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I wrote to the Economy and Fair Work Committee on 25 June 2024 to confirm that a market testing exercise for Glasgow Prestwick Airport was underway. Scottish Ministers’ longstanding position is that the airport should be returned to the private sector at the appropriate time and opportunity. This must be to an organisation with the commitment and capability to operate businesses directly relevant to GPA.

Any decision to sell GPA must represent value for money for taxpayers and be informed by what is right for the long-term success of the business and its contribution to the local and Scottish economy.

The process is ongoing and I will update Parliament when a significant development has been made.

The Scottish Government works closely with categorised responders, who are responsible under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 for assessing the risk of an emergency occurring, maintaining plans to ensure they can continue to perform their functions in case of an emergency, and considering whether an assessment makes it necessary or expedient to add or modify plans. Scottish Government are not however responsible for, or the owners of, any of these plans.

To support categorised responders with their duties, the Scottish Government contributes to the UK’s National Security Risk Assessment and produces the Scottish Risk Assessment to supplement this with Scotland specific analysis. These national level risk assessments consider the most serious emergencies that the UK and Scotland may face in the near future, and contain specific risk assessments for both severe storms and wildfires.

I wrote to the Economy and Fair Work Committee on 25 June 2024 to confirm that a market testing exercise for Glasgow Prestwick Airport was underway. Scottish Ministers’ longstanding position is that the airport should be returned to the private sector at the appropriate time and opportunity. This must be to an organisation with the commitment and capability to operate businesses directly relevant to GPA.

Any decision to sell GPA must represent value for money for taxpayers and be informed by what is right for the long-term success of the business and its contribution to the local and Scottish economy.

The First Minister and myself have had – and continue to have – positive discussions with the UK Government on devolved benefits and wider Scottish Government priorities, including where needed the provision of relevant data to support policy development and delivery.

I wrote to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on 16 December to set out specific data sharing requirements in relation to mitigation of the two-child cap. While no formal response has yet been received, Scottish Government and Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) officials are holding ongoing productive discussions.

More widely, we already receive necessary data from the DWP to make payments to eligible people in Scotland for Scottish Child Payment, Best Start Grant and other benefits and to support the ongoing benefit delivery. Other data, including in relation to the number of households in Scotland impacted by reserved benefits and universal credit claimants in Scotland, is publicly available from the DWP.

The Scottish Government does not hold this data.

Over the counter medicines for common illnesses can be provided through the NHS Pharmacy First Scotland service, may be prescribed, or may be purchased from community pharmacies, other retailers and online.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) publishes reports on prescribing and dispensing of NHS prescriptions dispensed in the community. These reports include prescribed items as well as those that have been provided via Pharmacy First. The most recent Pharmacy First publication can be found online at NHS Pharmacy First Scotland 8 October 2024 - NHS Pharmacy First Scotland - Publications - Public Health Scotland.

Additionally, the most recent open data on Prescriptions in the Community contains dispenser level data which can be filtered for the relevant rural/urban locations and medicines if required. It can be found online at Monthly prescribing activity data - Data for October 2024 - Monthly prescribing activity data - Publications - Public Health Scotland Data about medicines that have been purchased by individuals is not collected by the Scottish Government or PHS.

In terms of general availability of medicines, shortages can occur at a local, regional, national, or global level. When supply issues relating to individual medicines or devices arise, that information is shared by NHS Scotland with the relevant networks within the service to help prescribers and dispensers meet patients’ on-going medical needs. The NHS Scotland Prescribing Advisers’ Network provides support to prescribers on the use of alternative products.

The pricing and supply of medicines, including the management of medicine shortages, is a reserved matter for the UK Government, and Scottish Government policy officials continue to engage with them to find lasting solutions to minimise the impact of medicine shortages.

The Scottish Government remains fully committed to tackling food insecurity which can contribute to health inequalities. No one in Scotland should have to compromise on food or other essentials.

Food insecurity is driven by insufficient and insecure household income, which is why we continue to call on the UK Government to deliver an Essentials Guarantee to ensure people have enough money to meet their basic needs, which the Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimate could lift 140,000 people in Scotland out of poverty this year.

Scotland is the first nation in the UK to publish a Cash-First Plan, grounded in human rights, that works towards ending the need for food banks in Scotland. Through “Cash-First: Towards Ending the Need for Food Banks in Scotland”, we are taking forward nine actions over three years, 2023-2026, to improve the response to crisis, using a Cash-First approach so that fewer people need to turn to food parcels. The Trussell Trust and the Independent Food Aid Network agree with our approach.

We recognise the pressure on household budgets which is why the 2025-26 draft budget continues to allocate over £3 billion a year to policies which tackle poverty and the cost of living.

The Scottish Government is acutely aware of the challenges facing the agricultural industry in Scotland and we have been working closely with third sector partners to provide a range of mental health supports for farmers and agriculture workers.

We have provided £615,000 of funding since 2020 for the Royal Scottish Agricultural Benevolent Institution (RSABI) to provide a range of emotional and practical supports specifically focussed on agricultural workers across Scotland. This includes a helpline, online chat service, counselling, mental health first aid training, suicide prevention and financial support.

We have also provided Samaritans Scotland with over £500,000 of funding since 2021 to establish a new service in West Highlands and Skye to reach and support lone and isolated workers, many of whom are in agriculture. In addition, we have supported bereavement service pilots in NHS Ayrshire and Arran and NHS Highland to help anyone affected by suicide death, including agricultural workers.

To inform our wider support in this area, we also fund the National Rural Mental Health Forum, led by Change Mental Health. The Forum brings together over 300 organisations across all sectors to promote mental health and wellbeing and share good practice and innovation in rural and island communities.

The Scottish Government continues to work with NHS Education for Scotland (NES) and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society to develop a joint programme to encourage more people, and not just school leavers, to consider careers in pharmacy. This includes targeting deprived and rural communities.

In our strategy for pharmaceutical care in Scotland ‘Achieving Excellence in Pharmaceutical Care’ (2017) we committed to enhancing access to pharmaceutical care in rural communities. We commissioned NES to work with rural Health Boards to explore mechanisms to attract more pharmacists and pharmacy technicians to work in rural communities; ensuring any associated education and training needs are flexibly met. We also committed to testing a pharmacy longitudinal clerkship.

Following a pilot with Robert Gordon University and NHS Highland, rural longitudinal clerkships were incorporated into experiential learning in 2022-23. The initiative is open to pharmacy students in the final two years of their undergraduate pharmacy course at both Scottish Schools of Pharmacy.

During Foundation Training Year, to attract potential trainee pharmacists some training providers offer multi sector/split programmes within rural locations. These programmes, where trainees spend time in more than one sector of pharmacy, are highly sought after.

In addition, to promote pharmacy technician recruitment in rural areas, a number of senior pharmacy technicians attend school careers fairs and other recruitment initiatives to raise awareness of the role.

The information requested on data held by the Scottish Government on the prevalence of postnatal depression over the past five years is not centrally available.

We are committed to ensuring equitable, coordinated access to mental health provision for women, infants and their families throughout pregnancy and during the postnatal period.

In recognising the distinctive challenges that services in the North of Scotland face in delivering care to the most severely ill women in the perinatal period, we have provided an additional £245,000 funding to develop intensive specialist support for these women, their infants and families.

In addition, we are working with NHS Grampian, Greater Glasgow & Clyde and Lothian to further support regional provision which will enable increased joint working around admissions and support care in remote and rural areas.

Between 2019 and March 2024 the Scottish Government invested £37 million in improvements to mental health services and support for parents, infants and families. As part of the Enhanced Outcomes Mental Health Framework we have allocated £123 million to Health Boards in 2024/25 to improve the quality and delivery of mental health and psychological services for all, including perinatal and infant mental health community services.

The Scottish Government does not centrally collect data on waiting times for accessing end-of-life care services across Scotland. Referral to specialist palliative care services for people living with serious health conditions and/or those who require specialist palliative care when they are dying is based on individualised needs assessments.

As a wide range of specialist and generalist staff in hospitals, care homes, primary care, social care, hospices and the third sector will be involved in providing palliative care to individuals and their families, and could all be considered as delivering palliative care, it would be challenging to gather this data centrally.