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As we further develop options for the design of rent controls, including through a full public consultation, we will carefully consider the potential impact on the quality and quantity of private rented housing. This will include gathering evidence and engaging with stakeholders in the private rented sector to develop a range of Impact Assessments, including a Business Regulatory Impact Assessment.

In January 2021 I announced that £50 million would be allocated to support the justice system “Recover, Renew and Transform Programme”, which includes addressing the national requirement for a higher number of both sheriff and summary sheriff roles to manage the backlog in the sheriff courts that occurred due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

To support this programme of work, the Lord President made a formal request to Scottish Ministers for 15 fee paid sheriffs and 15 fee paid summary sheriffs to be appointed by the end of 2021. In April 2021, Scottish Ministers formally requested the Judicial Appointments Board for Scotland (JABS) begin the recommendation for appointment process to fill these roles. Subsequently recommendations for appointment are expected to be received from JABS in November 2021.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Interim Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

The following table provides the total number of drug tests conducted in each financial year, along with the results.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Interim Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

The SPS do not conduct routine drug testing upon release from prison at the end of an individual’s sentence.

Scottish Government is a key partner in Save a Life for Scotland (SALFS). The partnership published an updated Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest (OHCA) strategy in March 2021, which seeks to increase the percentage of OHCAs which have a defibrillator applied before the arrival of ambulance service from 8% to 20%.

Achieving this is not only about increasing the number of defibrillators in public places, but also about ensuring that defibrillators already in the community are publicly accessible, are registered with the Scottish Ambulance Service so they can be directed to in instances of OHCA, and that people feel empowered to use them. The OHCA strategy identifies a number of actions to take in order to achieve these goals.

We also recognise that it is important to support evidence based placement of defibrillators in areas where OHCAs are most likely to occur. To this end, the Resuscitation Research Group, Edinburgh University is piloting a data-led approach to the placement of defibrillators in Scotland, called SCOT-PAD. The Scottish Government funded the initial modelling analysis in 2018 and are fully supportive of the group’s work.

The majority of Scotland’s council areas have experienced a stall in life expectancy growth since 2012-2014. Life expectancy has unfortunately decreased across many areas in Scotland. This trend has also been experienced across the UK.

National Records of Scotland publish official annual statistics on life expectancy by council area. Their report for 2018-2020 can be found here: Life Expectancy in Scotland, 2018-2020 | National Records of Scotland (nrscotland.gov.uk) . Between 2016-2018 and 2018-2020, average life expectancy in Inverclyde reduced from 75.2 to 74.3 for males and 79.6 to 78.6 for females. Average life expectancy in North Ayrshire reduced from 76.3 to 75.3 for males, though female life expectancy increased from 79.9 to 80.1.

It is worth highlighting that deaths from COVID-19 have accounted for the vast majority of the fall in life expectancy across Scotland as a whole, reducing male life expectancy by 16.7 weeks and female life expectancy by 14.3 weeks. Inverclyde and North Ayrshire have sadly experienced some of the highest rates of deaths per local population from COVID-19, with 216.7 per 100,000 population in Inverclyde and 234.6 per 100,000 population in North Ayrshire.

We know that deprivation drives excess mortality, and that areas of high deprivation have increased rates of deaths from COVID-19. Inverclyde and North Ayrshire have a higher proportion of local zones of high deprivation than many other areas in Scotland. We are committed to ending poverty, increasing equitable access to fair employment, education and training, and improving our physical and social environments. We will do this by working more effectively in partnership across government and with our local partners across all sectors.

Our recently published COVID-19 Recovery Strategy sets out how we will tackle many of the deep-rooted inequalities that lead to unfair differences in health and life expectancy. Increasing life expectancy and improving the health for everyone in Scotland remains a clear priority for this Government.

We have met with a range of private rented sector representatives, including those representing tenants and landlords, and we will continue to do so as we progress work on implementing an effective national system of rent controls. Our aim is to ensure quality, affordability and fairness for everyone who rents a home, whilst carefully examining potential unintended consequences. This continued engagement will help develop the policy, which will form part of a public consultation on a new draft Rented Sector Strategy at the end of this year – and providing an opportunity to gather a wide range of views and interests. Upon consideration of the consultation responses, a final Rented Sector Strategy will be published later in 2022 and deliver a key commitment, set out in Housing to 2040 , Scotland’s long term vision for housing.

Our regulatory proposals will give local authorities powers to strike a balance between the needs and concerns of their local communities, with the wider economic and tourism benefits of short-term lets.

We published a draft Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA) on 25 June 2021 for consultation. The economic and Scottish firms impact of the legislation is discussed at paragraphs 120 to 131 of the BRIA. We are now in the process of updating the BRIA as part of preparing the Licensing Order for laying in November 2021.

We have conducted an Island Communities Impact Assessment (ICIA) which we published in December 2020 and will update to reflect the revised Licensing Order. The ICIA can be found in our December 2020 consultation report: Short-term lets – licensing scheme and planning control areas: consultation analysis - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Our regulatory proposals will give local authorities powers to strike a balance between the needs and concerns of their local communities, with the wider economic and tourism benefits of short-term lets.

We published a draft Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA) on 25 June 2021 for consultation. The economic and Scottish firms impact of the legislation is discussed at paragraphs 120 to 131 of the BRIA. We are now in the process of updating the BRIA as part of preparing the Licensing Order for laying in November 2021.

We have conducted an Island Communities Impact Assessment which we published in December 2020 and will update to reflect the revised Licensing Order. The ICIA can be found in our December 2020 consultation report: Short-term lets – licensing scheme and planning control areas: consultation analysis - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

In developing proposals for the regulation of short-term lets we have engaged extensively with a range of stakeholders across Scotland, including short-term let hosts and operators and organisations representing their interests, through three public consultations, the Short-Term Lets Stakeholder Working Group and through other meetings with Ministers and officials. Across the three public consultations, we have received over 3,000 responses, of which over half were from hosts and operators, and considered over 1,000 letters and e-mails from all types of stakeholders. We have engaged directly with self-caterers, B&B owners and Airbnb hosts. We do not have this data broken down by area but, of those responses supplying a postcode, only around 14% of responses to the 2021 consultation supplied an EH postcode.