Chamber and committees

That information is not held centrally.

There is no statutory requirement for local authorities to separately collect garden waste and charging for its collection is not a new option available to councils. Garden waste is included in Schedule 2 of the Controlled Waste Regulations 1992 which contains the types of waste for which a charge for collection may be made. It is up to individual councils whether to charge or not.

As set out in our update to the Climate Change Plan, we will consult on requirements to separately collect garden waste by 2023, to further promote recycling.

At the time of response, there are 11 entries on the contributors list.

The list of contributors is a published list available on the gov.scot website and will be updated upon further contributors joining the scheme.

Scotland’s Redress Scheme: contributor list - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The Scottish Government welcomes the survey undertaken by Cerebral Palsy Scotland in November 2021 and notes the findings.

Scottish Government officials recently met with Cerebral Palsy Scotland to further discuss the care and support available to people with this condition. We will continue to work with NHS, third sector partners and people with Cerebral Palsy to drive up standards of care and service development.

In December 2019, we published a Neurological Care and Support – National Framework for Action . We are investing £4.5 million of funding over five years to implement the Framework’s 17 commitments.

The aims include improving the provision of co-ordinated health and social care and support, developing sustainable workforce models and ensuring high standards of person-centred care for people with neurological conditions, such as Cerebral Palsy.

Meeting greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets and securing positive effects for biodiversity are two of six high level outcomes for the National Planning Framework set out in The Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997.

The draft National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) currently subject to Scottish Parliament scrutiny, alongside public consultation, is clear that we must rebalance our planning system so that climate change and nature recovery are the primary guiding principles for all our plans and decisions. Its four overarching themes work together towards net-zero, adaptable places and addressing the nature crisis.

Our radically improved and new policies contained in draft NPF4 include new universal policies addressing the climate emergency and nature crisis, to be applied to all planning decisions. These policies create a requirement to give significant weight to the global climate emergency in plans and decisions. They also aim to deliver positive outcomes for biodiversity from development without the need for overly complex metrics.

Our draft NPF4 gives spatial expression to a wide range of Scottish Government plans, programmes and strategies. It sets out a vision for how our places will change in the future and reflects priorities across Scottish Government portfolios, including how our approach to planning and development will achieve a net zero, sustainable Scotland by 2045.

Draft NPF4 includes green energy policies which support renewable energy development other than in National Parks and National Scenic Areas, subject to an assessment of their impacts on a case by case basis. Through the draft NPF4, we are also proposing to designate a national development which would establish the need for a large increase in renewable energy generation and substantial reinforcement and expansion of grid infrastructure throughout Scotland.

We laid the draft NPF4 in the Scottish Parliament on 10 November 2021. Alongside Parliamentary scrutiny of the draft, we are running a public consultation, supported by an extensive engagement programme, and comments are invited by 31 March 2022. Following this period, we will consider the responses received and any appropriate amendments to the draft NPF4 before presenting a final draft to the Scottish Parliament for its approval, in advance of adoption by the Scottish Ministers.

The Minister for Public Finance, Planning and Community Wealth met with representatives from Scottish Renewables on 21 July 2021 to discuss the renewable energy industry’s vision for NPF4.

We have reviewed the border health measures closely over the last 28 days and have assessed that there continues to be a requirement for the regulations to remain in place to reduce the risk of imported transmission and safeguard public health in Scotland. The regulations continue to be an important and proportionate part of the Scottish Government response to managing the pandemic. As we have done throughout the pandemic, we will continue discussions with UK Government and the other devolved administrations and continue to seek to take a four-nations approach to future changes to regulations and the travel regime where possible.

Scotland already has “Beyond the Glen – a strategy for the Scottish Venison Sector to 2030”. This industry-led strategy commits to a range of actions including development of the supply chain and marketing.

Scottish Government provides support to the sector in various ways including funding of £50,000 in March 2021 towards a venison promotional campaign.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Scottish Government Chief Scientist Office (CSO) launched a call for Rapid Research in COVID-19 on 25 March 2020 and a second call specifically addressing longer-term effects of COVID-19 infection on 5 October 2020. Following independent expert review, 65 projects were funded in total, 56 through the Rapid Research programme and 9 through the long COVID call.

None of the projects specifically address microemboli and long COVID. Many of the projects are still active and include research on vascular aspects of COVID-19.

The full list of funded projects is available from the CSO website

https://www.cso.scot.nhs.uk/covid-19-research/

The CSO's Translational Clinical Studies Committee and the Health Improvement, Protection and Services Research Committees each meet twice per year to consider funding applications. Details of the application process are published on the CSO website.

Grant Funding – Chief Scientist Office (scot.nhs.uk)

Applications looking at links between microemboli and long COVID may be submitted to the CSO funding committees. In common with all other applications, these would go through the CSO's standard independent peer review process.

Modelling undertaken using the National Household Model (NHM), and by applying a minimum cost approach to achieving EPC C, indicates that it could cost up to £1.7bn to retrofit the private rented sector housing (PRS) stock to an EPC C, or as near to this standard as is technically feasible. The modelling methodology is available here .

It should be noted that the Scottish Government is proposing that private-rented and owner-occupied homes will be required to reach a minimum energy standard equivalent to EPC C. Accurate estimated costs to the PRS sector will therefore depend on our final approach to regulation – including any cost-effectiveness and technical-feasibility, or exemptions that may apply. We will undertake a full range of impact assessments ahead of introducing any legislation.

We have committed to supporting property owners to improve the energy efficiency of their homes and are encouraging property owners to contact Home Energy Scotland who offer free impartial energy efficiency advice, and may be able to offer tailored advice for stone built properties. They are also the route to Scottish Government funded loans, in Private Rented Sector Landlord Loan: overview - Home Energy Scotland . Home Energy Scotland can be contacted on Freephone 0808 808 2282 or through their website https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/scotland/home-energy-Scotland