Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government remains committed to being a responsible global citizen. As announced by the First Minister at COP28, the Scottish Government and Kids Operating Room have partnered to establish a reliable, safe and clean power supply to paediatric operating rooms in our partner countries of Malawi, Rwanda, and Zambia. This £324,900 investment will fund solar energy systems for 15 operating rooms across 13 hospitals, helping an estimated 27,000 children receive urgent surgery over the next three years.

Across their work, Kids Operating Room are working to strengthen sustainable surgical capacity and build stronger healthcare systems. To do this in a truly sustainable way the organisation seeks to work closely with partners, putting in place locally driven maintenance programmes. This works to ensure hospitals not only have the tools but also the right skills and knowledge to provide safe and quality care for children.

Each KidsOR Operating Room is equipped with over 3,300 pieces of specialist equipment. Much of this equipment is more complex than those typically found in low-resource settings. When this equipment is installed onsite KidsOR biomedical engineers train the surgical and hospital biomedical teams on how to use specific items of equipment. This user training is vitally important to providing safe, timely surgery.

Kids Operating Room also provide funding to the East and West African College of Surgeon's e-learning hub and provide sponsorship for individual scholarships - all with the aim of enhancing the skills of the workforce.

In parallel to this wider package of support, as part of the specific investment you reference, KidsOR biomedical engineers will visit each partner hospital and provide staff training on how to best utilise these new solar energy systems.

Scottish Ministers are accountable to the Scottish Parliament for the activities of the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) and its use of resources at a strategic level. The Scottish Government is responsible for developing the policy and regulatory framework for the protection and improvement of Scotland's water environment which SEPA have a duty to regulate and enforce.

The Scottish Government hold regular liaison meetings with SEPA to provide policy support and facilitate effective strategic engagement. These are supplemented by other regular dialogue and communications in relation to SEPA’s duties, responsibilities and performance. SEPA determine the amount of resources allocated to meeting their statutory obligations through their Annual Operating Plan in each year in agreement with the Scottish Government.

Both the Scottish Government and SEPA take all necessary steps to ensure that their relationship is developed and supported in line with the jointly agreed principles set out in the statement on ‘Strategic Engagement between the Scottish Government and Scotland’s NDPBs’ and in accordance with the ‘Scottish regulators’ strategic code of practice’.

Fair work means secure employment with fair pay and conditions, where workers are heard and represented, treated with respect and have opportunities to progress.

Our vision, shared with the Fair Work Convention, is for Scotland to be a leading Fair Work Nation by 2025, where fair work drives success, wellbeing and prosperity for individuals, businesses, organisations and society. We deeply value the ongoing collaboration with USDAW and their stakeholders, and we view our continued engagement through the Retail Industrial Leadership Group and Fair Work Working Group as essential in ensuring we reach our ambition for fair work.

While employment law remains reserved to the UK Government, we will use our Fair Work policy to promote fairer work practices across the labour market in Scotland.

South Lanarkshire Council was last directly contacted on 25 October, in regards to their road assessment for 20 mph speed limits. In addition a representative from South Lanarkshire Council was present at the 20 mph task group meeting, held on 2 November. They were updated by email on 11 December on the most effective route to implement national 20 mph speed limits by 2025.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all children across Scotland can access high quality play opportunities in a range of settings to support their growth, development and wellbeing.

We will build on Scotland’s world-leading 2013 Play Strategy, and the 2019 Play Scotland progress report, to develop a vision statement and action plan for play in 2024. We will do this by listening to the views of children and young people and working in collaboration with our stakeholders.

Scottish Government provided £8m in 2021-22 and £12m in 2022-23 and 2023-24 to local authorities in order to support the policy to remove all charges for instrumental music tuition in schools.

As confirmed in the budget published in December 2023, the Scottish Government and COSLA have agreed funding of £12 million for instrumental music tuition in 2024-25, continuing to remove barriers to participation.

Scotland is committed to a just transition to net-zero and decarbonisation of industry is ‘mission critical’. Scottish Government is continuing to deliver the Scottish Industrial Energy Transformation Fund, which leverages private sector investment from energy intensive industries to deliver energy efficiency improvements to decarbonise industrial processes.

Scottish Government is also strengthening engagement with research networks and energy intensive industries to build evidence-based policy to support industrial decarbonisation. Scottish Government continues to liaise with UK Government on the many reserved policy, fiscal or regulatory levers that influence current incentives for industry to invest in decarbonisation.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-23760 on 9 January 2024. 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 .

As I set out in Parliament on 18 December during the statement on implementing the medication assisted treatment we are preparing for changes to the drug supply with synthetic opioids becoming more prevalent. At the National Mission Oversight Group meeting on 14 November 2023 Dr Sharon Stancliff, Associate Medical Director of Harm Reduction in Healthcare New York State, and Professor Thomas Kerr, Director of Research with the British Columba Centre on Substance Use, gave presentations on their experiences of fentanyl and the impact this has had since becoming prevalent in the drug supply in New York State and British Columba respectively. An overview of fentanyl was given, the differences between opiates and synthetics and the differences in overdose presentations were covered. The use of naloxone and fentanyl testing strips, along with the need for buprenorphine and harm reduction practices generally, were discussed. The presentations also covered use of safer drug consumption facilities, drug checking and the decriminalisation pilot which took place in British Columbia. They shared their views on what is needed here in Scotland, based on their respective experiences with fentanyl epidemics in their countries, to help address the risks that synthetics pose.

Officials recently met with stakeholders who are involved in the delivery of drug and housing services to discuss the roundtable event taking place this year on synthetic opioids and those areas they would want to cover. Planning is continuing for this to take place at the start of 2024, the event will cover all synthetic opioids including nitazenes.

The Scottish Drugs Forum have launched resources on synthetic opioids and nitazenes to get information out to people that they are in the illegal drug supply Resources — Stop The Deaths . Public Health Scotland have also recently issued an update to their alert via RADAR to healthcare staff and the public to highlight the increased dangers associated with the drugs ( RADAR Nitazenes alert 2023 ).

Scottish Government officials from the Gaelic and Scots team met with senior education officers of North Lanarkshire Council on 6 December to discuss matters relating to the recent consultation involving both Condorrat and Baird Memorial primary schools. Along with the meeting, the Scottish Government has also received correspondence from parents on this matter and officials have been following the consultation closely. There was an agreement to meet again in the new year.