Chamber and committees

First-time buyers can access a variety of support to become a home owner, including the Help to Buy Smaller Developers Scheme and the Low Cost Initiative for First-Time Buyers (LIFT). In addition, the first-time buyer relief for Land and Building Transaction Tax means that an estimated 8 out of 10 first-time buyers pay no tax at all.

Despite being closed to new applications, the main Help to Buy scheme and First Home Fund continue to benefit first-time buyers across Scotland with settlements occurring throughout this financial year.

Ferrymuir Gait is a ‘private’ road, as defined by the Roads (Scotland ) Act 1984 and serves land owned by Scottish Ministers and infrastructure required for the safe operation and maintenance of the Forth Bridges. Ferrymuir Gait housing development shall not be accessed from this road and shall instead takes access from the local road network, which is the responsibility of the City of Edinburgh Council.

Consequently, and as this is a planning issue, it would be for the City of Edinburgh Council as local Planning authority to consider the access arrangements to the Ferrymuir Gait housing development and resultant impact of road traffic on the environment and the health / quality of life of residents.

Four nations discussions on policy for fully vaccinated travellers has benefited from analysis and research from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, the Joint Biosecurity Centre and other sources.

The success of the vaccination programme means we have now started to change restrictions that apply to fully vaccinated travellers from Amber list countries. Initially this applied to UK residents who have been vaccinated by the NHS.

From 2 August, fully-vaccinated passengers arriving from amber list countries in EU member states*, the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries, microstates of Andorra, Monaco, San Marino and Vatican City, and the USA do not have to quarantine or take a day 8 test upon arrival in Scotland.

They have to carry with them a form of certification to provide details of their vaccine status. For US arrivals, this proof is a CDC card showing you are fully vaccinated, along with proof of residence in the US. All arrivals from Europe must show a record of vaccination through the European Digital COVID Certificate.

Amber arrivals who have been fully vaccinated must take a pre-departure test before arrival into Scotland, alongside a PCR test on or before day 2 after arrival.

The Scottish Government has been reviewing the restrictions and guidance in place regularly.

Following the most recent review, the First Minister announced on 13 July that all remaining parts of Scotland would move to protection level 0 of the updated Strategic Framework with effect from 19 July.

This decision means that under our published guidance up to 200 people can now attend a marriage ceremony or wedding reception subject to the capacity of the couple’s chosen venue with the appropriate physical distancing in place.

In addition, we have amended the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Local Levels) (Restrictions and Requirements) Regulations 2020 to reduce the required physical distance between households indoors to 1 metre in all public venues.

The First Minister’s statement summarises the evidence and data supporting these decisions. Information about strategy and evidence is published at Coronavirus in Scotland (see Scottish Government strategy and evidence). We have also published a report on the outcomes of the recent physical distancing review and information about the current state of the epidemic .

The Scottish Government is committed to improving and embedding inclusive communication within Government and across public bodies, this is a focus of one of our Equality Outcomes for the 2021-25 reporting period, as well as being a 2020 PfG commitment. The Scottish Government intends all local services to be accessible to all citizens in Scotland, regardless of circumstances of an individual service user.

We believe that as professionals, Social Workers are best placed to make a professional judgment based on their assessment of need exactly what, if any additional support is required. This assessment will include consideration of need for Spoken Language Interpreters, British Sign Language and any form of verbal/non-verbal communication requirements.

The Scottish Government is committed to improving and embedding inclusive communication within Government and across public bodies, this is a focus of one of our Equality Outcomes for the 2021-25 reporting period, as well as being a 2020 PfG commitment. The Scottish Government intends all local and national services to be accessible to all citizens in Scotland, regardless of circumstances of an individual service user.

We expect local and national bodies to consider on an ongoing basis the needs of people who do not speak or access English as their first language. In the immediate term, we are currently developing a human rights and equalities mainstreaming strategy which will explore key themes such as effective communications and we expect that spoken language interpreting will form a significant part of these considerations.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the Scottish Government has engaged with a range of race equality organisations and specifically convened the Expert Reference Group on Covid-19 and Ethnicity. Issues in relation to spoken language interpreters have not been raised as a significant issue within these discussions. However, it is for individual public bodies to arrange the provision of spoken language interpreters and as such this information is not held centrally.

We welcome this decision by the UK Government as a result of the recent judicial review. We will make similar changes to the eligibility criteria for Best Start Foods as soon as it is practicable to do so.

The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

The data is collected by individual NHS Health Boards and would require permissions from each to be obtained in order to conduct appropriate data linkage analysis by Public Health Scotland.

There are some circumstances where there are legitimate reasons for not prescribing pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy, such as palliative patients or due to patient’s cultural preference. However, we understand more can be done around education and monitoring to ensure our clinicians are aware of the treatment.

As part of The Scottish Governments National Cancer Recovery Plan , published in December 2020, funding has been made available to ensure equitable access to treatments across the whole of Scotland.

This includes our funded work being led by The Scottish HepatoPancreatoBiliary Network which will be directly addressing guidance on the use of pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy.