Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is contributing up to £2m to the development of the Advanced Plant Growth Centre (APGC) at the James Hutton Institute through the Tay Cities Region Deal. The APGC will include vertical growth facilities and perform research on controlled environment agriculture amongst other things.

In July 2021 the Scottish Government agreed a grant of £200,000 to fund an educational vertical farming facility on the SRUC Edinburgh campus at Kings Buildings, to be drawn down in the financial year 2021-2022.

Otherwise, since 2018, no funding has been specifically allocated to vertical farming. The Scottish Government’s next steps for supporting the sector will reflect the evidence gathered on vertical farming in the Local Food Strategy consultation, due to close on the 2nd of December.

The Scottish Government's STEM Education and Training Strategy has set out a range of actions designed to support STEM teaching and learning in Scotland’s secondary schools.

Measures include supporting the STEM enhanced professional learning grants programme operated by Education Scotland. Round 3, operating in financial year 2021-22, will provide professional learning to an estimated 13,400 practitioners in 759 establishments, with funding to the secondary sector benefitting 4,280 practitioners in 233 establishments.

Education Scotland issues annual STEM practitioner surveys to gather evidence about practitioner priorities and provision to ensure grant funding, as well as regional and national support, provides high-quality professional learning that meets the needs of practitioners.

Education Scotland’s regional improvement teams work closely at local authority, regional and national levels to support STEM professional learning and teacher networks to help them improve practice. The Improving Gender Balance and Equalities Team also work within the regions to improve STEM teaching approaches to ensure all learners benefit, irrespective of gender or protected characteristic.

Through the pandemic Education Scotland has worked with partners to collate and develop over 9,000 STEM resources to support remote learning. These are now available nationally to teachers, learners and parents through the National e-Learning Offer website.

Scottish Government is supporting an education bursary initiative designed to offer up to 150 STEM bursaries to encourage more people to train as secondary school teachers in STEM subjects. We are also supporting the Scottish Schools Education Research Centre (SSERC) to provide teacher professional learning opportunities for secondary science, technology and digital skills development. Courses are open to student teachers, probationers, classroom teachers as well as school leaders.

We continue to invest in work to develop the capacity of teachers and school leaders to deliver inspiring STEM courses; including a Young STEM Leader awards programme that aims to inspire and reward young people to take up STEM subjects and encourage their peers to do so.

During the period March 2020 to September 2021 there were 99 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in pregnancy that were associated with a critical care admission.

However, Public Health Scotland note that general or critical care admission may be unrelated to COVID-19, for example for delivery of her baby or for an injury. Alternatively, women may be incidentally found to have COVID-19 following routine testing on admission for an unrelated reason.

Information regarding pregnant women currently in intensive care unit as a result of contracting COVID-19 or have been hospitalised and delivered their baby early (S6W-04226 and S6W-04227 on 17 November 2021) is not held centrally by the Scottish Government and not yet publicly available. Public Health Scotland may be contacted and may be able to provide this information.

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

It is the responsibility of Health Boards to ensure they provide patients with a service for the return and disposal of medicines. Patients should return any unused medicines to a community pharmacy or dispensing doctor to ensure they can be safely and appropriately destroyed. This, coupled with only ordering what a patient requires and letting the pharmacist/prescriber know when a patient has chosen to stop taking a medicine, helps to reduce the overall amount that will need disposal.

Information regarding pregnant women currently in intensive care unit as a result of contracting COVID-19 or have been hospitalised and delivered their baby early is not held centrally by the Scottish Government and not yet publicly available. Public Health Scotland may be contacted and may be able to provide this information.

See S6W-04225 on 17 November 2021 for information regarding pregnant women admitted to intensive care during the period March 2020 to September 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 .

In order to understand the role of vertical farming in the context of local food production, the Scottish Government is currently gathering views within our Local Food Strategy consultation. This is due to close on the 2nd of December 2021. Our next steps for supporting the sector will reflect the evidence gathered on vertical farming within the consultation.

We will continue to engage with stakeholders to ensure that we use vertical farming technologies to best effect for the Scottish context.

Information regarding pregnant women who have been hospitalised as a result of having contracted COVID-19 have delivered their baby early is not held centrally by the Scottish Government and not yet publicly available. Public Health Scotland may be contacted and may be able to provide this information.

We continue to provide advice and support to pregnant women regarding the benefits of COVID-19 vaccination to allow them to make an informed choice.

Copies of the Public Health Scotland (PHS) leaflet: PHS COVID-19 Vaccine Important Information about pregnancy and breastfeeding leaflet and the RCOG information leaflet and decision aid have been supplied to all maternity and vaccination clinics across Scotland. The national leaflets, published by Public Health Scotland on behalf of the Scottish Immunisation Programme, are provided to those who are invited for vaccination are part of an established and quality assured process, with strong links and similarities to the programme in the rest of the UK. The PHS leaflet is available in a range of languages and alternative formats , including British Sign Language, Audio, Easy Read, Large Print, etc. People should be given the PHS and RCOG leaflets from maternity services before they attend for vaccination and are encouraged to read both leaflets. The PHS leaflet is updated/reprinted when any new data emerges.

The Scottish Government ensures there is accurate signposting to www.nhsinform.scot/covid19vaccinepregnancy for current guidance, and a range of resources have been distributed including posters and social media assets, alongside training webinars.

Community outreach and external resources like Badgernet (an online platform that allows pregnant woman access to maternity records and information) are regularly updated with relevant material.

Health Boards (HBs) are regularly supplied with relevant information and lines to use regarding receiving the vaccine when pregnant, and the following videos were pushed out to HBs to be shared locally Pregnancy 15 second video Fertility 15 second video

Prof Jason Leitch has touched on the recommendation that pregnant women should be vaccinated in two Podcasts. One with Young Scot and one with Jambo radio. Both podcasts were pushed out by Scottish Government and issued to the boards for them to use locally

Public Health Scotland (PHS) have identified a total of 22,779 COVID-19 vaccinations given to 16,229 pregnant women in Scotland from the start of the COVID-19 vaccination programme on 8 December 2020 to 30 September 2021. Among 3,992 women delivering their baby in Sep 2021, the most recent month for which data is currently available, 1,342 (33.6%) had received any COVID-19 vaccination prior to delivery, and 946 (23.7%) had received two doses of vaccination.

The percentage of pregnant women in Scotland who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 (received their second vaccine dose), alongside other relevant statistics from 8 December 2020 to 30 September 2021 can be found here: COVID-19 Statistical Report (publichealthscotland.scot) .

Please note, only first and second primary doses of vaccination have been included in these figures – not third primary doses or booster doses administered.

We will continue to provide advice and support to pregnant women regarding the benefits of COVID-19 vaccination to allow them to make informed choices.

Multiple resources across platform and in print, like the Public Health Scotland (PHS) leaflet: PHS COVID-19 Vaccine Important Information about pregnancy and breastfeeding leaflet will continue to be updated/reprinted when any new data emerges. The PHS leaflet is supplied to all maternity and vaccination clinics across Scotland.

Community outreach and the use of external platforms (like Badgernet and messaging through resources like podcasts), will continue to be identified and used where appropriate.

NHS resources are frequently updated allowing us to regular signpost pregnant women and their families for current guidance: www.nhsinform.scot/covid19vaccinepregnancy .

Additional resources like posters, social media assets, and training opportunities will continue to be considered regularly going forward, and how best they can be employed for maximum outreach.