Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Scottish Government continues to support measures to restrict the transport of pregnant dogs into the UK, having obtained legislative consent from the Scottish Parliament for this to be taken forward under the UK Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill before this was withdrawn by the UK Government in May 2023, and having agreed in principle to seek legislative consent for the Animal Welfare (Import of Dogs, Cats and Ferrets) Bill before this fell due to the dissolution of the UK Parliament in May 2024.

The Scottish Government maintains that to ensure consistency of approach and the most effective outcomes, these measures would best be delivered by a UK Parliament bill. To this end, Scottish Government officials continue to engage with DEFRA on the possibility of legislation in the UK parliament to restrict the transport of pregnant dogs into the UK, along with other animal welfare measures relating to the transport of pets.

The Scottish Government continues to work closely with DAERA NI officials and key agencies through the Paws for Thought Puppy Trafficking Group to disrupt and target those involved in the smuggling of puppies into Scotland from Northern Ireland. The collaborative actions of this Group are delivering significant reductions in the number of pups being trafficked into Scotland, mainly as a consequence of intelligence-led targeting of known or flagged transporters. The Group also continues to raise awareness among ferry passengers of puppy smuggling through the use of flyers, posters and social media, with anyone seeing suspicious activity encouraged to immediately report it.

More widely, the Scottish Government continues to work with the multi-agency Pet Trade Taskforce to share intelligence and target those involved in the illegal breeding and smuggling of puppies for sale in Scotland.

The Scottish Government has undertaken no such assessments. It is the responsibility of the enforcement agencies to plan and execute any stop and search of vehicles entering Scotland by ferry. On the call from the Dogs Trust for visual checks on all dogs entering Scotland, we consider this impractical, as it would require significant resources to be permanently deployed. Additionally, it should be recognised that it is a small minority of individuals that are involved in the smuggling of puppies from NI to Scotland and so visually inspecting every dog arriving in Scotland would be disproportionate. We consider intelligence-led, targeted checks to be the most effective approach.

The visual checking of all dogs entering Scotland via Cairnryan, would require deployment of additional human resource when there are already significant demands being placed on local authority and other enforcement agency staff.

Many commercial movements of animals are already inspected at Border Control Posts, and pet dogs travelling with their owners on ferries will often be checked by APHA trained ferry staff. The movements of concern, i.e. puppies being smuggled, happens under the radar, and is best addressed through intelligence-led targeted enforcement action.

The Scottish Government does not hold any such data.

As part of the Cancer Action Plan for Scotland 2023-26, Scottish Government committed to “Invest in improving the pathways of less survivable cancers, particularly hepatocellular carcinoma and pancreatic cancer. This will shorten the time to staging and agreeing treatment options.”

Scottish Government invested in a pilot Scottish Care and Coordination Service for Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Cancers (SCOT HPB) as a potential way to achieve this action. Scottish Government commissioned the Scottish Cancer Network (SCN) to review the pilot to consider lessons learned and potential options for future delivery.

Following this and further expert engagement, we are considering how best to continue to improve patient pathways for those with Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary cancers in an equitable, evidenced and sustainable way.

Funding of over £3.5 million was issued between 2021-2024 to support 12 pilot projects across Scotland to deliver a single point of contact (SPoC) to people diagnosed with cancer. A further £1.5 million during financial year 2024-25 has ensured continuity of this programme of work.

A scalability assessment, commenced in early 2024 and led by Healthcare Improvement Scotland, will consider how we best support the design and delivery of SPoC services for the future to ensure that all patients with cancer in Scotland benefit from the approach. Each project is actively evaluating their local impact to support this work.

A wider review of the Single Point of Contact programme is being led by Healthcare Improvement Scotland and includes a scalability assessment. This commenced in early 2024 and is expected to complete by Spring 2025.

The scalability assessment and an implementation toolkit will be publicly available upon completion of the assessment to support the ongoing programme of work.

Of the 12 Single Point of Contact (SPoC) pilot projects, 4 fully include a service for haemato-oncology patients in NHS Borders, NHS Forth Valley, NHS Highland and NHS Western Isles.

Further to this, NHS Grampian and NHS Fife SPoC projects have a navigation team to support patients from point of cancer referral to diagnosis and is able to support those with blood cancer.

At the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee on 11 September, I updated members on the challenges of the current timeframes for all four UK nations in relation to developing quality, credible Fisheries Management Plans and confirmed that I will be writing to the Committee formally in due course regarding the statutory deadlines associated with the plans. I expect to do this shortly and will be happy to update the member further following this communication.

It is important to remember that we already have a strong suite of measures in place to manage our fisheries and safeguard our fish stocks.