Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is working with key business sectors, Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), Scottish Water, local authorities, and other stakeholders to make sure water is used efficiently; the first line of defence against the risks of drought.

SEPA has just consulted on a Water Resources Management Plan, which highlights the risk of climate change and the need to work in collaboration to develop a series of practical actions to deliver a more sustainable and resilient use of water. This builds on the approach taken under the National Water Scarcity Plan, which focuses on making early information available to allow water users to manage supplies during prolonged dry periods without harming the environment. Following the consultation SEPA will develop a more proactive approach that aims to increase the resilience of businesses and reduce the pressure on the water environment during droughts.

Scottish Water carefully considers the actions required to mitigate against any drought risk through its water resource plan to ensure it has resilience in its networks to cope with an increase in demand during extended periods of dry weather.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-01708 on
‎ 24 August 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

Green recovery must form a central part of Scotland's emergence from the COVID-19 pandemic. In relation to air quality, the key challenges will be to understand how the air pollution reductions seen during lockdown periods can be maintained long-term and sustainably, and how these changes can benefit the long-term health of the population

On 15 July 2021 the Scottish Government published its new air quality strategy 'Cleaner Air for Scotland 2 - Towards a Better Place for Everyone' (CAFS 2). CAFS 2 sets out a series of actions to deliver further air pollution reductions over the next five years. These actions include work being progressed across Government which will benefit air quality, such as continuing to take forward introduction of Low Emission Zones in Scotland's four largest cities, a £500 million funding commitment to active travel over the next five years, a reduction in motor vehicle kilometres by 20% by 2030 and the ban on the sale of new diesel and petrol cars and vans, also by 2030.

We are also taking forward proposals to control the sale of the most polluting domestic fuels, produce a code of good agricultural practice for improving air quality in Scotland and develop a public engagement strategy on air quality. At the same time we will ensure that CAFS 2 integrates fully with other Government plans and strategies that have implications for air quality, such as the Climate Change Plan update, the National Transport Strategy 2 and National Planning Framework 4.

Since May 2020 the Scottish Government has published 3-4 week projections of infections, hospital and ICU occupancy in its weekly publication Modelling the Epidemicin Scotland Coronavirus (COVID-19): modelling the epidemic - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . It is published each Thursday at 5.30pm. These projections take account of the uncertainty in transmission rates, and indicate the variability as to whether infections will increase, remain level or reduce in coming weeks.

The number of new cases has been increasing over the last week. The estimate of R has increased and now spans one. Hospitalisations have been declining from a peak in mid-July, but have now levelled off. Potential future changes in hospital occupancy and intensive care use depend on both current infection levels and the impact of the relaxations of measures which will take a few weeks to become apparent.

In the publication we have not been projecting the numbers of people expected to die with Covid 19 in recent weeks. The number of daily deaths has fallen to very low levels, too low to produce accurate projections.

A table has been placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib Number 62587) that provides information on delays and cancellations on individual routes serving the Clyde and Hebrides network since January 2016. Sailings can be the cancelled for a number of reasons including - inclement weather, vessel breakdowns, deployment of vessels to other routes across the network.

This government has seen a 54.2% increase in the consultant radiologist workforce (from 223.5 WTE in September 2006 to 344.6 WTE in March 2021). While information on numbers of radiologists according to specialist cancer fields is not centrally held, the numbers of Clinical Radiology Consultants currently employed in each NHS Board, including Doctors in Training, are as set out in the following table:

NHSScotland Clinical Radiology Consultants, staff in post by NHS Board in Whole Time Equivalent (WTE) including Doctors in Training.

A table has been placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib Number 62617) that provides ongoing maintenance and repair costs per vessel within the Clyde and Hebrides fleet for CalMac Ferries Ltd. contract years 2016-17 to 2021-22.

On 31 May, Zero Waste Scotland in partnership with Scottish Government and Keep Scotland Beautiful launched the second phase of the anti-littering campaign, Scotland is Stunning, which targeted families and young people enjoying the outdoors.

Zero Waste Scotland has also developed a number of behaviour change initiatives and education resources aimed at school children, including the #GetLitterLiterate campaign which aims to teach students about the harmful effects of littering and mobilise them to influence their local and online communities.

Work has begun to refresh the National Litter Strategy, which has come to the end of its five year lifespan, as a National Litter and Flytipping Strategy. This refreshed strategy will be published in early 2022. Recognising the important role of education in litter prevention, communications and behaviour change has been identified as one of the four key themes which will be the focus of this refreshed strategy.

I met with the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland on 10 June 2021.

At this introductory meeting we discussed matters of mutual interest, including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill and children and young people’s participation in decision-making.

The choice of disposal method for ordinance found on the Seagreen Offshore Windfarm will be a hierarchy of methods made up of leaving in situ , relocating the UXO, applying a low-yield method which disrupts and disintegrates the UXO without combustion of the explosive material, a low-order method which disrupts the UXO by deflagration without an explosive combustion of the main explosive filling and, only where those methods are unsuitable, to use a high-order method to penetrate the UXO casing and trigger detonation of the main explosive filling.

Bubble curtains are not being used as, due to the water depth at the site, they would be technically challenging and may be of limited effectiveness.