Chamber and committees

In Scotland we are continuing to work under the interim Subsidy Control regime and provisions held within the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement. Draft legislation was laid in the UK Parliament on 30 June 2021. We will now take time to consider the draft legislation and reflect any new options that may be available for procurement of ferry services and/or impact on ferry fares policy.

The Prior Information Notice (PIN) referred to confirmed Ministers’ intention for Scotrail services to be delivered through a wholly owned company of the Scottish Ministers in terms of the Operator of Last Resort following expiry of the current ScotRail Franchise Agreement.

It is intended that Operator of Last Resort arrangements will provide a period of stability for passengers and staff while we assess the scale and pace of recovery from Covid 19 and future rail reform.

As the PIN was published on 31 March 2021, almost 2 months ahead of the UK Government’s delayed White Paper on Rail, there was considerable uncertainty around reform at the time. Accordingly, through the PIN, Ministers reserved the right to put OLR arrangements in place as appropriate, up to the maximum period of 10 years. It also indicated the envisaged direct award at that point was for a period of 3-5 years with any optional additional period(s) exercisable at the sole discretion of Ministers.

Although the White Paper has now been published, we are pressing the UK Government for further clarity on how their proposals, and timescales for implementation of future rail reform, will impact our aspirations for Scotland’s railways. This will help inform future decisions about the duration of the OLR arrangements, subject to the 10 year maximum referred to in the PIN.

The organisational structure for ScotRail Trains Limited is currently being reviewed however the vast majority of Abellio ScotRail staff will transfer over.

The Scottish Government has been reviewing the restrictions and guidance in place regularly.

Following the most recent review, the First Minister announced on 13 July that all remaining parts of Scotland would move to protection level 0 of the updated Strategic Framework with effect from 19 July.

This decision means that under our published guidance up to 200 people can now attend a marriage ceremony or wedding reception subject to the capacity of the couple’s chosen venue with the appropriate physical distancing in place.

In addition, we have amended the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Local Levels) (Restrictions and Requirements) Regulations 2020 to reduce the required physical distance between households indoors to 1 metre in all public venues.

The First Minister’s statement summarises the evidence and data supporting these decisions. Information about strategy and evidence is published at Coronavirus in Scotland (see Scottish Government strategy and evidence). We have also published a report on the outcomes of the recent physical distancing review and information about the current state of the epidemic .

The Scottish Government is committed to tackling the barriers that prevent people from accessing treatment and services and ensuring that people are able to access the treatment and support they need, when they need it.

We know that for many people, problematic substance use co-occurs with mental health problems and we are committed to improving integration between mental health and addiction recovery services.

The Scottish Government is also considering options that could improve access to drug and alcohol services, such as supporting people to travel to services and addressing digital exclusion.

NCT002 forms are used for mental health applications for concessionary travel and better integration between mental health and drug and alcohol services is an important part of ensuring that those who are eligible under existing concessionary travel scheme criteria are accessing the support they are entitled to.

By way of an update against the progress of the Aberdeen to Central belt rail project:-

(a) £1.68 million has been spent on this project to date.

(b) This funding has been used i) to identify the signalling and infrastructure interventions that enable the required capacity enhancements and journey time savings, and ii) on commencing the sifting process to select the options that, within the budget, will achieve the maximum benefits.

(c) the remaining amount of £198.32 million will be spent on delivering the enhancements that are identified at the option selection stage as providing the maximum benefits for the north east.

and (d) journey times savings achieved between Dundee and Aberdeen up to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic equated to an average of three minutes northbound and four minutes southbound.

Following the publication of the review of the Cervical screening standards in March 2019 NHS Boards should ensure that individuals referred to the colposcopy service with an abnormal screening test are seen within the nationally agreed time frames:

• no later than 2 weeks for urgent referrals (glandular, suspicion of invasion)
• no later than 4 weeks for high grade referrals, and
• no later than 8 weeks for low grade referrals that do not require urgent assessment.

On the 30 March 2020 the Cervical Screening Programme was temporarily paused to due to impact of the COVID-19 pandemic with services resuming on 29 June 2020. However, the need for additional infection control measures, including physical distancing and the use of PPE, continue to pose challenges but the Scottish Government are working with Health Boards to monitor and address these. During the screening programme restart, the Scottish Government provided £1 million to support capacity in sample-taking and colposcopy.

Further information regarding the standards for this procedure and the wider Cervical screening standard can be found in the Healthcare Improvement Scotland publication linked below.

https://www.healthcareimprovementscotland.org/our_work/standards_and_guidelines/stnds/cervical_screening_standards.aspx .

The National Suicide Prevention Leadership Group (NSPLG) published guidance to support local area suicide prevention action planning in April 2021 ( https://www.cosla.gov.uk/about-cosla/our-teams/health-and-social-care/local-area-suicide-prevention-action-plan-guidance ). The guidance supports the delivery of Action 1 of the Suicide Prevention Action Plan ‘Every Life Matters’, which is sponsored by COSLA.

Whilst responsibility for suicide prevention planning and delivery sits locally – with recommendations and decisions informing action at that level - the NSPLG will review progress on the development of local suicide prevention action plans across Scotland in April 2022. Meantime, there is ongoing engagement between the NSPLG’s delivery lead on local suicide prevention action planning and local suicide prevention leads. This supports the development and continuous improvement of suicide prevention plans - through advice, support and sharing of good practice. It also ensures there is appropriate alignment and learning between national and local plans.

The covered walkway between Exhibition Centre station and Scottish Event Campus (SEC) is owned by Glasgow City Council (GCC). As GCC is an independently elected body, the Scottish Government cannot intervene on matters relating to local responsibilities or decisions.

Notwithstanding this, as part of preparations for the upcoming COP26 Conference, my officials are engaged with SEC, Scotrail, GCC and UK Government, as the event organiser, in regards to transport, including the use of the covered walkway. This decision on such use will ultimately rest with United Nations Security Lead, who will be carrying out an inspection of the premises in the coming weeks.

The Scottish Government supports piloting supervised safe consumption facilities in Scotland given the evidence from other countries over the past 30 years.

The Misuse of Drugs Act (1971) is reserved to the UK Government, but we will continue to seek constructive engagement to move matters forward. The Minister for Drugs Policy, Angela Constance, has written to the UK Government on a number of occasions this year to engage with them on the evidence.

We are working with services to leave no stone unturned to overcome the existing legal barriers to implement safe consumption rooms in Scotland.