Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government published an updated Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA) on 23 November. The BRIA sets out the baseline data currently available and trends, including information from the non-domestic rates valuation roll and about Airbnb, which show a significant growth in the number of properties which are being used for short-term lets.

The BRIA sets out the costs to local authorities and recovery through fees, and provides indicative average fees for a low and high cost scenario. The assumptions behind the average indicative fees for a short-term lets licence have been informed by discussions with local authorities.

The Licensing Order allows local authorities to raise revenue from fees to cover the costs of establishing and running their licensing scheme. The actual fees to be charged will be determined by local authorities following Scottish Government guidance and are likely to include higher and lower tiers, reflecting the varying sizes of premises to be licensed.

The licensing scheme will help to build a comprehensive picture of short-term let activity across Scotland.

Soil that is classified as hazardous is always chargeable at the standard rate of Scottish Landfill Tax. Therefore no hazardous soils should have been subject to the lower rate of Scottish Landfill Tax.

Statistics published by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) show that the volume of hazardous soil landfilled in Scotland has declined significantly since 2015, reducing from 27,209 tonnes to 3,921 tonnes in 2020.

The Scottish Government continues to closely monitor all emerging evidence on the effectiveness of COVID-19 treatments and their clinical effectiveness. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is now assessing Paxlovid’s safety and effectiveness, and I cautiously welcome analysis of the final clinical trial results from Pfizer (which are yet to be published or verified) which show that Paxlovid cuts the risk of hospitalisation or death by approximately 89% in high risk, non-hospitalised adult patients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19. If approved by the MHRA, this will represent another significant pharmaceutical option in our response to COVID-19.

On 20th October, the UK Government announced that 250,000 treatment courses of Paxlovid had been ordered, pending regulatory approval. On 22nd December, the UK Government announced that a further 2.5 million treatment courses had been ordered as part of efforts to reduce the impact of COVID-19 and the Omicron variant across the UK. If authorised by the MHRA, the intention is to initially deploy antivirals such as Paxlovid to individuals through a UK-wide national study, funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). The University of Oxford has been selected to lead the study . This will enable collection of additional data to address limitations in the company-sponsored trials, for example the effectiveness of the treatments in vaccinated patients, as participants in the company trials were unvaccinated.

The following formal flood protection schemes are complete.

The Scottish Government announced in January 2020 that it intended to establish a licensing scheme for short-term lets using powers under the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 and we have been engaging with local authorities on implementation of a licensing scheme since then. Local authorities have experience in licensing other activities under the 1982 Act and we made changes to our proposals in response to their views.

In setting timescales for establishing a licensing scheme, and for existing operators to have made an application, the Scottish Government has been mindful of striking a balance between giving local authorities and operators sufficient time to prepare, whilst moving quickly enough to address what remains a pressing issue for many residents and communities.

We will be working closely with local authorities, and other stakeholders on the working group, to review and update guidance and prepare for implementation.

The information is not held centrally. There is however, some information regarding patients diagnosed with Venous Thromboembolism available at the NHS National Services Scotland Discovery site: https://www.nssdiscovery.scot.nhs.uk/

No specific assessment has been undertaken to assess the impact of Scottish Landfill Tax on the quantity of waste soil going to landfill.

Statistics published by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) show that the overall amount of waste going to landfill has reduced from around 4.2 million tonnes in 2015 to around 2.6 million tonnes in 2020. The amount of soil going to landfill has also reduced over the same period, from around 1.24 million tonnes to around 0.83 million tonnes. Statistics for 2020 will however have been affected by the impact of Covid-19 restrictions.

The SEPA waste statistics are available at www.sepa.org.uk/environment/waste/waste-data/waste-data-reporting/ .

The Scottish Government did not receive advance notice of the Home Office decision to accommodate asylum seekers in hotels in Scotland. I wrote to the Home Secretary on 21 October to raise concerns about the lack of advance engagement on this matter and on the suitability of using hotels to accommodate people seeking asylum. Officials have subsequently had engagement with Home Office officials on this issue.

Scottish Government and COSLA have regular discussions about a range of asylum matters including the use of hotels.

Provisional results of the storm damage to forests caused by Storm Arwen were published on the 14 December 2021. Initial estimates are that around 4,000 hectares of woodland has been affected.

An online mapping tool has been developed to support forest owners assess the impacts and can be viewed here; Storm Arwen Windblow Mapping (arcgis.com) . The map will be updated by Forest Research on an on-going basis as more data becomes available. A version 2 update was made available on 17 December.

The satellite-based assessment will allow woodland owners, Forestry & Land Scotland and forestry agents managing large areas of forestry across the country to target their own local assessment using drones and site visits. The national data will also inform the strategic response of the forestry and timber sector facilitated by Scottish Forestry.

The Scottish Government published our Heart Disease Action Plan in March 2021. This sets out a number of actions to enable us to achieve our vision of minimising preventable heart disease and ensuring equitable and timely access to diagnosis, treatment and care for people with heart disease. It is relevant to a number of the recommendations of the CPG inquiry report.

Within Priority 1 of the Action Plan, there is a focus on improving the detection, diagnosis and management of risk factor conditions, including atrial fibrillation. Work is underway to deliver the commitments outlined.

In particular, the Scottish Primary Care Information Resource (SPIRE) is developing reporting on atrial fibrillation. This will allow GP practices to monitor patients on particular medications and make sure they are getting the right follow-up care.

The Action Plan also makes commitments to addressing the challenges facing the cardiac physiology workforce. Work is progressing on this. Furthermore, we are progressing commitments in the Integrated Health and Social Care Workforce Plan (2019) for Scotland to promote recruitment of cardiac physiologists over the next 3-5 years into Scientist Training Programmes and Practitioner BSC Programmes.

The CPG inquiry report also identifies the importance of improving access to data to drive improvement. In April 2021 we commissioned Public Health Scotland to develop the Scottish Cardiac Audit Programme. Extensive clinical and patient engagement is currently underway to develop the audit. Two key work streams within that engagement are atrial fibrillation and cardiac devices.