Offshore wind offers a significant opportunity to create thousands of good jobs in Scotland, and the Scottish Government will drive forward skills development for the sector, including supporting the transition of workers from oil and gas.

We are almost tripling our capital funding to £150 million for 2025-26, year two of our five-year commitment to invest up to £500 million in critical infrastructure and manufacturing and fabrication facilities to support the growth of the offshore wind sector. Our Offshore Wind Focus paper sets out the priorities for investment, underpinned by a strategic assessment of current market opportunities that will have a catalytic effect and maximise the economic value to Scotland.

In addition, we remain committed to our ten-year Just Transition Fund, which has allocated £75 million to date supporting projects and communities across the North East and Moray to create jobs, support innovation, and secure the highly skilled workforce of the future. This involves a dedicated package of skills interventions, including £4.5 million over 5 years for the Energy Skills Transition Hub which aims to support 1,000 people into energy transition roles, £3.7 million for the development of the Energy Skills Passport (an initial version of which was launched by industry partners on 22 January) and £1 million for a National Energy Skills Accelerator pilot scheme to better understand future energy skills needs and deliver workforce training.

The terms and conditions of all GB-wide railcards are set by National Rail, part of the Rail Delivery Group (RDG) under UK Government rail industry rules. There have been no recent specific discussions concerning changes to railcard terms. ScotRail has confirmed with officials at Transport Scotland that National Railcards can be used to buy tickets online, via the app, or at TVMs. Where ticket purchasing facilities are not available at a station, passengers can use their National Rail card when purchasing a ticket from a member of staff on-board of ScotRail trains.

We know that people who inject drugs are at higher risk of contracting blood borne viruses (BBVs), bacterial infections and injection site wounds.

The Scottish Government has committed to effectively eliminating hepatitis C (HCV) as a public health threat in Scotland and to driving improvement through focusing on intensifying case finding and treatment initiation, and ensuring that people who inject drugs have access to, and take up, i) optimal harm reduction services and ii) if deemed clinically ready, antiviral therapy to prevent the onward transmission of infection.

The Scottish Governments ‘Sexual Health and Blood Borne Virus Action Plan’ also aims for everyone in Scotland to have good sexual health and wellbeing, with high quality, innovative, sexual health and BBV prevention, care and support available to those who need it, in a timely manner and irrespective of age, sex, gender, sexual identity or location. We have allocated multi-year funding to a range of projects alongside the action plan which will drive improvement in the areas identified.

In addition, the ‘HIV Transmission Elimination Delivery Plan’ sets out prioritised actions towards achieving our goal of zero people contracting HIV within Scotland by 2030. This aligns with wider global strategic aims, including UNAIDS’ goal “to end the AIDS epidemic as a public health threat by 2030.” Alongside the plan we have funded a National Coordinator post to oversee coordination of this Delivery Plan and to work with locally identified HIVTE Champions at NHS Board level towards delivery of actions to support elimination.

Specifically in Glasgow, The WAND (Wound management, Assessment of injecting risk, Naloxone supply and Dry blood-spot test for BBV) model has been implemented in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde. WAND has proved effective in engaging with people who inject drugs and who are not in contact with traditional services, reflecting the requirement of MAT Standard 4, and providing them with a unique level of support to address these issues. Other areas are also trailing the model.

Implementation and evaluation of the Collaborative and Compassionate Cancer Care The Cancer Strategy for Children and Young People in Scotland 2021–2026 is managed by the Managed Service Network for Children and Young People with Cancer (MSN CYPC).

Consideration will be given to an evaluation of the delivery of this strategy as it continues into 2026. Recommendations and actions are continually reviewed by MSN CYPC and the 2023-24 MSN CYPC Annual Report has been published on the MSN CYPC website – www.msncypc.Inhs.scot.

Our next formal update will be as part of a parliamentary debate currently planned for early June, subject to ministerial and parliamentary timetables. It is planned that this debate will focus on AI and its current and future impact in the Health sector.

However the Scottish AI Alliance provide monthly updates on the meeting of the Scottish AI Taskforce. This group of public servants meet to discuss and share AI challenges and opportunities, with the intention of avoiding duplication and ensuring shared best practice. These meetings offer a good overview of the public sector approach to AI, and you can find minutes and details from these meeting on the Alliance website. Public Sector AI - Taskforce — Scottish AI Alliance

We are also currently working on our response to the recent publication of the UK Government AI Action Plan, and that response will include a public sector component.

The AI Register remains the intended source of publicly available information on AI in use across the Scottish public sector. Work is on-going to encourage use across Scotland and to build completion of the register into our procurement and development processes.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) publishes annual data on 16 to 25 year olds with cancer in Scotland in their incidence statistics. The latest report is available on the PHS website

PHS also publishes information on cancer in children (ages 0 to 14) and young people (ages 15 to 24) in Scotland

Children and young people with cancer in Scotland 9 May 2023 - Children and young people with cancer in Scotland - Publications - Public Health Scotland

Scottish Government has committed to making up to £2.3 million available per annum (from 2024-25 – 2026-27) to Glasgow HSCP for the development, set up and running of the SDCF in Glasgow from 2024-25. A total of £1,277,000 will be provided by Scottish Government for the financial year 2024-25.

The mainline of the A90 trunk road has been closed to facilitate road maintenance on 12 occasions over the following 5 full financial years:

2019-20 - 0

2020-21 - 2

2021-22 - 0

2022-23 - 5

2023-24 - 5

These closures took place overnight and averaged 13.5 hours per night in duration.

Additionally, there has been 53 slip road closures on the A90 trunk road over the same period. These overnight closures averaged 12.5 hours in duration. During these closures the mainline A90 remained open.

The A90 is a trunk road with considerable history having been periodically improved over the last 60 years to its current alignment and arrangement. The various improvements will have been designed in accordance with design standards that were in force at that time. As standards evolve they are not retrospectively applied to existing sections of road, unless changes or improvements at a given location are considered necessary.

The Addressing Depopulation Action Plan includes an action for Scottish Government to engage with Youth Scotland and the Young Islanders Network (YIN) to co-develop ideas to encourage young people to move to, or remain within our island communities.

Since publication, as part of this engagement the Scottish Government’s independent Expert Advisory Group on Migration and Population have met with a cohort from the YIN, to gather their input into a forthcoming report on the mobilities of young working age people in rural and island areas. It is envisaged that recommendations from this report will be considered by Scottish Ministers after publication, and where appropriate these will inform the development of future interventions to support population attraction and retention in rural and island areas.

Additionally, engagement with the YIN around the development of the next National Islands Plan (NIP) has already been conducted by Scottish Government officials, highlighting that the next NIP plans to have an overarching focus on population attraction and retention. This engagement will continue prior to publication and delivery of the next NIP, planned for later this year.