Transport Scotland's National Traffic Data System (NTDS) has live traffic counters at the two junctions measuring the volume of traffic on the slip roads and the main carriageway.

At this stage, as previously stated, there is no reason for Transport Scotland to consider temporarily closing the M74 Junction 1 Kingston Interchange, due to the volume of traffic on the M74 and M8 and the resulting impact on the road traffic network around Glasgow City Centre.

Glasgow City Council, as part of its Strategic Plan 2022-27 , plan to commission research on and explore options to reduce the impact of the M8 on the city centre, and review opportunities to re-engineer other roads infrastructure to become more people friendly, including options for a possible long-term replacement.

The Scottish Government supports innovation where it contributes to the sustainable production of salmon, including adaptive husbandry, health and welfare, nutrition and the reduction and monitoring of environmental impact. We recognise that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to farmed fish production, and that technological innovations must be designed to operate in the conditions of the surrounding environment. The Government’s Vision for Sustainable Aquaculture, published in July 2023, sets out our expectation of producers that they must drive mortalities to lowest possible levels and that technology is always used appropriately where it is deployed.

The 7 March 2024 publication by Nature Scientific Reports concerning mass mortality events in salmon aquaculture focused on the community impacts in relation to specific catastrophic events in Chile. Similar impacts on communities have not been experienced in Scotland and the Scottish Government does not consider that speculative extrapolation between Chile and Scotland on community impacts or worker safety is appropriate given differences in circumstances and approaches including health and safety regimes.

Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited (CMAL), as procuring authority for new vessels for the Scottish Government, operate under the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015 and also comply with the statutory and legislative requirements derived from The Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014.

Contracts for Operators of Ferry Services are also subject to the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015 and also comply with the statutory and legislative requirements derived from The Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014.

The Scottish Government is absolutely committed to embedding anti-racism in education. As part of the Anti-Racism in Education Programme for financial year 2023-24 the Scottish Government provided the following funding streams aimed at providing anti-racist education. Funding streams for 24-25 will be published in due course.

Funding Streams:

• Anti-Racism in Education Programme (AREP) funding stream
• Curriculum workstream of the AREP
• School Library Improvement Fund
• Holocaust Educational Trust “Lessons from Auschwitz project”
• Vision Schools Scotland
• STUC Unions into Schools project

The Scottish Government has not recently undertaken an assessment of unmet need for people with hearing loss, but we are engaged with stakeholders and those with lived experience to inform our understanding of unmet need.

As part of the See Hear Strategy refresh, we have engaged with people who are hard of hearing, deaf and deafblind. This includes children, young people and their parents/ carers.

We asked what topics and issues matter to them for inclusion in the strategy, through an online survey and a series of in-person and online focus groups and interviews.

In total we have received insights from over 170 adults with lived experience and 17 parents and carers of children/young people. Additional focus group discussions were held with 17 children and young people with lived experience from all sensory impairment groups. The engagement took place between September 2023 and February 2024.

This relates to indicative figures provided by universities at the start of the academic session. The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) will publish the 2023-24 academic year Official Statistics data in 2025. These will provide the most accurate figures on enrolments into modern language Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programmes.

This information is informing the work of Strategic Board for Teacher Education, which is considering issues around the recruitment and retention of teachers in Scotland in detail together with work to improving the promotion of teaching as a valued career.

Both the Scottish Government and Scottish Funding Council have offered to work with universities to develop alternative routes into subjects which have traditionally been difficult to recruit to.

Our Teaching Bursary Scheme is offering a £20,000 payment to career changers who are looking to undertake teacher training in hard to fill STEM subjects – physics, maths, technical education, computing science, chemistry and home economics. The scheme was also extended to include Gaelic as a secondary subject, and Gaelic medium across all secondary subjects and in primary.

The Scottish Government remains committed to enhancing audiology services, and to its vision for an integrated, community-based audiology service. We are currently focusing on delivery of the actions required to respond to the Independent Review of Audiology services, and our approach will continue to be informed by this, alongside ongoing consultation with the audiology sector.

The Scottish Government allocated grant funding to Higher Education Institutions to deliver the Into Headship programme, as outlined in the following table:

The Scottish Government remains committed to enhancing audiology services, and to its vision for an integrated, community-based audiology service. We are currently focusing on delivery of the actions required to respond to the Independent Review of Audiology services, and our approach will continue to be informed by this, alongside ongoing consultation with the audiology sector.