Chamber and committees

Soil that is classified as hazardous is always chargeable at the standard rate of Scottish Landfill Tax. Therefore no hazardous soils should have been subject to the lower rate of Scottish Landfill Tax.

Statistics published by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) show that the volume of hazardous soil landfilled in Scotland has declined significantly since 2015, reducing from 27,209 tonnes to 3,921 tonnes in 2020.

The Tobacco and Primary Medical Services (Scotland) Act 2010 prohibits the display of tobacco related products inside retailer premises. No advertising of branded tobacco products is permitted either inside or outside a premise but stores are allowed to have generic, unbranded signs stating they sell tobacco on in-store gantries, and outside of buildings, however the latter is actively discouraged.

Any concerns around the compliance of a particular premises with Scottish law should be directed to the local authority. The Scottish Government provide funding of £1.34 million annually to councils for the enforcement of the legislation around the sale and purchase of tobacco and NVP’s. Local authority trading standards services treat the enforcement of legislation as a high priority issue.

In developing proposals for the regulation of short-term lets, the Scottish Government has conducted three public consultations. Our most recent consultation closed on 13 August 2021, and we received 1,026 responses.

We carefully considered suggestions for changes to the legislation from working group members, and stakeholders responding to our third consultation, including the Association of Scotland’s Self-Caterers. The changes set out in the consultation report align with the policy objectives of ensuring all short-term lets comply with basic safety requirements, without undermining protections for guests, neighbours and local communities. These include significant and pragmatic changes in response to concerns from the tourism sector, such as the removal of overprovision and stronger guidance on fees.

The Scottish Government is committed to providing clear information and support for people with long COVID. To help raise awareness of symptoms and signpost people to appropriate support, a marketing campaign ran in October and November 2021. The campaign budget was invested in: print and production of campaign posters for display in community pharmacies and GP surgeries across Scotland, language translations, social media posts and a campaign toolkit sent to 250 direct partner contacts with additional distribution of approximately 3,000 contacts.

The campaign directed people to the long COVID microsite hosted by NHS Inform, accessible at www.nhsinform.scot/long-covid . The microsite had nearly 86,000 users during the campaign period.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-04082 on 9 November 2021. 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.

Following the publication of the Framework for supporting people through Recovery and Rehabilitation during and after the COVID-19 , the rehabilitation programme has undertaken a significant scoping exercise through a self-assessment tool to understand the current status of rehabilitation services in Scotland, from the perspective of the staff working in them.

The report on the findings ( Rehabilitation Framework Self-Assessment Tool: Analysis of Survey Responses ) was published on 9th December 2021.

The findings from the self-assessment tool, along with demand and capacity data and guidance from the National Advisory Board on Rehabilitation, will inform the development of a national programme of improvement work to deliver a ‘Once for Scotland’ rehabilitation pathway that will ensure everyone who requires rehabilitation will be able to access it.

We will continue to work with NHS Boards, Health and Social Care Partnerships and the third sector to deliver this.

We have set out our ambitious plan to remove NHS dental charges in this Parliament. As a first step to delivering this Manifesto Commitment, we introduced on 24 August 2021 changes to abolish dental charges for all young people between 18 and 25 years of age.

There are a present set of arrangements in place to ensure that vulnerable groups in the community are protected. For example, pensioners in receipt of pension credit guarantee credit are automatically entitled to free NHS dental treatment. Others on low incomes may be entitled to full or partial help with health costs under the NHS Low Income Scheme (LIS).

Scotland is the only part of the UK where free examinations are available to NHS patients.

NHS registered patients are entitled to a full range of NHS care and treatment. While dentists are able to offer private care and treatment they must also advise NHS patients of the treatment available to them under NHS arrangements.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-04072 on 22 November 2021. 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 .

Details (including individual project funding allocations) of the 9 research projects funded through the Chief Scientist Office (CSO) long-term effects of COVID-19 infection call are available from the CSO website Long Covid Call – Chief Scientist Office (scot.nhs.uk) .

Asylum is reserved to the UK Parliament and handled by the Home Office. Provision of Wi-Fi is not included as a requirement in the Home Office asylum accommodation contract with Mears Group. Scottish Ministers have repeatedly pressed the Home Office to include consideration of digital access as part of asylum support provision.

As part of efforts to ensure everyone living in our communities could access the support they need, the Scottish Government provided over £550,000 to third sector organisations for projects supporting people subject to No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) including people seeking asylum during the pandemic. The projects supported through Immediate Priority funding focused on basic needs, including digital access.

As advised in the answer to question S6W-02445 on 13 September 2021, the Scottish Government has committed to extend the Connecting Scotland programme over the course of this Parliament to reach a total of 300,000 people. Work is underway to scope the future service, including how best to reach priority groups who we know are most likely to be digitally excluded, including refugees and asylum seekers.

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 .