Chamber and committees

he importance of retaining individuals living with HIV in treatment and care is recognised in the UNAIDS/WHO targets and the Scottish HIV Transmission Elimination Proposal as one of the five pillars of interventions (entry into and retention in specialist HIV care). Specialist HIV services and HIV third sector organisations will work together to optimise the updating of information with regards to the movement or transfer of individuals to facilitate engagement with services.

This work will be supported by Public Health Scotland through the provision of NHS board level data on people diagnosed with HIV but not attending specialist treatment and care services for whom, through linkage of data to migration, death, hospitalisation, prescription and vaccination datasets, there is evidence that they remain resident in Scotland.

Following careful consideration by the HIV Transmission Elimination Scoping Group, and the advice of clinical and public health experts, the Scottish Government is not planning to introduce a national HIV testing week at this time. Given Scotland’s relatively low HIV prevalence, the potential benefits of a national testing week would primarily be in addressing stigma and promoting testing rather than finding and supporting individuals with undiagnosed infections. Our HIV Transmission Elimination Delivery Plan sets out our approach to addressing stigma and promoting testing on a consistent, year-round basis.

We will review the potential costs and benefits of a national testing week once priority actions to expand capacity and improve access to testing have been progressed.

As outlined in the Scottish HIV Transmission Elimination Proposal, published on 1 December 2022, our aim is to achieve ‘zero people contracting HIV within Scotland by 2030’. To do so, one of the key interim targets is to achieve 100 or fewer first ever diagnoses per year by the end of 2025.

The most recently published HIV data for Scotland (to 31 December 2022), released by Public Health Scotland on 26 September 2023, indicate that, since 2017, the annual number of first ever diagnoses recorded in Scotland has more than halved, decreasing from 226 in 2017 to 108 in 2022. Of note, 55 of 108 (51%) first ever diagnoses recorded in 2022 were thought likely to have been acquired within Scotland.

In addition, the data indicate a small proportion (11%) of first ever HIV diagnoses were recently acquired (i.e. within the previous three to four months). This is the lowest number and proportion for over five years and is, in part, the result of the Scottish Government’s world-leading approach to making HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis available on the NHS in 2017.

There are no imminent plans to expand emergency department opt-out blood borne virus testing to other areas. It is important that decisions about any further expansion are based on the best available evidence. The Scottish Government will use evaluation data from the current pilot projects, combined with other evidence, to determine whether further roll out would be acceptable, deliverable and cost-effective in Scotland.

Public Health Scotland estimates that approximately 500 individuals, equivalent to 7% of the cohort living with HIV in Scotland, are undiagnosed.

A range of testing initiatives are being implemented to encourage people to access HIV testing. The Scottish Government’s Sexual Health and Blood Borne Virus Action Plan, published in November 2023, has a focus on improving access to sexually transmitted infection and blood borne virus testing across Scotland. To support this, we have funded a range of projects to expand access and promote uptake of testing, including the development of a national online postal self-sampling service, HIV self-testing and community-based services delivered by the Terrence Higgins Trust, and piloting emergency department opt-out testing in NHS Grampian, NHS Lothian and NHS Highland.

Our HIV Transmission Elimination Delivery Plan sets out further actions to encourage people to access testing and to identify optimal approaches to finding people living with undiagnosed HIV.

Local evaluation will be conducted by the team at NHS Grampian and will be followed by an overarching review of the three emergency department opt-out testing projects announced by myself last November.

Hydrogen has been identified by various organisations, including the UK Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI), as a key potential means of powering low/ zero emission flight. Ministers recently provided written support for a flagship liquid hydrogen project, ‘TARGET H2’, funded by the ATI and UK Research and Innovation. The Scottish Government also awarded £150,000 from the Hydrogen Innovation Scheme for a study to test the feasibility of a hydrogen production storage and distribution hub at Glasgow Airport.

Scottish Enterprise has engaged with companies involved in hydrogen-powered aircraft and commissioned a report on Hydrogen demand for Transport, which included liquid hydrogen use in aviation.

The Scottish Government will soon publish its Aviation Statement, which will outline actions on various topics including decarbonisation.

Regulations for hydrogen transport through pipelines and storage are reserved to the UK Government and so Scottish Government officials are in regular and close communication with UK Government counterparts on these matters.

In December 2023, the UK Government published its Hydrogen Transport and Storage Networks Pathway. This set out next steps for the strategic development of hydrogen transport and storage in the UK, and the role of the National Energy System Operator.

The Scottish Government continues to urge the UK Government to consider and cater for geographical variations across the UK, particularly for Scotland, and develop a fit for purpose regulatory regime that will enable us to achieve our shared hydrogen ambitions.

The Scottish Government has not undertaken analysis to ascertain whether there is any presence of natural occurring hydrogen (sometimes called 'gold hydrogen') present in Scotland geology.

On Green Manufacturing , Scottish Government’s Making Scotland’s Future (MSF) programme includes a £75 million investment in the cutting edge facilities of the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS). NMIS’s mission is to make Scotland a global leader in advanced, sustainable manufacturing, working with industry to unlock productivity gains, develop new products and processes, and promote sustainable practices that will offer a competitive edge. SG’s Scottish Manufacturing Advisory Service (SMAS) offers specialised support to businesses in the sector, helping them to increase their productivity through engaging with sustainable change.

In 2023 the Scottish Government commissioned an assessment into the state of electrolyser manufacturing globally, to support an understanding of the supply chain opportunities in Scotland. This work included detailed supply chain component analysis on electrolysers.

Scottish Enterprise’s high value manufacturing (HVM) team are currently leading on the ‘Integrated Supply Chain’ workstream, which includes engaging with businesses to allow the HVM team, along with key specialists and SDI to discuss directly with manufacturers the supply chain opportunities, skills and capabilities that can be applied to energy transition areas including hydrogen, offshore wind and clean heat.

On hydrogen specifically, Scottish Enterprise’s Hydrogen Expert Support programme has run from April 2023 and in that time supported over 30 Scottish supply chain companies, including manufacturers, that are keen to take advantage of the opportunities that the hydrogen economy will provide. Those companies have been provided with tailored reports, at no cost to the company, which have offered advice on next steps they could take based on the existing company capability and ambition.

The enterprise agencies have also over several years hosted in person workshops and webinars aimed at supply chain and manufacturing companies which have highlighted the national hydrogen strategy and ambition and the timeline and scale of the pipeline of projects in planning.

Building on these activities, and in alignment with the Scottish Government’s Hydrogen Action Plan, Scottish Enterprise is also progressing plans to implement a Scottish hydrogen supply chain cluster which will seek to further engage with companies with transferrable skills and capabilities, again including manufacturers, and help them to move into the hydrogen sector.

Scottish Enterprise has also provided grants and investment into several companies with an aim to expand/create manufacturing sites in hydrogen and other areas within the energy transition space.