Chamber and committees

The proportion of electricity consumed by households that will be generated by nuclear power stations in the rest of the UK is not possible to predict with any level of certainty in 2028. It will depend on a range of market factors.

The Scottish Government recognises that certainty of funding is critical to allow Local Employability Partnerships to plan provision effectively and to provide security for the people accessing services through No One Left Behind. That is why the Scottish Budget 2024-25 sets out our commitment to explore future multi-year funding for employability. We will be working to determine the detail underpinning this commitment in the coming months.

NHS Education for Scotland (NES) manage the nursing and midwifery Return to Practice education provision on behalf of Scottish Government.

Although the deadline has passed, the tender process is still live, and NES expects to publish the award on the Public Contracts Scotland website in the week commencing 24 June 2024.

The Scottish Budget confirmed that the financial outlook for 2024-25 across Government is particularly challenging with future prospects continuing to be volatile. As such, the 2024-25 budget is a single year spending plan and no decisions have been made in relation to the budget for the Strengthening Communities Programme from 1 April 2025.

Whilst the main objective of safer drug consumption facilities (SDCF) is to provide medical attention in the case of an overdose there is also a significant body of evidence for the important role SDCFs play in reducing the sharing of injecting equipment. This reduces the risk of HIV and hepatitis C transmission.

The SDCF in Glasgow will provide people who inject drugs, including cocaine, with sterile injection equipment, advice on injecting technique and other vital harm reduction advice. Current approaches to harm reduction with regards to injecting cocaine will be discussed with academics and presenters from the Cocaine & Crack Cocaine Conference on 4 June 2024.

The Latest data from Public Health Scotland indicate that sexual acquisition is the most common exposure category for new HIV diagnoses in Scotland, however people who inject drugs remain at risk of HIV and other blood borne viruses.

There has been a downward trend in diagnoses among people who inject drugs following the peak of the outbreak in NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde in 2015.

The effectiveness of interventions implemented at the height of the outbreak underline the importance of continuing to promote HIV testing, delivery of treatment and care, provision of harm reduction measures and awareness raising initiatives to this particularly vulnerable group.

SDCF provide a further opportunity for delivering these vital interventions and could therefore contribute to ending new transmissions of HIV in Scotland by 2030.

The Mackintosh Building is owned by The Glasgow School of Art, with responsibility for its own strategic and operational decision making. It has been a long standing principle that employers, building owners and managers are responsible for their own premises.

The Scottish Government and other public bodies will continue to engage closely with the Glasgow School of Art as it progresses its plans for a faithful reinstatement of the Mackintosh building.

As outlined in my response to S6W-27647 on 31 May 2024, and in my recent letter to Ms Gosal, I would welcome the opportunity to meet with you to discuss further alongside your policy paper which outlines this particular ask. 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 .

As outlined in my response to S6W-27647 on 31 May 2024, and in my recent letter to Ms Gosal, I would welcome the opportunity to meet with you to discuss further alongside your policy paper which outlines this particular ask.

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 .

The monitoring and evaluation plan is being developed by Public Health Scotland (PHS). The first stage of this is for PHS to develop key indicators for monitoring progress. These are currently being drafted and PHS will be consulting on them shortly. Following this there will be further work to identify gaps in monitoring progress and address these. The finalised plan is expected to be published by the end of the financial year.

A new PHS-led blood borne virus and sexually transmitted infection dashboard is also scheduled for launch in 2024-25 which will help to monitor progress on elimination at national and NHS board level.

The Scottish Government has no immediate plans to expand emergency department opt-out blood borne virus testing beyond the current three-month pilots. It is important that decisions about any further expansion are based on the best available evidence.

A review will be undertaken once all three areas have completed their pilot projects and local evaluations later this summer. However, decisions about further interventions will also be informed by the findings of a Scottish Government-funded research project aimed at identifying optimal approaches to testing to reduce undiagnosed blood borne viruses, which are expected in spring 2025.