- Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 January 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 20 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what consideration it has given to the reported concerns raised by the Young Women's Movement and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) regarding the varying quality and inconsistent delivery of relationships, sexual health, and parenthood education (RSHP) and how this can be addressed in conjunction with the update to RSHP guidance.
Answer
We must ensure our children and young people learn about the issues affecting their daily lives, including consent and healthy relationships. The concerns raised by the Young Women's Movement and NSPCC around the consistency in delivery of RSHP education highlight the need for us to ensure we get the revision of the RSHP guidance right.
However, that should not restrict the professional judgement of our teachers who are able to use a range of resources to deliver age-and-stage appropriate education on consent and healthy relationships in a way that enables children and young people to make informed decisions about their lives. That can include using the excellent resources developed by the Young Women's Movement through their Young Women Know campaign.
As confirmed in the latest Programme for Government, we will implement the Curriculum Improvement Cycle (CIC), with work already underway on a number of curricular areas, including health and wellbeing. The CIC introduces a systematic approach to ensure that Scotland's curriculum remains relevant, forward looking, clarifies knowledge and ultimately support high quality teaching and learning. We will ensure this important work aligns with the work to update the RSHP teaching guidance to help ensure consistency in delivery of learning and teaching.
- Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 January 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 20 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-28887 by Jenny Gilruth on 23 August 2024, which stated that "The relationships, sexual health and parenthood education consultation report will be published in the coming weeks", whether it will confirm by what date this will be published, and what the reason is for the delay.
Answer
The relationships, sexual health and parenthood consultation report is now being prepared for publication. I am grateful for the extensive contributions to the consultation and the report will be published shortly.
- Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 07 January 2025
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Current Status:
Answer expected on 21 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether all school pupils' experience of relationships, sexual health, and parenthood education should include education on the importance of the principle of consent as a mechanism to tackle gender-based violence in schools.
Answer
Answer expected on 21 January 2025
- Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 11 December 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Ivan McKee on 20 December 2024
To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to introduce any requirements on local government pension schemes in Scotland regarding community wealth building and local investment, in light of reports of the UK Government setting out its intention to do so for local government pension schemes in England and Wales.
Answer
The Local Government Pension Scheme in Scotland is in a very strong position and the Scottish Government continues to engage with the 11 Scottish Local Government funds, which each have responsibility for their own investments.
We are monitoring developments in England and Wales to inform decisions around our approach to Scotland.
- Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 09 December 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 17 December 2024
To ask the Scottish Government how much funding has been awarded to each local authority for the cancellation of school meal debt.
Answer
The Scottish Government has made £2,877,287.97 of funding available to local authorities to enable them to cancel school meal debts within their respective local areas. This sum represents the entire amounts bid for by each local authority.
29 local authorities made bids to the Scottish Government’s School Meal Debt Fund and we issued grant offer letters to them on 3 December 2024.
The amounts awarded to each local authority is set out within the following table:
Local Authority | Amount provided from School Meal Debt Fund |
| | |
Aberdeen City | £411,970.90 |
Aberdeenshire | £145,751.82 |
Angus | £25,872.90 |
Argyll and Bute | £24,348.66 |
Clackmannanshire | £30,624 |
Dumfries and Galloway | £29,439.63 |
Dundee City | £21,318.68 |
East Ayrshire | £82,180.63 |
East Dunbartonshire | £74,230.69 |
East Lothian | £54,354.71 |
East Renfrewshire | £53,760.77 |
Edinburgh, City of | £89,321 |
Falkirk | £60,181.31 |
Fife | £81,495 |
Glasgow City | £655,032 |
Highland | £115,747.76 |
Inverclyde | £74,041.99 |
Midlothian | £50,030 |
Moray | £38,295.85 |
North Ayrshire | £314,843 |
North Lanarkshire | £21,263 |
Orkney Islands | £7,330.52 |
Perth and Kinross | £29,310.43 |
Renfrewshire | £106,077.68 |
Scottish Borders | £3,908.12 |
Shetland Islands | £15,949.52 |
South Ayrshire | £28,214.73 |
South Lanarkshire | £224,215 |
Stirling | £8,170.19 |
| | |
TOTAL | £2,877,287.97 |
- Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 15 November 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 2 December 2024
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-27639 by Jenny Gilruth on 28 May 2024, for what reason the summary report on access to counsellors in secondary schools and children and young people’s community mental health services for January to June 2023 has not yet been published, and by what date it will be.
Answer
The summary report on access to counsellors in secondary schools and children and young people’s community mental health services for the period January to June 2023 has now been published on the Scottish Government website at: Access to counsellors in secondary schools and children and young people’s community mental health services – summary reports - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
- Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 15 November 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Gillian Martin on 27 November 2024
To ask the Scottish Government what consideration it has given to the recycling of medical packaging, including blister packs, in its circular economy strategy and associated guidance.
Answer
Medical packaging, such as blister packaging, is not easily recycled due to strict regulatory requirements for pharmaceutical packaging set by the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. However, the Scottish Government is taking steps to encourage businesses to reduce the amount of packaging waste and to improve recycling through implementation of extended producer responsibility for packaging from 2025. This includes obligations for producers of pharmaceutical packaging.
The Circular Economy (Scotland) Act 2024 requires that Scottish Ministers publish a circular economy strategy, which will be developed over the next two years. In advance of that, we will shortly be publishing a final version of our circular economy and waste route map, which will set out actions to deliver sustainable use of our resources and progress a circular economy to 2030. As part of these we will continue to consider medical packaging items.
- Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 18 November 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Alasdair Allan on 27 November 2024
To ask the Scottish Government whether any public funding has been provided to Stream Bioenergy in the last five years; if so, how much was provided, and for what purpose.
Answer
The Scottish Government payment system confirms that no funding has been provided to Stream Bioenergy in the last 5 years.
- Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 14 November 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Alasdair Allan on 26 November 2024
To ask the Scottish Government how many jobs (a) are currently supported by and (b) have been created through the Nature Restoration Fund.
Answer
While competitive scheme Nature Restoration Fund projects must provide details of project finances which include staff costs, we do not collect data on the total number of jobs supported or created by the Nature Restoration Fund on a programme-wide basis.
- Asked by: Ross Greer, MSP for West Scotland, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 18 November 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Alasdair Allan on 26 November 2024
To ask the Scottish Government whether it has undertaken an assessment of any public health impacts of anaerobic digestion and biogas infrastructure.
Answer
The Scottish Government has had no applications for consent under s36 of the Electricity Act 1989 to construct an electricity generating station that uses biogas as its fuel source and has therefore not been required to assess any environmental impacts in relation to anaerobic digestion and biogas infrastructure.
The Town and Country Planning (Environmental Impact Assessment) (Scotland) Regulations 2017 requires those preparing qualifying projects to undertake and prepare an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Report. An EIA Report is required to describe the factors specified in Regulation 4(3) within those 2017 Regulations that are likely to be significantly affected by the development. This can include population, human health, biodiversity, land, soil, water, air, climate, material assets, cultural heritage, including architectural and archaeological aspects, and landscape.
The Environmental Assessment (Scotland) Act 2005 (legislation.gov.uk) creates a statutory obligation for those preparing qualifying public plans and programmes to assess their likely environment effects and to seek ways to minimise adverse effects, if they are likely to be significant. A Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) offers an opportunity to judge the likely environmental impacts of plan, programme or strategy across a number of receptors, including biodiversity; population; human health; fauna; flora; soil; water; air; climatic factors; material assets; cultural heritage, including architectural and archaeological heritage; landscape; and the inter-relationship between these topics.
