Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government does not hold the detail of this funding. Local decisions on how to allocate funding is the responsibility of NHS Boards.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) collects data and provides analysis on NHS spending and the cost of running services across the 14 territorial health boards, the Golden Jubilee, and the State Hospital. This information is published annually in the Scottish Health Service Costs release (‘Costs Book’).

The data has a breakdown of Hospital, Community, Family Health Services, and subsequent breakdown into sub-categories, however it does not specifically provide funding in preventative and early interventions (also note the difference between expenditure per Cost Book and funding per the question).

The Scottish Government understands that Public Health Scotland intends to publish, as official statistics in development, gender identity clinic waiting times information provided by NHS Grampian, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, NHS Highland and NHS Lothian in late summer 2024. This will be subject to the necessary data quality and completeness standards being met.

The Scottish Government welcomes the publication, on 10 April, of the final report and recommendations of the NHS England-commissioned Independent Review of Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People, chaired by Dr Hiliary Cass (‘the Cass Review’).

The findings of the review, and the associated systematic review papers, are being closely considered by both the Scottish Government and Health Boards in Scotland in the context of how such healthcare is best delivered here.

On 18 April, in a joint statement, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and NHS Lothian confirmed that both Boards have paused any new prescription of puberty-supressing hormones and cross-sex hormones for young people as a treatment option for gender dysphoria.

The small number of patients directly impacted by this change, and their families, were notified in advance of this statement. It is right that they were the first to hear about it, sensitively and from the services caring for them, before a public statement was made.

The adaptive framework under the new Bill will enable tailored provisions and support to be implemented to support our food producers and we continue to co-develop effective policies to deliver the Vision for Agriculture. As a framework Bill it will not set thresholds which could restrict future flexibility.

How these powers will be used are set out in the Bills associated Policy Memorandum and Explanatory notes .

Future eligibility criteria will be co-developed with partners through the Ag Reform Programme.

The term “puberty-suppressing hormones” is non-specific, and could be applied to a range of medicines used for a variety of conditions.

In the context of the provision of gender identity healthcare to children and young people, I refer the member to question S6O-03286 on 28 March 2024. which is available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/official-report/search-what-was-said-in-parliament .

The Scottish Government does not routinely hold or collate this information. This information should be requested from the relevant Health Boards.

Low Emission Zones are based on the Euro emission standard of the vehicle in order to reduce levels of harmful air pollution and protect public health.

Whether vehicles use diesel or hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) as a fuel does not change the Euro emission standard of the vehicle. There is no LEZ exemption for vehicles using diesel fuel alternatives such as hydrotreated vegetable oil, however any such vehicle that meets the Euro 6/VI emission standard can be driven within the LEZ.

The Scottish Government is not responsible for the assessment of abandoned calls to NHS 24 which is an operational matter for the Board. We monitor NHS 24 performance against a number of indicators on a weekly basis.

Calls to the 111 service can be abandoned for a variety of reasons, including callers choosing to end their call after being connected to the automated messaging service and hearing the options available to them. These include accessing self-care advice via NHS Inform, or contacting another area of the health service which may be more appropriate to meet their needs.

The Scottish Government continues to support NHS 24's ongoing work to help reduce abandoned calls, including a recent revision of NHS 24's key performance indicators to better reflect and understand the current demands on the service. This work allows the Service to capture any unmet demand, and any potential risks where callers have made multiple attempts to access 111 without success.

The Scottish Government is grateful for the latest advice from the Climate Change Committee. We have always been clear that meeting the legislated 2030 target – agreed by Parliament on a cross party basis - will be extremely challenging, and may not be feasible. Scotland is already half way to net zero and continues to decarbonise faster than the UK average.

On the 18th of April, Cabinet Secretary for Wellbeing Economy, Net Zero and Energy, outlined plans for a package to accelerate our actions to achieve net zero by 2045, which include a timeline for implementing demand management, to help us achieve our much needed target to reduce car usage.

We will carefully consider the report’s recommendations and provide a Scottish Government response in due course.

The Scottish Government provided £2,896,309 of funding to Sistema Scotland in financial year 2023-2024. The Scottish Government are working with Sistema Scotland to finalise their grant allocation for financial year 2024-2025.

The Scottish Government’s Aviation Statement, which will be published shortly, will set out actions that the Scottish Government will take to help achieve our aviation emissions reduction targets. As noted in the Climate Change Committee’s report, aviation decarbonisation will require UK-wide co-operation and progress across all aviation emissions mitigation solutions.