Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that people living with respiratory conditions receive the best possible care and treatment to enable them to live longer, healthier, and more independent lives.

We provide baseline funding to NHS Boards and it is for them to determine how best to meet the needs of their local populations, including people with respiratory conditions.

Since the publication of the Respiratory Care Action Plan, we have formed a number of workstreams dedicated to improving care and treatment of respiratory conditions, including COPD. An example of this is the development of guidance for improving access to Pulmonary Rehab across Scotland.

The Scottish Government has ongoing engagement with the Build to Rent sector including through recent Ministerial meetings and the Housing Investment Taskforce. We also continue to work with stakeholders across landlords, tenants and investors as we develop a rent control system that works for Scotland. To support this, we have also established a Private Rented Sector Stakeholder Group which includes representatives from across landlords, tenants, campaign groups and investors.

Ophthalmology is a post-graduate specialism in medicine which does not involve universities, and as such no data exists with respect to university training places for this specialism. The Scottish Funding Council holds data regarding university training places for optometry.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that people living with respiratory conditions receive the best possible care and treatment. We expect clinicians and NHS Boards to follow all relevant national clinical guidelines to support those living with COPD.

This data is not currently held centrally. However, we recognise the importance of having access to meaningful data and have recently commissioned Public Health Scotland (PHS) to begin development of a national respiratory audit programme. This will allow us to ensure people are receiving the best possible care, treatment, and support for their condition and also support respiratory services to better understand the needs of their patients.

The 2024-25 public sector pay will be determined in due course by the Scottish Government. It is anticipated that this process will also include consideration of the fee position for General Ophthalmic Services.

The information requested is not held centrally.

We recognise the importance of having access to appropriate diagnostic tests and continue to work with all key stakeholders to determine best ways to improve this in respiratory care.

Scotland will co-host EURO 2028 as part of a joint UK and Ireland Championship. The event is expected to take place in Summer 2028 and last around four weeks.

We are working closely with a range of partners, including the UK Government, Welsh Government, Northern Ireland Executive and Irish Government, to deliver EURO 2028.

Some mega sporting events require specific legal protections. For EURO 2028, UEFA has requirements to protect its own and event sponsors’ and licensees’ commercial rights during the event. It also usually requires restrictions on ticket touting. The Scottish Government has today launched a survey at http://www.gov.scot/ISBN/9781836012108 seeking views from anyone with an interest in EURO 2028 commercial rights protection.

UEFA’s requirements for EURO 2028 are not yet confirmed. The proposals set out in the consultation are based on government guarantees made to UEFA when bidding for EURO 2028, and experience from EURO 2020 when Scotland was one of eleven host nations. That event was postponed to 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

For EURO 2028, it is likely UEFA will require protections, including relevant criminal offences and enforcement powers, around:

• Unauthorised street trading
• Unauthorised advertising
• Unauthorised resale of tickets

The survey seeks views on:

• What the impacts were of the measures put in place for UEFA EURO 2020, which took place in 2021;
• How business could be impacted by the measures that are likely required by UEFA for EURO 2028; and
• What kinds of measures and exemptions would be most appropriate to meet likely UEFA requirements.

The survey will be open for 12 weeks, from 2 May 2024 to 26 July 2024.

During the initial passage of the UEFA European Championship (Scotland) Act 2020 (the EURO 2020 Act), the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee’s report included a recommendation, which the Scottish Government accepted, that a formal evaluation of the operation of the legislation’s provision in practice should be undertaken.

Any scope to report on, and evaluate, the EURO 2020 Act was severely limited due to the Coronavirus pandemic’s impact. The rescheduled event took place in 2021 with a limited number of spectators present. Public health considerations were of paramount importance and a number of mitigations were put in place for the event in order to reduce the risk of transmission. Glasgow City Council oversaw compliance with these measures.

The Scottish Government was unsuccessful in procuring an independent evaluation of the operation of the measures provided for by the EURO 2020 Act and associated regulations. However, feedback on operation of the legislation was gathered from event partners, including Glasgow City Council and UEFA.

A summary of feedback received from partners was as follows:

• Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) have not received any reports under the EURO 2020 Act. As far as COPFS officials are able to identify, COPFS did not receive any reports in relation to ticket touting, illegal street trading or illegal advertising with offence dates between 11 June and 12 July 2021.
• Glasgow City Council noted that the legislation was essential in ensuring restrictions could be put in place. However, it would have been useful for event partners to have agreed upon the requirement to implement legislation sooner, particularly had the original 2020 dates taken place. This would have allowed for a fuller public consultation and more notice to traders of the restrictions being implemented;
• The Scottish Football Association echoed the point around the need for identifying a legislative solution sooner, in the context of the originally scheduled EURO 2020. However, the Scottish Football Association recognised that the Scottish Government successfully managed to expedite a process, timetable and resource base that provided considerable comfort and confidence to key project stakeholders – UEFA, the Scottish Football Association, and Glasgow City Council; and
• UEFA noted that, despite the strong and clear wording of the legislation, implementation of the legislation was challenging. Whilst UEFA considers that Glasgow City Council Trading Standards’ level of resource and patrolling was sufficient, it has also observed that Glasgow City Council Trading Standards did not feel comfortable going above and beyond what they would do in normal circumstances against infringing activities.

The summary feedback set out above – along with the more detailed findings collated by officials as part of this exercise – will be used to inform the public consultation of EURO 2028: commercial rights protection which was launched on 2 May 2024.

The Scottish Government, at this time, does not have plans to introduce legislation similar to the UK Animals (Low-Welfare Activities Abroad) Act 2023.

The Scottish Government remains committed to improving animal welfare and will carefully consider DEFRA’s proposals for restricting advertising of animal activities abroad, once known.

Sadly the opportunity to jointly introduce this legislation was lost due to the last minute handling by the UK Government that saw Scottish Ministers given insufficient time to consider the proposals and their implications. The Scottish Government would have liked to have given their full support to these measures

Scottish Ministers will continue to engage with the UK Government and other devolved administrations where it is practical and feasible to do so.

Since August 2021, we have implemented the funded early learning and childcare (ELC) offer which provides up to 1140 hours per year (equivalent to 30 hours/week term time or approx. 22 hours/week year-round) for all three- and four-year-olds and eligible 2-year-olds. This is fully funded by the Scottish Government and delivered through local councils. More information on eligibility can be found online: Funded early learning and childcare - mygov.scot .

A two year old as part of a multiple birth is not automatically eligible for access to funded ELC due to being a multiple, although local councils have a discretionary power to provide access to funded ELC to any child residing in their area, as they see fit. We are aware that some councils use this discretion to offer places to a wider range of children, either: according to local priorities, or; according to the needs of the individual child. We provide statutory guidance to local authorities on their duties and powers in relation to funded ELC here: Introduction - Early learning and childcare: statutory guidance - July 2021 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .