Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government set an intake target of 4,837 fully funded places on nursing and midwifery programmes for the academic year 2022-23. For academic year 2022-23 4,368 students have enrolled on pre-registration programmes.

We have also increased the intake target for Scotland’s medical school programmes to 1,317 in academic year (AY) 2022-23, an increase of 279 places since AY 2020-21. Management data provided by universities show that 1296 of the 1317 places were filled. The difference between the actual intake and the target intake is a result of minor under recruitment by Universities, however this is within expected tolerances.

The rise in places continues the expansion funded by the Scottish Government that has taken place since 2016. In total, the medical intake has increased from 848 in 2015-16 to 1,296 in 2022-23, representing a 53% increase. A further 100 places will be added in the academic year 2023-24, progressing our Programme for Government (PfG) commitment to increase medical undergraduate places by 500 places,

As students can apply for up to five different programmes through UCAS, data on the number of individual applicants to nursing, midwifery or medical programmes is unavailable.

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.

The current average daily demand for electricity in Scotland (a 12-month rolling average figure, for the 12 months ending November 2022) is 70.4 GWh. This data is from National Grid Electricity System Operator’s data explorer and is published on Scottish Energy Statistics hub here: Scottish Energy Statistics Hub (shinyapps.io) . This is an average figure, within a minimum-maximum range (for the same period) of between 45-100 GWh.

There are no projections available on the daily demand for electricity in 2030.

The Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015 provides a clear and cohesive set of criminal offences which are properly aligned with international standards and definitions of trafficking and exploitation which enables the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) to take prosecutorial decision based on the facts and circumstances of each individual case reported to them. This includes the power to commence confiscation proceedings where convictions are achieved in order that perpetrators face a credible risk of being convicted and sentenced proportionally to the seriousness of their crimes.

Scottish prosecutors work with other countries through Joint Investigative Teams to tackle cross border human trafficking cases and, since 2016, COPFS and the prosecution services in England, Wales and Northern Ireland have signed a set of commitments with the overarching goal that the prosecuting authorities in the United Kingdom will work closely together and with law enforcement partners to disrupt networks, prosecute traffickers and safeguard victims’ rights.

As stated in the previous answer to S6W-13831 on 26 January 2023 this work is in its early stages. Initial meetings were held in December 2022.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

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.

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/ .

GlobalScots by location

The Scottish Government has today launched a survey seeking views from the culture sector on the development of an International Culture Strategy. Scotland’s culture sector has an extensive international presence and a strong reputation. However, this is undoubtedly a challenging time and this strategy must seek to support the resilience and long term development of the sector through enhancing and developing its international links. The survey will be open for
‎ 3 months and in parallel to it we plan to undertake a number of focussed conversations with stakeholders to explore emerging themes in more detail. It will be essential for this work to draw strongly on the knowledge, expertise and lived experience of cultural organisations and practitioners, and I would encourage engagement to the greatest extent possible.