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I thank Brian Whittle for his question, and I recognise the picture that he painted at the start of it. When I visited a school in my constituency, I was pretty shocked to see the handful of disposable vapes that a teacher produced. Therefore, I absolutely understand where Mr Whittle is coming from.

I agree that we need to improve enforcement, which is why we, as a Government, have a very good and close working relationship with the local authorities. In answer to Gillian Mackay’s question I indicated that we are investing £3 million directly in local authorities to support enforcement, and we also have an important working relationship with the Society of Chief Officers of Trading Standards in Scotland. Moreover, we already have fixed penalty notices in place. The important message that will be sent with the passing of this bill and the additional UK-wide regulations on displaying vapes will, I hope, help with enforcement, too.

Carol Mochan and I have a lot of conversations about inequalities, and I agree strongly with her that we need to focus on ensuring that inequalities are reduced.

As I highlighted in response to an earlier question, although I do not want to see any gap at all, the inequality gap is the lowest in almost 15 years. In 2010, it was 32.2 per cent—it is now down to 23.5 per cent. Can we go further? Yes, we have to go further, and we are investing in dental health support workers, who go specifically into deprived communities.

I highlighted the dental caravan in NHS Tayside—I had never before met two people who so enjoyed the work that they did, and they recognised the importance of that work. There are various elements of work that are doing well, but I take on the challenge that Carol Mochan has given me, which we discuss regularly. I will bring in Tom Ferris to speak further on that.

Thank you. I recognise what you are talking about in your question. I used to manage a museum that was located in a former church surrounded by gravestones and I remember the distress caused for some people when local authorities went there to ensure that the gravestones and memorials were safe. That absolutely comes under not just the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, but the Occupiers’ Liability (Scotland) Act 1960, which ensure that employees of local authorities are given the correct protections when they are at work.

The guidelines in the regulations tie into the best practice that is already happening. I recognise that some local authorities might have concerns, but additional guidance was brought in in 2019 after the tragic loss of a young boy in Glasgow. Work was done across the board to bring in local authorities and ensure that they recognised the importance of that work. Local authorities should have an established memorial safety inspection programme, and making safe should be part of their regular work anyway.

I believe that what we are asking for is proportionate. I also believe that all the appropriate people and parties have been consulted and informed about the change.

Dentists can deregister patients. I am not quite clear about the timeframe, but Tom Ferris can explain.

That is a key question with regard to what we are doing. It also relates to the number of spaces on university courses. I think that you will remember that, during the pandemic, we lost about 180 people because they did not get their practical experience; we are playing catch-up in that regard. That all falls into health workforce planning. We have conversations about that. It is also recognised that there are a lot of women in dentistry, and they might have different work patterns. We have to pull in all that information.

Generally, staff planning for health does not fall under my remit, but I would be happy to come back with a specific response to your question. We talk about workforce planning regularly to ensure that we have the right profile in dental teams. That ties in closely to Emma Harper’s questions about people working to the top of their qualification and how we can work across the UK to get more people into dentistry and working at the right levels.

That ties in with our work with the other three nations on ensuring that we get that pipeline of dentists. My view is that I cannot imagine a better place to work than Scotland, and I know that certain practices have been very good at attracting dentists. I appreciate what Brian Whittle said about the number of international dentists coming to Scotland and the impact on their home countries, but I should say that I have had the privilege of meeting five dentists from India who chose to work in the Borders. They wanted to come to Scotland, because they saw it as an opportunity.

We have to ensure that we provide the right opportunities, but it is also important that we give dentists who are either coming out of university in Scotland or coming from an international country the right support once they are qualified. That is part of the work that we have been talking about with regard to next year’s budget and ensuring that, as Tom Ferris indicated, we have the right support in place for dentists and dental therapists in these areas so that they are able to enjoy living and working in Scotland, which I am sure they will.

The directors of dentistry are a very important group of individuals who work closely with my officials. As you know, there is one in each health board, which is important, because they have oversight of what is happening in their areas and can feed that directly back to the Scottish Government dental team.

I have engaged directly with them as a group on two occasions, once in a Zoom—or Teams—meeting and once in person at one of their regular get-togethers. I think, Tom, that you meet them—

That does not mean that the rest of us do not have regular meetings with the directors of dentistry in between. Indeed, when I was, as I mentioned earlier, in the Borders, I had two specific meetings with the director of dentistry and discussed how they are looking at this issue not only at high-street level but within the hospital. I have also engaged with Dumfries and Galloway, Highland and others. We have on-going, regular meetings with the directors of dentistry; indeed, I started by saying that they are key in giving us information from a local level.

That is a really important point, and I am happy to take it away and consider it. I agree that we have to work closely with third sector organisations that support health settings. I will take that point away, and we will add it to the work that we need to do on access, specifically for young children.

Yes.