Chamber and committees

The resourcing and commissioning of local rehabilitation services is the responsibility of individual Health Boards.

The Once for Scotland Rehabilitation Approach which supersedes the Framework for Supporting People through Recovery and Rehabilitation during and after the COVID-19 Pandemic (‘The Framework’) sets out the Six Principles of Good Rehabilitation. The Scottish Government expects that Health Boards have given consideration to these Principles to provide a good standard of rehabilitation services across Scotland.

Mairi Gougeon: The transfer test will provide an opportunity for Scottish Ministers to consider potential transfers of landholdings over 1000 hectares. Potentially, this could lead to some landholdings being lotted into smaller parts, if that may help local communities.

In setting the appropriate thresholds for these proposals, I have considered both the policy aims of the proposals and the risk of disproportionate impacts following from these additional requirements, particularly in relation to smaller businesses.

The size threshold for the transfer test requires to be set at a level at which there could plausibly be concentration of landownership in the relevant area with impacts on land availability and supply. When land is transferred at scale this can restrict who can purchase land due to the size and value. This can contribute to the supply of land being insufficient in particular areas, which can be detrimental to the sustainability of those communities.

The Scottish Land Commission, in its discussion paper on Legislative proposals to address the impact of Scotland’s concentration of land ownership, said that when considering at what scale of landholding for transfer such a test should apply to, suggested that “the aim should be to establish a threshold that would ensure that family farms and small businesses would not fall in scope, but that modest estates that could pose risks would. It may be reasonable to expect that, for example, holdings over 10,000ha would always be in scope, while those under 1,000ha would always be exempt.”

This advice has been taken into account, alongside other Scottish Land Commission research, data on land transactions and land ownership in Scotland, the consultation on the Bill and stakeholder engagement, in determining the 1000-hectare size threshold for this proposal.

We are currently prioritising work across the Scottish Government in light of increased budget pressures.

We estimate that establishing a register of child welfare reporters under the Children (Scotland) Act 2020 may cost around £5 million a year. This is based on calculations in the Financial Memorandum Children (Scotland) Bill (parliament.scot) that accompanied the Children (Scotland) Bill (now the Children (Scotland) Act 2020).

This is a significant financial pressure at the current time, and there is insufficient budget available within our 2024-25 allocation to implement the new register.

However, we plan to establish a short-life working group on child welfare reporters later this year with key stakeholders. This will inform further development of policy around the new register.

Following the statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs on 16 May 2024, the Director of Justice in the Scottish Government wrote to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Area Director for Scotland, to make them aware of the Cabinet Secretary’s statement.

The letter committed to keeping the DWP informed regarding plans for emergency release and other measures as they continue to be developed.

The Scottish Government, with the Scottish Prison Service, has established an Operational Delivery Leads Group, to support planning and delivery in relation to emergency release. Representatives from the DWP have been invited to join the group. The group met for the first time on 30 May 2024.

The proportion of electricity consumed by households that will be generated by nuclear power stations in the rest of the UK is not possible to predict with any level of certainty in 2028. It will depend on a range of market factors.

As outlined in my response to S6W-27647 on 31 May 2024, and in my recent letter to Ms Gosal, I would welcome the opportunity to meet with you to discuss further alongside your policy paper which outlines this particular ask.

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 .

His Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) release accredited official statistics estimating the value of the UK's regional trade in goods, covering both exports and imports. These can be accessed at the following address: uktradeinfo.com/trade-data/regional/ . These statistics include estimates for Scotland and are updated on a quarterly basis.

The Scottish Government provides further analysis of this data which is available on the Scottish Government website: Total trade in goods - Scotland's International Goods Trade: Quarter 3 2023 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The latest report available to date is for quarter three in 2023. This shows that, when looking at the total export value of goods in the year ending quarter three 2023 compared to the year ending quarter three 2019, Scotland's goods exports have increased by 2.1% to £35.1 billion. When looking at Scotland's onshore economy (excluding oil and gas), goods exports have risen by 17.3% over this period, to £23.7 billion.

The Scottish Government also produces estimates of exports which include both goods and services in the accredited official statistics publication Export Statistics Scotland (ESS), Exports statistics Scotland 2021 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . The latest statistics currently available in this release are for calendar year 2021. These statistics show that the value of Scotland's international exports was 11.5% lower in calendar year 2021 compared to calendar year 2019, at £31.3 billion (excluding oil and gas).

Differences between these sources of export estimates are described in the Export Statistics Scotland Methodology, Other sources of trade data - Export Statistics Scotland: methodology - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . It is important to note that none of the data sources mentioned above account for the effect of inflation on estimates of the value of exports.

Over the period referenced, Scotland's export performance has been significantly impacted by the shocks of Covid-19, the detrimental impact of existing the EU and the subsequent trade deals, of which negotiations are not devolved. In fact, our analysis shows that in 2019 Scottish exports were growing consistently in all directions - to the rest of the UK, the EU and the rest of the world, and we have clear evidence that is no longer the case, with Brexit resulting in Scotland’s trade in goods to the EU being 12% lower in 2021, the first year of the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation agreement.

The Scottish Government remains committed to supporting exporters and continues to work with its enterprise agencies to deliver A Trading Nation, our export growth plan. Trade results produced by Scottish Development International, one of our main delivery agencies, showed that the support it provided to companies across Scotland in Financial Year 2022-23 will result in £1.73 billion of planned international sales over the next three years – a 20% increase compared to Financial Year 2021-22. This trade support enabled Scottish firms to enter 301 new markets, with a focus on the United States, Germany, Singapore and the UAE. As part of this, 335 new products and services left Scotland for these markets in that year.

Whilst the main objective of safer drug consumption facilities (SDCF) is to provide medical attention in the case of an overdose there is also a significant body of evidence for the important role SDCFs play in reducing the sharing of injecting equipment. This reduces the risk of HIV and hepatitis C transmission.

The SDCF in Glasgow will provide people who inject drugs, including cocaine, with sterile injection equipment, advice on injecting technique and other vital harm reduction advice. Current approaches to harm reduction with regards to injecting cocaine will be discussed with academics and presenters from the Cocaine & Crack Cocaine Conference on 4 June 2024.

The Latest data from Public Health Scotland indicate that sexual acquisition is the most common exposure category for new HIV diagnoses in Scotland, however people who inject drugs remain at risk of HIV and other blood borne viruses.

There has been a downward trend in diagnoses among people who inject drugs following the peak of the outbreak in NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde in 2015.

The effectiveness of interventions implemented at the height of the outbreak underline the importance of continuing to promote HIV testing, delivery of treatment and care, provision of harm reduction measures and awareness raising initiatives to this particularly vulnerable group.

SDCF provide a further opportunity for delivering these vital interventions and could therefore contribute to ending new transmissions of HIV in Scotland by 2030.

Further to my previous response (S6W-26254) we are continuing detailed analysis of all respondents’ feedback to the public consultation and examining the feasibility of all proposals for legislative change. We will keep parliament informed as the process develops.

The Scottish Government assess the effectiveness of the Caledonian System through accreditation and evaluation.

The Caledonian System is delivered to accredited standards and accreditation gives confidence that a programme is designed based on the best available evidence, monitored to make sure it is delivered as intended and evaluated to show the outcomes.

The Scottish Advisory Panel on Offending Reduction (SAPOR) reaccredited the Caledonian System in December 2022 for a further five years. In re-accrediting SAPOR recognised the limitations in data collection for the purposes of evaluation, as a result of disruption to services due to Covid.

Work is underway to improve data collection across the programme, including in what can be said about reconviction rates. Data on reoffending rates for those going through the programme every year since it was launched are not centrally held.

It should be noted that reconviction rates are not necessarily a reliable indicator of programme efficacy as the women being supported are encouraged to recognise abuse, so increased reporting of incidents by women (considered a positive outcome) could drive increased reoffending or reconviction rates.