Chamber and committees

Planet Youth is a long term, upstream preventative approach and as such we would not yet expect to see a reduction in the substance use. The purpose of the pilot, which only started last year, is to build capacity in local communities to allow them to better use and understand data directly from their young people. There is significant evidence from Iceland that the approach works to reduce the number of young people engaging in health harming behaviours, and in increasing the age of first use. The pilot should allow us to ascertain the challenges and opportunities in transferring this model to Scotland, thanks to the 6 local areas who are pioneering the approach. There is an ongoing learning evaluation which will be published after the pilot ends in March 2025. Preliminary findings indicate there has been progress so far both in terms of taking a whole systems approach and at a community level. We are also seeing increasing interest in investing in prevention at a national and local level. It is clear from the numbers that pre-existing campaigns on substance use among teenagers are not as effective as we would like, hence the investment in a longer term, more systemic approach. There may be a misunderstanding about what Planet Youth is and colleagues from national charity Winning Scotland, who are facilitating Planet Youth in Scotland, would be happy to provide more information to interested members.

As deer management increases over the next few years, in line with our aim to increase the Scottish deer cull by 25%, we want to maximise the benefits deer management can bring.

We have seen peaks and increased venison numbers in the past that our established network of processors has been able to accommodate, and we are working with the sector to ensure that there is no barrier to venison processing in future years.

We have previously provided £80,000 through the Covid-19 Recovery Fund to support three new deer larders in Scotland. With regard to mitigating venison waste, we will consider all proposals for venison distribution to ensure as much as possible makes its way into the food chain safely. This is an important aspect of the revised Scottish Venison strategy launched last year and closer engagement with the wholesale sector is underway.

Officials will be meeting shortly with Scottish Venison and Scotland Food and Drink to consider the specific issue of public sector procurement of wild venison.

The NHS Research Scotland (NRS) Cancer Network monitors recruitment to eligibly funded non-commercial and commercial cancer clinical studies taking place in the NHS here, including in Blood Cancer. Routinely collected data includes postcode, date of birth and, where available, ethnicity of consented and recruited trial participants.

In February 2023 we published an Independent Report on Improving Equity of Access to Cancer Clinical Trials.

Improving equity of access to cancer clinical trials in Scotland - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

We are working closely with the cancer research community here to develop plans for the implementation of the report’s key recommendations and have established an implementation board chaired by Professor David Cameron from the University of Edinburgh to oversee this work.

The use of live facial recognition technology is an operational matter for Police Scotland, under the scrutiny of the Scottish Police Authority. Police Scotland must also abide by the relevant laws; the European Convention on Human Rights; and the Scottish Biometrics Commissioner’s statutory code of practice.

The Scottish Government recognises that assurances are required in order to secure public trust and support for any future use of new technology by Police Scotland, including live facial recognition.

We stand ready to work with Police Scotland, the SPA, the Scottish Biometrics Commissioner and others to develop an approach to the use of facial recognition technology which is lawful, effective, proportionate and rights-based.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-30259 on 8 October 2024. 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.

Under devolution, consequentials of this kind become part of the Scottish Government’s overall budget for that year. As part of the Scottish Budget process, it is for Scottish Ministers to propose funding levels for specific programmes in Scotland, and when the budget is required.

In the case of cladding remediation, we have said that we will spend whatever is necessary to address the problems created by unsafe cladding, that we will make provision for that at the appropriate time, and that we expect the cost of that in Scotland to be at least the quoted amount of consequentials – that is, £97.1 m.

The Cladding Remediation Programme has spent £9 m as of 30 June 2024. We publish updated information on programme spend on a quarterly basis at https://www.gov.scot/publications/single-building-assessment-spending-information/.

The Scottish Government is committed to reducing high deer numbers in order to help us to achieve our biodiversity and carbon objectives. We are pursuing a range of actions to deliver this commitment including the provision of community deer larders and the three pilot incentive schemes led by NatureScot and the Cairngorms National Park Authority which launched in early autumn to financially support deer managers to control numbers of deer in specific parts of Scotland.

One of these pilots is in Central Scotland and focusses on lowland and urban roe deer management, as well as expanding red deer populations. We will work closely with NatureScot and the Cairngorms National Park as these pilots progress, and the findings from the pilots will be used to inform future deer management policy.

The Scottish Government accepted, in principle, the recommendations set out by the Independent Review of Audiology Services in Scotland and are fully committed to seeing improvement in Audiology services.

Audiology is now being considered as a clinical priority area, and work is being progressed through the National Planning and Delivery Board arrangements led by the Chief Operating Officer – NHS Scotland.

In order to support with long waits, our NHS Recovery Plan sets out our plans for health and social care over the course of this parliament. The plan will support an increase in inpatient, day case, and outpatient activity to address the backlogs of care, which will be supported by the implementation of sustainable improvements and new models of care.

(a) £97.1 million in cladding specific consequentials were received in 2021-22.

(b) In the Spending Review 2021, the UK Government confirmed £5 billion funding (£3 billion over the Spending Review period to 2024-25) for remediation of the highest risk buildings with unsafe cladding. This was the funding referred to in the July 2023 statement.

Cladding funding is factored into the Barnett Settlement for the Spending Review. However, as the Scottish Government does not, except in certain circumstances, receive a full breakdown of consequentials at programme level from the UK Government, it is not possible in this case to determine how much was received from individual programmes such as cladding.

Offshore oil and gas licensing and consenting and issues pertaining to fuel security, as well as the associated fiscal regime, are currently reserved to the UK Government.

Our Energy System and Just Transition: Independent Analysis highlights the need for careful management of the North Sea energy transition, including the fields linked to the Forties System.