Chamber and committees

The National Advisory Committee for Chronic Pain (NACCP) meets quarterly, with the most recent meeting taking place on the 26 May, and outputs from its discussions are used to update Ministers as required and inform the ongoing development of the new Framework for Chronic Pain Service Delivery which is intended for public consultation later this year.

The Committee provides advice to the Scottish Government to inform national policy. As set out in its Terms of Reference, the NACCP is an advisory group which seeks to achieve consensus based on the shared knowledge and experience of the members on an equal basis. The membership of the Committee comprises representatives from the Scottish Government, NHS services, clinical, third-sector and research sectors, and following a review last year, an increased number of people with lived experience of chronic pain.

In addition to the individual people with lived experience who provide input as members of the NACCP, officials have also consulted the wider Chronic Pain Patient Reference Group which is supported by the Health and Social Care Alliance. In advance of the Framework being finalised officials will work with the Alliance to identify opportunities to consult with people with lived experience of chronic pain.

The numbers of babies reported in the Scottish Birth Record (SBR) as having a diagnosis of ‘foetus and newborn affected by maternal use of drugs of addiction’ or ‘neonatal withdrawal symptoms from maternal use of drug addiction’ in Scotland during the period 2006-07 to 2016-17 are provided in the following table. The figures presented cover three year aggregates to avoid disclosing small numbers in each individual year. Further suppression of small numbers has been applied as per ISD’s Statistical Disclosure Control policy in order to protect patient confidentiality.

Number of babies affected by maternal use of drugs, financial three year aggregates, 2006-07-2008-09 to 2014-15-2016-17 1,2,3

The following table shows the number of properties receiving a non-domestic rates relief or exemption from rates for unoccupied properties since 2011, except for 2014 and 2017 as no data is available for those years. The figures are as at the snapshot date and may therefore underestimate final numbers of recipients in a given year, and include entire local authority areas as data by parliamentary region is not held.

Data for 2021 is expected to become available in late 2021.

The Scottish Government and Health Protection Scotland issued a range of clinical guidance relating to the discharge of older people from hospital into community settings.

This guidance has been continuously updated and a timeline of the clinical guidance issued is available in Annex A of the Public Health Scotland publication Discharges from NHSScotland hospitals to care homes which is available at https://beta.isdscotland.org/find-publications-and-data/population-health/covid-19/discharges-from-nhsscotland-hospitals-to-care-homes/28-october-2020/.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-00728 on 5 July 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

The Scottish Government carries out daily analysis of the occupancy levels in hotels and based on a projected increase in demand from our international students, work is underway to bring on additional capacity to meet this demand.

The Scottish Government has also been exploring with universities how student accommodation could be used in place of hotels for the purpose of managed isolation. In April 2021, Ministers agreed a statement of policy intent to permit student accommodation to be used for managed isolation for international students and students returning to Scotland following an educational exchange from a red-list country if universities can provide the necessary assurances the accommodation meets equivalent public health protection assurances as hotels used for managed isolation.

As a result the Scottish Government began discussions with universities on a proposed ‘pilot’ scheme to assess how the use of student accommodation for managed isolation would work in practice. Two universities have expressed an interest in the taking part in the pilot and guidance is currently being drafted. Officials have been engaging with Trade Unions and the National Union of Students on the proposed pilot.

The historical deaths reported in the Scottish Sun were shocking in their alleged nature. However, enforcement of the Zoo Licencing Act 1981 is a matter for Local Authorities. In addition, I am aware that Blair Drummond Safari and Adventure Park is a member of the British and Irish Association of Zoo's and Aquaria, and that these incidents are currently the subject of an investigation by BIAZA. It would therefore be inappropriate for me to comment further, or indeed launch a further investigation, at this time.

Consumer protection remains reserved to the UK Government but through advice and advocacy, we are doing all we can with them to support consumers.

Consumer Scotland will have a general function of providing consumers advocacy and advice with a view to reduce harm to consumers in Scotland. The board was formally appointed on 1 July 2021.

Any specific complaint should be directed to the consumeradvice.scot consumer helpline funded by the Scottish Government.

No discussions have taken place about having a dedicated vessel to monitor marine plastic pollution as this is already carried out by multi-purpose research vessels.

Marine Scotland has spent £115,176 since 2016 on monitoring and supporting science of seabed marine plastics, floating surface microplastics and also beach litter citizen science data collected by the Marine Conservation Society volunteers. These costs do not include the vessel costs associated with monitoring marine plastics at sea as this monitoring is carried out using existing surveys.

Marine Scotland has also spent £213,437 since 2018 on monitoring and maintenance of the marine litter sink case study area of Arrochar to better understand the problem and inform future policies.

In addition, Marine Scotland also funded the Scrapbook project, a partnership between Moray Firth Partnership, Civil Air Support and the Marine Conservation Society, spending £123,000 in 2018/19. This aerial photography project identified marine litter sink hot spots around our coastline, providing a baseline for future monitoring and enabling effective, focused clean-up operations. Marine Scotland has taken the outputs of this project and added this data to the National Marine Plan Interactive (NMPi), which is free to access.