The Scottish Government has not carried out any analysis on the number of lung cancer cases that could be diagnosed sooner with a national screening programme, but has kept up to date with emerging evidence that led to the UK National Screening Committee’s recent recommendation to move towards the implementation of targeted screening programme for lung cancer in adults aged 55–74 with a history smoking.

The Scottish Government’s absolute priority is ensuring the wellbeing and safety of displaced people from Ukraine. Our aim is to reduce overall hotel stay lengths and for people to be settled in accommodation in communities as soon as possible and for as long as they wish to stay.

The contract notice with Corporate Travel Management (CTM) (North) Ltd, was published on 09 August 2022. The contract is the primary route used to source and provide travel-related services for displaced people from Ukraine including accommodation in hotels and on the M/S Victoria I and M/S Ambition.

The full contract has a value of up to £100 million with a start date of 8 July 2022 and an end date of 12 December 2024.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-11067 on 3 October 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 commitment to the 2021-22 Programme for Government ambition to double the amount of land used for organic farming by 2026 is still firmly in place, alongside our commitment to establish a new Organic Food and Farming Action Plan by the end of this parliamentary session. We will extend the Agri-Environment Climate Scheme up to the end of the period of stability in 2024, which will continue to underpin the ambition for organic farming.

I refer the member to the answer to S6W-10989 on 3 October 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 is aware that the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) now recommend that the four UK countries should move toward the implementation of a targeted screening programme for lung cancer in adults aged 55-74 with a history of smoking.

The Scottish Government welcomes this recommendation, though notes that the UK NSC also acknowledges the significant complexities that must be worked through ahead of implementation. Scotland will play an active part in that work. The Scottish Government will also follow the advice of the National Screening Oversight (NSO) and Scottish Screening Committee (SSC) who will consider how the recommendation can best be taken forward in Scotland.

In the meantime, we have agreed to fund a one year extension of the University of Edinburgh’s feasibility study, LungScot, into targeted lung health checks for high risk individuals. This will help to inform future approaches.

Adult Disability Payment opened for new applications across Scotland on 29 August 2022, following successful pilots that began in March.

The Scottish Fiscal Commission is responsible for forecasting spending on Adult Disability Payment and publishes estimates on the number of people expected to receive Adult Disability Payment in each financial year. In their May 2022 forecast, the Scottish Fiscal Commission estimated that there would be 34,000 recipients of Adult Disability Payment in 2022-23 in Scotland. This would include successful new claims and cases transferred from Personal Independence Payment and Working Age Disability Living Allowance. They attached a high degree of uncertainty to their estimates and they have indicated they will revise the assumptions as more data becomes available.

The Commission does not forecast the number of new claims per month for Adult Disability Payment. However, internal Scottish Government analysis estimates that approximately 44,000 new claims for Adult Disability Payment will be received by the end of February 2023.

As the tax authority with responsibility for the collection and management of Scotland’s devolved taxes, Revenue Scotland publishes monthly and annual data on its website regarding the number of property conveyances and non-residential leases subject to the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT) Additional Dwelling Supplement (ADS) and the associated tax liabilities. These are available at https://revenue.scot/news-publications/publications/statistics .

Local authority level data is published on an annual basis, as part of Revenue Scotland’s Annual Summary of Trends in the Devolved Taxes. The report for‎ 2020-21, which provides data for the period from 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2021, is available at: Annual Summary of Trends in the Devolved Taxes 2020-2021 | Revenue Scotland . The report for 2021-2022 is due to be published in November or December 2022.

In particular, the ‘Data for Figure 19’ tab in the figures and tables file of this publication includes estimates of gross ADS declared due for qualifying conveyances by local authority and year. This tab also includes information on the proportion of ADS revenue which taxpayers did or did not intend to reclaim in each local authority area.

A new funding round of the Food Processing and Marketing Cooperation Grant Scheme (FPMC) ran in late 2021 to support food processors in developing local supply chains and transitioning to net zero operations. This ultimately saw £7.3m being awarded across 29 projects.

A further funding round, with a budget of £10.2m for new projects, was opened on 9 May 2022, and closed on 19 June 2022, with 65 applications having been received from the food processing industry. The assessment process has now concluded, and businesses will be notified of the outcome of their applications imminently.

This year’s Programme for Government was published in the context of the most severe cost crisis of our lifetimes, and for that reason, the nature and immediate focus of this Programme for Government is different. As well as facing uncertainty created by the inaction of others, we face difficult choices ourselves, both as a nation and as a government and the 22-23 Programme for Government clearly sets out immediate steps this government will take to help families and businesses to get through this crisis. It is also important to note that the Programme for Government does not cover all of the work being taken forward by the Scottish Government, and that we remain committed to supporting businesses to grow and expand, whilst contributing to the development of local supply chains, and supporting the transition to net zero emissions.

The information requested by Mr Kerr, MSP, is publicly available on the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) website. Last month, the SSSC published official statistics in the ‘ Scottish Social Service Sector: Report on 2021 Workforce Data’ report. This Report contains official statistics dating back to 2012. As well as this report, the SSSC will publish more detailed tables in late 2022, providing a breakdown of the number of people working in all sub-sectors in individual local authority areas.