Chamber and committees

There was minimal impact, and no disruption to any of VisitScotland's services as a result of the Public and Commercial Services Union industrial action, on 1 February 2023. No sites managed by VisitScotland were closed, as such, no costs were incurred as a result of the strikes.

The data received from Police Scotland for producing the National Statistics on Recorded Crime, is a simple count of the number of crimes and offences, for each local authority, which the police have recorded and cleared up. As such we are unable to separately identify any offences that included the seizure of a 3D printer or 3D printed guns. We also produce Official Statistics on crimes and offences involving the use of firearms in Scotland, but this doesn’t include information on seizures of weapons.

Whilst user needs are kept under review, there are no current plans to collect data on this specific type of activity as Police Scotland can be contacted for further information. In terms of the current position, they have confirmed that as of January 2023, there have been no seizures of 3D printed guns or 3D printers being used for illicit purposes.

The SPCB is pleased to be able to confirm that it is a member of Capital Credit Union. SPCB staff and staff employed by MSPs are reminded that they can make regular monthly deposits into their savings account directly through payroll and a link to the Capital Credit Union website is provided to all staff on the SPCB’s payslips platform.

The SPCB is committed to supporting staff with the cost of living and as part of a range of measures to support staff it is actively working with Capital Credit Union and Work and Save Scotland to develop a range of resources designed to promote the benefits of credit union membership.  Further details will be shared with SPCB staff and MSP staff in due course.

The Scottish Government continues to consider the use of Artificial Intelligence in health and social care through Scotland's AI strategy and the forthcoming Data Strategy for Health and Social Care.

The Scottish Government and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency publish detailed data on industrial carbon dioxide emissions. There are three different, but complementary, sources of such data with each defining industries in different terms.

The first source of data relate to a commissioned study in 2020 which defined industries using the Standard Industrial Classification (2007), a classification scheme used in economic data. The ten largest emitting industrial groups in Scotland during the calendar year 2018 are shown in Table 1.

Table 1 - Largest CO2 emitters by industry group, excluding residential emissions, Scotland, 2018.

To support health and care staff, the Scottish Government is working alongside the Digital Health and Care Innovation Centre, NHS Boards and social care organisations to promote use of our national decision support platform, The Right Decision Service .

On the subject of workforce skills, I refer the member to the answer to questions S6W-14125, S6W-14142, S6W-14143, S6W-14150 and S6W-14151 on 2 February 2023.

The descriptor for low alcohol products as set out in current UK Government guidance, which applies in Scotland is:

the drink must be 1.2% ABV or below and an indication of its maximum ABV should be included on the label.

These can be found on the UK Government’s website https://www.gov.uk/ .

We are liaising with UK Government on the status of their plans for a UK-wide consultation on alcohol-free and low alcohol descriptors consultation and are awaiting further updates on their approach.

The descriptor for alcohol-free products as set out in current UK Government guidance, which applies in Scotland is:

this should only be applied to a drink from which the alcohol has been extracted if it contains no more than 0.05% ABV, and the products should also include the ABV (or state that they contain no alcohol) on the label in order to use the descriptor.

These can be found on the UK Government’s website https://www.gov.uk/

We are committed to ensuring that people living with respiratory conditions such as asthma receive the best possible care and treatment. Our Respiratory Care Action Plan sets out our vision for driving improvement in the prevention, diagnosis, care, treatment and support of respiratory conditions, including asthma. The Plan can be found by following the link: Respiratory care - action plan: 2021 to 2026 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

We know that factors such as cold homes, smoking and vaccination are key to managing respiratory conditions and as such, support NHS Boards with preventative strategies. The flu and COVID-19 vaccination programme was extended to offer free vaccines to over 3 million people in Scotland this year, including those with asthma.

We are also ensuring that the issue of warm homes is being tackled. We have pledged almost £3 billion in this financial year alone to support families and households facing the increased cost of living. We have doubled the Fuel Insecurity Fund to £20 million to ensure support continues to be available to people affected by the rising costs of energy.