It’s not possible to determine how many vehicles funded are still in service.

There are no plans to hold a further Ferry Industry Advisory Group (FIAG) meeting. Ministers are grateful to former FIAG members for their contributions to the work of the group, which was wide ranging. But by mutual consent of the parties following the last meeting on 17 October 2019, a more targeted approach is now adopted to stakeholder engagement. This continues to ensure that policy decisions are informed by the knowledge and experience of international ferry industry best practice, alongside views of local authorities and the communities served by the ferry services operated on behalf of Scottish Ministers.

Our significantly improved approach to community engagement for new vessel projects is evidenced in positive feedback from the Islay community on their new vessels. We are also working closely with Ferries Community Board to ensure community input into policy development such as regarding fares and managing demand.