To date 17 homes have been approved through the demand-led Rural Affordable Homes for Key Workers Fund which will operate over the period 2023-2028. This includes 7 homes in Highland, 7 homes in Orkney, 2 homes in Moray and 1 home in North Ayrshire. More Homes Division officials are in discussion with local authority partners on a number of other potential projects where there is identified local requirements.

In general, the Scottish Government provides funding to all Health and Social Care Partnerships to commission and fund Residential Rehabilitation (RR) placements on the advice of their Alcohol and Drug Partnership. To support local commissioning, the Scottish Government also fund Scotland Excel for the National Commissioning Framework which aims to standardise commissioning for RR placements.

The Scottish Government also directly fund the following residential rehabilitation providers through the Residential Rehabilitation Rapid Capacity Programme (RRRCP) – 4 of these are new projects and 4 are expansions to existing services, which will provide 140 more bed by 2025-26.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) does not recommend manual ear syringing.

We have previously estimated that around 350 high-rise and up to 500 medium-rise buildings across Scotland may require assessment and some level of remediation, across all tenure and building ownership types.

We continue to use this data as an outline planning assumption. However, we are working through a number of routes to enhance both the quality and efficacy of our estimate of potentially affected buildings in Scotland.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

1.In the period 2016-17 – 2023-24 there was 1 death in custody which has been classified as a Homicide.

2.In the period 2016-17 - 2023-24 there were 2 deaths in custody which have been classified as Culpable Homicide.

3.There have been no attempted homicides in the period 2015-16 - 2023-24. It should be noted however, that SPS are unlikely to record an instance of attempted homicide until the individual has been found guilty in a court of law, until such time it will be recorded as an assault.

4.The following table provides a breakdown of prisoner-on-prisoner assaults for the period 2016-17 – 2023-24:

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

HMP Barlinnie has a total of 966 cells and a design capacity of 996. As of 19 November, the establishment held 1366 prisoners.

SPS are unable to quantify the number of cells that typically accommodate more than one person in our care, due to the many variables that accompany our complex population, however as of the aforementioned date, the establishment had a single cell occupancy rate of 33%.

The Scottish Government publish official statistics on housebuilding on a quarterly basis. The statistics requested can be found in the following link.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/housing-statistics-for-scotland-new-house-building/

The Scottish Government holds or has access to multiple datasets relating to land use. However, these datasets are not exhaustive and are not held in a compatible format that would enable us to provide the information requested.

The Scottish Government holds or has access to multiple datasets relating to land use. However, these datasets are not exhaustive and are not held in a compatible format that would enable us to provide the information requested.

The Scottish Government does not collate information regarding land use capability in this manner. Information on Scotland’s land capability is available at a National Scale through the Land Capability for Agriculture map and can be accessed here: National scale land capability for agriculture | Scotland's soils (environment.gov.scot).

Please note that the land capability for agriculture assessment was carried out in 1981 using data collected between 1978 and 1981 and is not broken down by local authority area.