Chamber and committees

Spending money on pest control is a necessary part of maintaining any estate, especially one as large as the NHS which is almost the size of the city of Stirling at 1,572 hectares in size.

It would also be useful to note that the figure quoted, £4 million, relates to spend over a six year period.

It is not currently a legal requirement under the Aquatic Animal Health Regulations (Scotland) 2009 as amended for farmed fish transporters to report farmed fish escapes, however we are considering the issue of reporting and transparency further.

Tackling religious or race-based intolerance, including Islamophobia, is a priority for the Scottish Government. The Cross-Party Group’s report, Scotland’s Islamophobia - Update 2023, attributes three recommendations to the Scottish Government:

1. Integrate an understanding of Islamophobia into compulsory components of the Scottish education curricula and all teacher training education.

Curriculum for Excellence purposefully does not mandate curriculum content. However, this recommendation and the wider report will be considered in the context of the Curriculum Improvement Cycle. The Cycle commenced in early 2024 and involves the review and update of each curricular area within Scotland’s curriculum.

In terms of teacher training, teachers in Scotland are required to meet the General Teaching Council for Scotland’s Standard for Full Registration, found at: Document > The Standard for Full Registration- a commitment to the professional values of social justice, trust and respect and integrity is at the heart of this. The Standard recognises that our increasingly interconnected and rapidly changing world faces many social challenges, and an effective, responsive and inclusive education system is vital if we are to address these. The Standard also explicitly states that social justice is the view that everyone deserves equal economic, political and social rights and opportunities now and in the future.

2. The Scottish Government should ensure that the Public Sector Equality Duty is enforced in schools and provide additional training so that this can be better implemented and enforced.

Enforcement of the Public Sector Equality Duty is the responsibility of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), not the Scottish Government. The EHRC rightly operates independently. The Scottish Government does however encourage all organisations to appropriately implement the Public Sector Equality Duty. The guiding principles of our Learning Estate Strategy, which was co-produced with COSLA and other partners, also makes clear that learning environments should support the wellbeing of all learners.

3. The Scottish Government should fund and support organisations and initiatives that support social cohesion and integration, particularly for Muslim women.

The Scottish Government is committed to building resilient communities within which divisive narratives will not resonate. We work cooperatively with a wide range of organisations throughout the country to support social cohesion and integration, tackle hatred and promote inclusion. Turning specifically to Muslim women, the Scottish Government has provided over £150,000 in the current financial year to Amina, The Muslim Women’s Resource Centre to deliver a range of ambitions which address a number of issues including: violence against women and girls; children, young people and families’ intervention; adult learning and empowering communities.

The Scottish Government launched a consultation on 20th December 2024, to seek views on how best to further regulate non-surgical cosmetics procedures.

The consultation has been informed by extensive work with a range of stakeholders, including beauty industry representatives, among others, but it is important we receive further feedback before the Scottish Government commits to any proposals.

In taking forward work on any potential new regulations, we will continue to seek views from, and consider the impact on, existing businesses.

Our proposals aim to be both robust and proportionate, protecting the public and supporting reputable business to operate safely.

This is an operational matter for Police Scotland.

As SEPA are directly responsible for its day-to-day operations, I have asked Nicole Paterson, Chief Executive of SEPA to respond. Her response is as follows:

As part of the early implementation of the enhanced out-of-hours service, SEPA successfully managed 182 calls that were received outside of working hours during the first four weeks of operation. This included 24 emergency service calls and 158 general inquiries, with a total of 21 calls requiring escalation, all of which were resolved promptly.

SEPA will continue to monitor call performance and customer experience through continuous engagement and involvement of the customer hub team and colleagues across the service, and through customer feedback surveys. A customer experience manager with significant experience of managing contact centres has been appointed to ensure the effective planning and performance management of SEPA’s customer service.

The Legal Services (Scotland) Act 2010 gave the Scottish Legal Aid Board the function of monitoring the availability and accessibility of legal services in Scotland, and it has arrangements in place to monitor legal services. However, any assessment of registered solicitor numbers does not offer an accurate measure of the provision or supply of legal aid. This is because there is a large number of registered solicitors who are inactive, so the reduction in the number of registered solicitors, doesn’t necessarily equate to the same size of reduction in active solicitors. Therefore, registered solicitor numbers should not be viewed in the same context as active solicitors. The relevant measure of supply is active solicitors.

However, fluctuations in the numbers of Children’s solicitors occur for various reasons, these are:

Children’s legal assistance volumes are directly related to the numbers of children’s hearings taking place. The volume of hearings is in turn related to the number of Compulsory Supervision Orders (CSOs) being made or reviewed.

There are fewer Compulsory Supervision Orders and therefore less business for solicitors in this field.

At 31 March 2024, 6,490 children were subject to Compulsory Supervision Orders. In 2019-20, the number was 8,875 – a reduction of 27%.

The number of children subject to Compulsory Supervision Orders has decreased for a fourteenth consecutive year.

The Scottish Government recognises that reform is needed to the legal aid system, which is why we are currently developing a legal aid action plan for reform which will be published in early 2025.

As set out in answer S6W-32799 on 14 January 2025 when the Softer Landing, Safer Care programme was introduced health boards agreed with NES to implement the programme for International Medical graduates (IMGs) starting their first hospital placement in NHS Scotland. The programme is part of a coordinated offer that sits alongside the training pathway and is devolved for local implementation and oversight at local board level. IMGs, like other trainees, feedback their experience through established quality assurance processes such as the Scottish Training Survey. As such, the Scottish Government does not oversee the initiative.

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

Scotland’s Fisheries Management Strategy is a ten year strategy and most of the actions relate to the ongoing delivery of our management functions. The progress being made with these will help ensure a stable context for fishing businesses to operate within. We intend to publish an updated Future Fisheries Management Delivery Plan in the coming months, which will provide information on the progress made for each of the 12 actions.

The Scottish Government greatly values Muslim communities in Scotland and is committed to tackling Islamophobia in our society. Since the publication of the Report of the inquiry into Islamophobia in Scotland, the Scottish Government has worked towards adopting many of the relevant recommendations made by the Cross-Party Group (CPG), and progress continues to be made in their delivery. We work cooperatively with a wide range of organisations throughout the country to tackle all forms of hatred, including Islamophobia, and promote inclusion. This work is grounded in prevention, early intervention, evidence-based approaches and meaningful interaction with people who have lived experience of exclusion and hate.