Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the price of energy generated by Torness nuclear power station. This information is of a commercial nature and shared only between the contract holders and the customer.

However, what is clear is that existing nuclear is expensive: under the current contract awarded by the UK Government to Hinkley Point C, the electricity that will be generated will be priced at £92.50 per megawatt hour (using 2012 prices). In contrast, wind is one of the cheapest forms of energy. Electricity being generated from offshore wind will be priced at £37.65 per megawatt hour.

In addition to this direct funding, nuclear developers have had the potential to profit from a Contract for Difference for 35 years for Hinkley Point C and will be able to use a Regulated Asset Base funding model that further reduces their financial risk for future projects. In contrast, other technologies with high capital expenditure costs, such as Pumped Hydro Storage, have not been able to utilise these market mechanisms to facilitate deployment. We continue to call on the UK Government to put in place a suitable market mechanism for Pumped Hydro Storage developments.

The number of staff based in Scottish Government International Offices in the past five years is listed in the following table.

Under Health and Safety legislation, which is reserved, it is the responsibility of the employer to satisfy themselves of the competence of first aiders. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) provides relevant guidance on first aid provision and on event safety Events health and safety (hse.gov.uk) . The Events Industry Forum’s ‘ purple guide ’ includes example first-aid and medical assessments for an audience at an event.

As outlined in response to S6W-18910, the R100 commitment comprises of three strands of activity - the R100 contracts, the R100 Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme (R100 SBVS) and continued commercial build.

The R100 Central and South contracts were awarded in December 2020 with the R100 North contract awarded in December 2021. As a result, build did not commence through the R100 contracts until 2021. The table below provides the number of connections built in each year since 2020 through the R100 contracts.

The Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) is a privately-owned telecoms network and the decision to upgrade it has been taken by the telecoms industry, and not the UK Government. PSTN migration from analogue to digital telephony services also does not affect the Universal Service Obligations set out in the Electronic Communications (Universal Service) Order 2003, which require designated providers to offer telephony services throughout the UK, and providers will remain bound by their existing statutory responsibilities.

However, we are working closely with the UK Government, Industry, Ofcom and other Devolved Administrations through the Electronic Communications – Resilience and Response Group (EC-RRG), a UK Government-supported telecoms industry group, whose aim is to develop and maintain cooperation between the communications sector and Government on issues regarding telecoms resilience and emergency planning.

A total of £30m of Scottish Government funding is being made available through the Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Fund to support the aim of doubling the public network to 6,000 charge points by 2026; with the expectation of leveraging an additional £30m from private sources.

Transport Scotland is supporting local authorities to develop public electric vehicle charge point strategies and infrastructure expansion plans, to identify and take forward the opportunities to work with the private sector to grow Scotland’s public charging network. These plans are identifying local and regional charge point needs, the investment requirements, as well as the best approaches to delivering collaborative investments with commercial charge point operators.

The stock assessment mentioned in the response to S6W-18907 is still at a developmental stage. Before it could be used as the basis for advice, it would need to a) be finalised and published, and b) undergo a rigorous benchmark process conducted under the auspices of the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas [ICES]. There are therefore as yet no firm plans for increasing monitoring coverage of commercial fishing vessels in the Firth of Clyde, over and above what is routinely done now. Should the assessment model be accepted for advisory use, then consideration would need to be given to how to ensure adequate data for it.

Data on the number of people accessing alcohol treatment services in Scotland is available from Public Health Scotland’s “National Drug and Alcohol Treatment Waiting Times” series of reports. It includes specific figures on the number of service users who have completed a wait to commence specialist alcohol treatment.

It is published by Public Health Scotland and covers the period from 01 April 2011 onwards as earlier data is not available.

The reports covering the period from April 2011 to September 2019 can be found via the URL link below:

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Drugs-and-Alcohol-Misuse/Publications/ .

The reports covering the period from October 2019 to December 2022 can be found via the URL link below:

https://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Drugs-and-Alcohol-Misuse/Publications/

Although the data is publicly available online, in order to answer the above question, it is necessary to combine extracts from multiple reports. Results have been presented in Table 1. Not all necessary data, however, is available to answer the question fully, which explains blank boxes in the table.

Table 1. Number of service users who have completed a wait to commence specialist alcohol treatment

The following table shows the number of a nimals involved in injury collisions that were hit in the carriageway.

The Scottish Government has established a Strategy Steering Group to oversee the development and delivery of a Palliative and End of Life Care Strategy, and aims to publish a draft strategy for consultation by the end of 2023.