The funding for the 38,000 apprentices in training is committed. Skills Development Scotland commenced contracting for up to 25,500 new Modern Apprenticeship opportunities at the start of April, including in the construction sector.

Scotland will co-host EURO 2028 as part of a joint UK and Ireland Championship. The event is expected to take place in Summer 2028 and last around four weeks.

We are working closely with a range of partners, including the UK Government, Welsh Government, Northern Ireland Executive and Irish Government, to deliver EURO 2028.

Some mega sporting events require specific legal protections. For EURO 2028, UEFA has requirements to protect its own and event sponsors’ and licensees’ commercial rights during the event. It also usually requires restrictions on ticket touting. The Scottish Government has today launched a survey at http://www.gov.scot/ISBN/9781836012108 seeking views from anyone with an interest in EURO 2028 commercial rights protection.

UEFA’s requirements for EURO 2028 are not yet confirmed. The proposals set out in the consultation are based on government guarantees made to UEFA when bidding for EURO 2028, and experience from EURO 2020 when Scotland was one of eleven host nations. That event was postponed to 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

For EURO 2028, it is likely UEFA will require protections, including relevant criminal offences and enforcement powers, around:

• Unauthorised street trading
• Unauthorised advertising
• Unauthorised resale of tickets

The survey seeks views on:

• What the impacts were of the measures put in place for UEFA EURO 2020, which took place in 2021;
• How business could be impacted by the measures that are likely required by UEFA for EURO 2028; and
• What kinds of measures and exemptions would be most appropriate to meet likely UEFA requirements.

The survey will be open for 12 weeks, from 2 May 2024 to 26 July 2024.

The Scottish Government provided a total of £2.1 million between Care and Repair (£1.1 million) and Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (£1 million) during 2021-22 to support those in greatest need or at greatest risk of fire, to meet the new standard.

An announcement was made on 22 January 2022 about the original funding for Care and Repair being doubled to just over £1.1 million to meet demand. All the money has been allocated and spent.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

Unlike the mainstream rental sector, people who live in accommodation tied to their employment do not have a tenancy agreement such as the Private Residential Tenancy. Instead their rental conditions are included as part of the individual terms of their employment.

No information is held by the Scottish Government on those living in tied accommodation in Scotland.

The Scottish Government remains committed to supporting and improving eating disorder services across Scotland and ensuring everyone receives the best possible care and support from our health services. It is essential that someone who is diagnosed with an eating disorder receives a thorough assessment and gets the right care and treatment for every aspect of their illness as soon as possible.

That is why in 2023-24, we directly allocated £55.5 million to Health Boards via the Mental Health Outcomes Framework. The Framework aims to enable continued improvements to mental health services, including eating disorder services, in line with the aims of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy Mental health and wellbeing strategy - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) and associated specifications and standards.

Whilst this Government sets the strategic policy direction for mental health workforce development within NHS Boards, the direct recruitment of staff and operational decisions about individual services are the responsibility of each NHS Board. Workforce and service planning is conducted by Health Boards according to the needs of their populations.

The Scottish Government does not hold the information requested as this is a matter for local Health and Social Care Partnerships. The information is not held centrally.

Since June 2022 a further 9 loans have been issued under the Self Build Loan Fund, with a total value of £1,367,967, and this is shown in table 1. The number of loans issued since June 2022, split by local authority, is shown in table 2.

Table 1: Number and Value of Self Build Loan Fund loans since June 2022

A total of 49 loans have been made to applicants, with 44 loans either fully repaid within agreed timescales or in the process of doing so. A total of 6 loans became subject to the default interest rate during 2023-24, 2 of these were repaid in full during that financial year, and 4 of these loans remain subject to the default interest rate. During the current financial year, 1 loan has been subject to the default interest rate.

We are delighted to provide support to people to build their own homes with the completion of 39 homes through the Self Build Loan Fund since it was established in September 2018.

The Self Build Loan Fund is recyclable meaning that when loans are repaid, the money can be re-used, during the life of the fund, supporting more self-builders and providing more homes for future generations.

Interest from the SBLF is used to offset the cost of administering the Fund, including legal fees associated with each loan and administration costs paid to Communities Housing Trust who were appointed as the administering agent following a procurement process carried out in 2022.

Since the publication of Respiratory Care Action Plan (RCAP) for Scotland, we have established the Scottish Respiratory Advisory Committee (SRAC) to oversee its implementation. The key priorities identified were: increasing access to pulmonary rehabilitation; developing a respiratory core data set and developing best practice guidance for children living with asthma and transitioning to adult services.

Sub-groups were established to take this work forward. The Transitions sub-group have produced their recommendations for best practice, and these have been shared with key stakeholders in order to improve consistency across the country.

We are working closely with Public Health Scotland and are currently in the early stages of developing a national respiratory audit, which will help to better identify areas of improvement and track progress across Scotland.

In September 2023, the British Thoracic Society published their refreshed pulmonary rehab guidelines, we are considering how best we can support its implementation across Scotland. We are also working closely with the Scottish Pulmonary Rehab Advisory Group (SPRAG) and the Respiratory Specialty Delivery Group within the Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) in order to determine how we can best support improvements in pulmonary rehab services across Scotland.

The Centre for Sustainable Delivery are also developing national pathways for respiratory conditions including severe asthma; COPD and sleep apnoea. This work aligns closely with the RCAP and we will continue to ensure that close links continue.