Chamber and committees

Currently, there are charges in place for the use of toilet facilities at Inverness, Fort William, Aberdeen, and Glasgow Queen Street stations.

ScotRail advises that the revenue from each requested station toilet facilities since 2019 is as follows:

The following table shows the number of entries to the Rural Skills National Progression Award at SCQF Level 5 for the 2022-23 academic year broken down by centre.

Entries to Rural Skills NPA at SCQF 5, 2022-23

Attracting more people from a care-experienced background to further and higher education continues to be a priority for Scottish Government and the Scottish Funding Council (SFC). SFC have a National Ambition for Care-Experienced Students for the college and university sectors.

Our vision is to see no difference in the outcomes between care-experienced students and non care-experienced students by 2030. The work we are currently doing is taking us toward that vision. The SFC’s Report on Widening Access reported that in 2020/21 care-experienced students at Scotland’s colleges and universities accounted for 1.9% of Scottish-domiciled entrants to undergraduate courses. That’s up from 1.7% in 2019-20 and represents an increase of 215 students. SFC has an established a Care Experience National Policy Group. The last meeting of that group was 26 January 2023 and included Student Ambassadors.

The Scottish Government currently has no plans to endorse the Plant Based Treaty. We are keen to explore ways to both encourage a healthy diet and reduce the environmental impact of our food system. We continue to work with Public Health Scotland, Food Standards Scotland and others to evaluate the evidence base on diet, health and climate impacts.

The shellfish industry is an increasingly important aquaculture and food sector, creating and sustaining employment opportunities in many of Scotland’s remote rural, island and coastal communities and which supplies healthy and delicious Scottish shellfish to domestic and international markets and businesses.

I was pleased to support the Association of Scottish Shellfish Growers conference held in Oban last year, in addition to the Shellfish Association of Great Britain conference to provide an update on progress across our priorities in Scotland, which of course is producing substantial amounts of the UK’s shellfish either through wild or farmed stocks. This year’s annual conference will be held in London in June and I was grateful to receive an invite to attend from David Jarrad, Chief Executive of the Shellfish Association of Great Britain.

Scottish Government officials are currently considering attendance at the event.

The Scottish Funding Council (SFC) publishes information on college withdrawals, as well as retention statistics for undergraduate courses at colleges and universities.

These statistics are measuring different things and are not comparable.

College withdrawal statistics (Chart 10) : College Performance Indicators 2020-21 (sfc.ac.uk)

College and university retention statistics (Background Table 3) : Report on Widening Access 2020-21 (sfc.ac.uk)

We welcome Scottish Women’s Aid and the Chartered Institute of Housing Scotland’s Policies Not Promises report. It illustrates why the proposed new duty on social landlords to develop and implement a domestic abuse housing policy, as part of wider duties to prevent homelessness, is so important.

Social landlords play a crucial role in preventing homelessness and good intentions are not enough. There is good practice guidance already available to help social landlords and they must act now to support any tenants who are survivors of domestic abuse and protect their rights to stay in their home. I look forward to working closely with social landlords and other partners to ensure they improve their support and make a real, positive difference for women and children experiencing domestic abuse.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6O-01811 on 25 January 2023 which is available on the Parliament's website, the Official Report can be found here: Meeting of the Parliament: 25/01/2023 | Scottish Parliament Website

I am pleased to update that the Scottish Science Advisory Council published the ‘Use of Science and Evidence in Aquaculture Consenting and the Sustainable Development of Scottish Aquaculture’ report on 26 April 2023.

The Scottish Government is currently planning to implement provisions from the Fireworks and Pyrotechnic Articles (Scotland) Act 2022 restricting the days when F2 and F3 fireworks can be supplied to and used by the general public, as well as the compensation regulation making powers connected to the restricted days of supply, during the 2024-25 financial year at the earliest.

It is the Scottish Government’s position that an independent Scotland will remain a constitutional monarchy with the King as Head of State, just as in many other independent Commonwealth countries, and will remain as such for as long as the people of Scotland wish that to be the case.