Chamber and committees

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is a globally respected organisation and the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species is the world’s most comprehensive data resource on the status of species. The List does not however, include all Scottish species and for most of those that are included, assessments are for Great Britain as a whole.

In addition to Red List accounts, NatureScot also considers other factors when providing advice on priority setting, including information on species’ status in Scotland, as well as social and economic factors. This enables the inclusion of species for which there are not yet IUCN assessments available, and allows the Scottish Government to respond to new threats that may not yet be recognised in the Red Lists, which are typically updated every 10 years.

Public Health Scotland's weekly respiratory report indicates that up to week 42 (week ending 24th October 2021) a total of 944,989 individuals, among different eligible cohorts, have received influenza vaccine. This season a combination of data recording systems has been used to generate the influenza vaccine uptake data as part of the Vaccine Transformation Programme (VTP) and the adoption of new systems for the scheduling, booking and recording of influenza vaccination. Thus, the data presented for season 2021-22 are not directly comparable to influenza vaccine uptake in previous seasons.

Although it is not possible to directly compare with previous seasons, the data indicated that the overall influenza vaccine uptake for Scotland in 2020-21 was higher than 2019-20 season in most eligible cohorts; notably for those aged 65 years and over with an overall uptake of 79.7 % compared to 74 % in the 2019-20.

On the week commencing 25 October we launched booster campaign activity to support those aged between 60 and 69 and those 16+ with an ongoing health condition who have started to receive their COVID-19 Vaccine Booster appointments.

The main element of the media campaign which includes TV, Radio, Press, Digital and PR activity started 1 November with a generic call to action.

From 15 November, all media activity will direct target audiences to the appointment booking portal. This campaign is covering 91% of the adult population with an average opportunity to see/hear of 21.

The campaign was supported by a wide range of other communications and engagement activity to raise awareness and encourage uptake in the general population as well as specific groups.

The cost of funding a Scottish domiciled student from entry to university through to graduation is set out in the first table. The cost of funding a student from the Rest of the UK (RUK) from entry to university through to graduation is set out in the second table.

The Scottish Government is fully committed to ensuring a sustainable medical supply pipeline into the NHS. In response to overall UK undersupply of medical graduates, the Scottish Government has been expanding university medical school places since 2016 and has created 269 additional medical undergraduate places (a 32% increase over 2016 levels).

The recent Programme for Government also sets out a further commitment to increase medical school places by 100 per annum over the course of the Parliamentary term and to double the number of widening access places.

The COVID-19 booster will be administered by both Health Boards and GP practices. Health Boards will seek to make best use of their locally available resources when planning delivery whilst being mindful of the need to protect core GP services.

There is no formal right to request an appeal under the Rural Payments (Appeals) (Scotland) Regulation 2015 as these do not apply to the rejection of an application for a contract. If applicants query the reason for the rejection of an application then local staff will consider this informally but numbers of these are not recorded. The number of applications recorded as rejected in each Scheme year for the Crofting Agricultural Grant Scheme is provided in the following table for information.

Following the decision by the Rolls-Royce workforce to accept a Memorandum of Understanding that guaranteed manufacturing at the Inchinnan facility for at least the next five years, the Rolls-Royce Working Group membership took the joint decision at a meeting in 11 March 2021 to transition toward a new strategic relationship between Scotland and Rolls-Royce. This would enable the business and the Scottish Government to consider potential opportunity areas in line with our shared ambitions.

Following agreement by members at a meeting of the Aerospace Response Group (ARG) on 15 March 2021, the ARG transitioned into a new, industry-led body, the Aerospace and Defence Industry Group. This group absorbed the remaining work of the ARG and continues to meet regularly.

We have reviewed the border health measures closely over the last 28 days and have assessed that there continues to be a requirement for the regulations to remain in place to reduce the risk of imported transmission and safeguard public health in Scotland. The regulations continue to be an important and proportionate part of the Scottish Government response to managing the pandemic. As we have done throughout the pandemic, we will continue discussions with UK Government and the other devolved administrations and continue to seek to take a four-nations approach to future changes to regulations and the travel regime.