The Scottish Government continues to deliver on its commitment to give people the information they need to make an informed choice about their future, and I’m pleased to confirm that today the First Minister is launching a series of speeches on the opportunities independence would bring to Scotland’s economy.

The speeches will set out the Scottish Government's vision for a stronger and more productive economy that could be delivered with independence, further developing the economic strand of the Building a New Scotland (BaNS) prospectus.

The speech also sets out three key measures for a successful industrial policy for an independent Scotland:

• Joining the EU as an independent country;
• Establishing a dynamic government Ministry for Industrial Policy and consensus building institutions to drive the strategy;
• Targeted capital spending investment in key areas of comparative advantage, a proposal for a Building a New Scotland Fund already set out in the third BaNS paper: A Stronger Economy with Independence .

Ministers will deliver further speeches on the opportunities independence would bring to Scotland’s economy in the coming months. The speech text “Building a New Scotland: Industrial Strategy in an Independent Scotland” is available to view on the Scottish Government website from today at www.gov.scot/newscotland .

The number of properties expected to be liable for the Higher Property Rate (HPR) in 2024-2025 before any reliefs are applied is presented in the below tables, broken down in Table 1 by property class, and in Table 2 by council area. Property class is a classification used by Scottish Assessors to describe the type of property, and does not necessarily accurately reflect the use of a property. The Scottish Government does not hold property-level data on industry sectors.

These tables are based on the non-domestic valuation roll as at 1 October 2023.

Figures in these tables are rounded to the nearest 10.

Table 1: Number of properties liable for HPR in 2024-2025 by property class

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

When an individual is allocated a prison cell in any establishment, the cell is equipped with furnishings such as a table/tabletop, seating, a bed and bedding.

The occasion where this may not occur is when an individual is located in a safer cell if it is considered that they are a risk to themselves. These cells are equipped with a bed and bedding, but they may not have a chair or a separate table. Items in use within a safer cell are allocated on an individualised basis.

The following table shows the number of safer cells across the prison estate:

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

As defined in the Prison and Young Offenders Rules (Scotland) 2011, all female prisoners who require sanitary products are provided with them free of charge. There is therefore no need to record instances of products not being provided.

As I set out in Parliament on 18 December during the statement on implementing the medication assisted treatment we are preparing for changes to the drug supply with synthetic opioids becoming more prevalent. At the National Mission Oversight Group meeting on 14 November 2023 Dr Sharon Stancliff, Associate Medical Director of Harm Reduction in Healthcare New York State, and Professor Thomas Kerr, Director of Research with the British Columba Centre on Substance Use, gave presentations on their experiences of fentanyl and the impact this has had since becoming prevalent in the drug supply in New York State and British Columba respectively. An overview of fentanyl was given, the differences between opiates and synthetics and the differences in overdose presentations were covered. The use of naloxone and fentanyl testing strips, along with the need for buprenorphine and harm reduction practices generally, were discussed. The presentations also covered use of safer drug consumption facilities, drug checking and the decriminalisation pilot which took place in British Columbia. They shared their views on what is needed here in Scotland, based on their respective experiences with fentanyl epidemics in their countries, to help address the risks that synthetics pose.

Officials recently met with stakeholders who are involved in the delivery of drug and housing services to discuss the roundtable event taking place this year on synthetic opioids and those areas they would want to cover. Planning is continuing for this to take place at the start of 2024, the event will cover all synthetic opioids including nitazenes.

The Scottish Drugs Forum have launched resources on synthetic opioids and nitazenes to get information out to people that they are in the illegal drug supply Resources — Stop The Deaths . Public Health Scotland have also recently issued an update to their alert via RADAR to healthcare staff and the public to highlight the increased dangers associated with the drugs ( RADAR Nitazenes alert 2023 ).

The Scottish Government will draw on a range of experiences in the development of refreshed Guidance on Developing Policies to Promote the Safe and Responsible Use of Mobile Technology in Schools. This will include the experiences of schools like Gordonstoun, and others, who have introduced limitations on the use of mobile phones in schools.

The current guidance which is available from Guidance on Developing Policies to Promote the Safe and Responsible Use of Mobile Technology in Schools (www.gov.scot) remains in place at this time.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

All children and young people should receive the support that they need to reach their full potential. Local authorities are under a statutory duty to identify, provide for, and review the support that they provide for pupils with additional support needs.

The Scottish Government has continued to invest an additional £15m per year since 2019-20 to help local authorities respond to the individual needs of children and young people. This investment is monitored via information collected through the annual school staff census. The latest figures show that this funding has helped contribute to the highest recorded number of support staff in schools, 16,606 in 2022.

We are committed to supporting the education workforce, and we are providing local authorities with £145.5m in this year's budget to protect increased teacher numbers and support staff.

An analysis of data from the Scottish Procurement Information Hub and Public Contracts Scotland, covering financial year 2017/18 to date, has not identified any spend or contracts with contractors in categories (a) to (c). We do not routinely capture information about which other clients contractors engage with, so do not hold information in relation to (d).

A Flow Navigation Centre has been established in every mainland Health Board as part of the Redesign of Urgent Care Programme. They provide expert clinical advice, referrals to alternative services and, when necessary, schedule appointments at A&E. They play a key role in ensuring patients receive the ‘Right Care, in the Right Place’ by diverting patients to more appropriate pathways of care and reducing unplanned attendances to A&E departments.

The RUC Programme was introduced during the Covid-19 pandemic (December 2020), impacting on the comparability of statistics. However, in the 12 months to October 2023, A&E attendances where down by more than 11 percentage points compared to 2019 levels. Whilst we do not have comprehensive data available, we understand through discussions with Health Boards that the reduction in attendance is in part due to Flow Navigation Centre’s.

In order to realise the full potential of Flow Navigation Centres, the Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) have established a Flow Navigation Specialty Delivery Group to drive the development and delivery of high quality Flow Navigation services across Scotland. The group brings together key stakeholders to establish the optimal Flow Navigation Model and reduce unwarranted variation. Developing and capturing the relevant data to measure the impact of this work and to understand and evidence outcomes is part of the SDG workplan which is being taken forward over the next year.