Chamber and committees

This Scottish Government is committed to concluding the Local Governance Review within this parliament. During the first phase of the Review, the Scottish Government, COSLA and the community sector undertook a highly inclusive engagement process called Democracy Matters. People from diverse backgrounds overwhelmingly wanted to see bold changes to how power is shared. Further extensive engagement with communities - of place and interest - will be an important part of understanding how best to respond to people’s aspirations for genuine control over those decisions which affect them the most.

Statistics for the cervical screening programme that will allow comparisons with pre-Covid-19 pandemic uptake are due to be published by Public Health Scotland on 1 September 2021.

Comparable data on national performance for uptake in the breast and bowel screening programmes that will allow comparisons between uptake before and after the COVID-19 pandemic will be made available in 2022. NHS National Services Division advise that recent uptake in the bowel screening programme is similar to pre-pandemic levels at around 67%. Breast screening uptake is measured on an annual and 3 year cycle with current indications that uptake is running at an average of 80% across the whole programme, which is higher than uptake prior to the pandemic.

The bowel, breast and cervical screening programmes are governed by their respective programme boards, as well as the National Screening Oversight and the Scottish Screening Committee. They monitor and evaluate performance, including uptake rates, against a set of standards developed by Healthcare Improvement Scotland.

Additional information has been provided over the course of the pandemic, to reassure people that travel to attend a screening appointment during lockdown was classed as essential and that appropriate infection control measures are in place, so they can feel confident about attending.

In addition to providing information on NHS Inform, each programme has developed tailored communications to recognise additional concerns and challenges caused by the pandemic, and each continues to take steps to reduce barriers to screening and increase uptake.

The bowel screening programme includes supplementary information in home test kits, and has a dedicated helpline to answer all questions. Since the breast screening programme restarted last summer, breast screening centres have been contacting participants ahead of their appointments to confirm their intention to attend. To ensure sufficient capacity in the cervical screening programme to allow uptake of invitations following the pause, the Scottish Government provided just under £1 million to support capacity in sample taking and colposcopy services. To raise awareness and increase uptake we supported social media messaging during Cervical Screening Awareness week in June. Later this year, the Scottish Government will also be launching a campaign to communicate the benefits of cervical screening.

The Scottish Government recognises that the Covid-19 pandemic may have exacerbated inequalities in screening uptake, and we have committed £2 million over the next two years, to build a programme of evidence-based, sustainable and scalable projects that tackle inequalities in a systemic way.

If an individual has specific concerns arising from the results of a test they have taken, including related to their immunological response following vaccination, they should consult their primary clinician, who can determine whether further investigation is necessary.

There is a clear pattern between vaccination and testing positive for COVID-19 antibodies but the detection of antibodies alone is not a precise measure of the immunity protection given by vaccination.

It is not yet known how having detectable antibodies, now or at some time in the past, affects the chance of getting COVID-19 again as other parts of the immune system (T cell response) will offer protection. Antibody positivity is defined by a fixed amount of antibodies in the blood. A negative test result will occur if there are no antibodies or if antibody levels are too low to reach this threshold.

It is important to draw the distinction between testing positive for antibodies and having immunity. Following infection or vaccination, antibody levels can vary and sometimes increase but are still below the level identified as “positive” in this test, and other tests. This does not mean that a person has no protection against coronavirus (COVID-19) since an immune response does not rely on the presence of antibodies alone. We also do not yet know exactly how much antibodies need to rise to give protection. A person’s ‘T cell’ response will provide protection but is not detected by blood tests for antibodies. A person's immune response is affected by a number of factors, including health conditions and age. Additional information on the link between antibodies and immunity and the vaccine programme can be found in the latest ONS blog .

We are committed to building a more circular economy as a vital part of our journey to net-zero, and continue to work with industry, businesses and other organisations to design products to last as long as possible while encouraging reuse, repair and recycling.

We are already taking action to maximise recovery of materials from decommissioned wind turbine infrastructure. Zero Waste Scotland are working to improve the circularity of the sector and SEPA have published guidance on extending life and decommissioning of onshore windfarms, encouraging the reuse and recycling of turbines.

We are committed to introducing a Circular Economy Bill to advance Scotland’s ambitions for the circular economy through measures which will encourage reuse of products and reduce waste.

I chair the Construction Leadership Forum (CLF) that meets monthly with trade union, construction industry and government representatives collaborating on driving progress on the Construction Recovery Plan, which contains a range of practical actions to support the sector. The trade union representative is a positive, and active, member of the group. The CLF and I am committed to supporting the sector as best I can.

We are focused on delivering the maximum support for businesses and the economy as possible. Since the start of the pandemic, businesses have directly benefitted from more than £3.7bn in support – more than a third of total COVID-19 funding – £2.8bn in grants and £965m in COVID-19 non-domestic rates reliefs.

The Scottish Government supports measures to ensure that individuals and businesses pay a fair amount of tax. However, IR35 and VAT are both areas of policy fully reserved to the UK Government.

As I said in my reply to S6W-01546 on 29 July 2021, I chair the Construction Leadership Forum (CLF) that meets monthly and is driving progress on the Construction Recovery Plan. Actions implemented so far include: introduced new ways of working for managing infection control health and safety; work to retain the current and future apprentice pipeline and the Construction Pipeline Forecast Tool.

Policy on corporate insolvency is largely reserved to the UK Government. The temporary suspension on statutory demands and restrictions on petitions to wind up companies is scheduled to expire at the end of September. The Scottish Government would support action by the UK Government to enable further transitional provisions and to extend these protections.

We remain focused on delivering the maximum support for businesses and the economy as possible. Since the start of the pandemic, businesses have directly benefitted from more than £3.7bn in support – more than a third of total COVID-19 funding – £2.8bn in grants and £965m in COVID-19 non-domestic rates reliefs.

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

We are currently finalising the Terms of Reference and membership of the Implementation Group, and will announce this shortly along with details of the first meeting. All future information about the Implementation Group will be published on the Scottish Government website.

As recommended by the National Review of Eating Disorder Services, it is anticipated that the Implementation Group will have a lifespan of around one year. However, this can be kept under review, if appropriate.

The Scottish Government does not hold the information requested. All information on prescribed and dispensed items are published, and categorised by British National Formulary chapter, in both monthly open data files and as part of the annual Dispenser Payments and Prescription Cost Analysis which was released on 29 September 2020. Public Health Scotland published data does not provide details on reason for prescribing a specific medicine.

Since May 2020 the Scottish Government has published projections of infections, hospitalisations and ICU admissions in its weekly publication Modelling the Epidemic in Scotland Coronavirus (COVID-19): modelling the epidemic - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . These projections also feed into internal Scottish Government models on the demand of the Test and Protect system, including the tracing workforce, to enable operational planning.

The path of the pandemic has been highly complex and uncertain over the last 16 months and this is reflected in the complexity and uncertainty of the modelling. We make the best judgements we can on the data in front of us and the advice we have. Right now, as often in the past, our judgement is that the best path for us in Scotland is to make progress carefully and cautiously, and that is what we are doing.