Seòmar agus comataidhean

As outlined in my response to S6W-27647 on 31 May 2024, and in my recent letter to Ms Gosal, I would welcome the opportunity to meet with you to discuss further alongside your policy paper which outlines this particular ask. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

As outlined in my response to S6W-27647 on 31 May 2024, and in my recent letter to Ms Gosal, I would welcome the opportunity to meet with you to discuss further alongside your policy paper which outlines this particular ask. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

As outlined in my response to S6W-27647 on 31 May 2024, and in my recent letter to Ms Gosal, I would welcome the opportunity to meet with you to discuss further alongside your policy paper which outlines this particular ask. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

As outlined in my response to S6W-27647 on 31 May 2024, and in my recent letter to Ms Gosal, I would welcome the opportunity to meet with you to discuss further alongside your policy paper which outlines this particular ask. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

We welcomed Poppyscotland’s Credit Their Service campaign last summer and acknowledge the two primary areas of concern highlighted in it. The first of these, Pension Credits, is reserved to the UK Government and the Scottish Government is therefore unable to intervene on this issue. However, we are in regular discussions with the UK Government on a range of related topics and have made them aware of the issues raised by Poppyscotland. We understand that officials from The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) met with Royal British Legion, Poppyscotland's sister organisation to discuss this.

The benefits administered by Local Authorities that are referenced by the campaign are Council Tax Support, Discretionary Housing Payment and the Scottish Welfare Fund. The Scottish Government recently published an Action Plan outlining improvements to the Scottish Welfare Fund which will be delivered in partnership with Local Authorities. Officials are working to update the statutory guidance and improve the Fund’s administration, accessibility and experience.

Discretionary Housing Payment (DHP) as a Local Authority benefit is administered by Local Authorities, who consider the circumstances of each individual case when dealing with applications. However, to receive DHP, an individual must be in receipt of either the housing element of Universal Credit or Housing Benefit. As both of these remain reserved to the UK Government, neither the Scottish Government nor Local Authorities have any powers over how they are administered.

With regards to Council Tax support, the Council Tax Reduction Regulations already instruct that Armed Forces independence payments should be fully disregarded as income in the calculation of council tax reduction in both the pension age and working age schemes. Therefore, all Local Authorities should disregard these payments as income in relation to applications for Council Tax reduction. The Scottish Government continues to keep the Council Tax Reduction regulations under review.

The Armed Forces Pension Scheme and benefits including the War Pension Scheme are wholly reserved to the UK Government and are assessed and administered by Veterans UK on behalf of the Ministry of Defence. The Scottish Government is therefore unable to intervene on those matters. Nevertheless, the Scottish Government has previously been made aware of people experiencing issues with their pensions and Scottish Ministers wrote to former Ministers for Defence People and Veterans at the Ministry of Defence in 2021 and 2022 highlighting this. I will raise this again at my next meeting with the UK Minister for Veterans Affairs.

As outlined in my response to S6W-27647 on 31 May 2024, and in my recent letter to Ms Gosal, I would welcome the opportunity to meet with you to discuss further alongside your policy paper which outlines this particular ask. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

The movement of freight is a commercial matter and the Scottish Government’s leadership in support for rail freight is outlined in our 2016 rail freight strategy, and put into practice with significant investment, a freight-first approach, and through our regulatory rail freight growth targets. The Scottish Government does not hold detailed information on day to day rail freight movements but is aware that for both sites there is currently no traffic. Network Rail remains engaged with the industry through the Scotland Freight Joint Board and works with Freight Operating Companies and Freight End Users to enable modal shift to rail.

The monitoring and evaluation plan is being developed by Public Health Scotland (PHS). The first stage of this is for PHS to develop key indicators for monitoring progress. These are currently being drafted and PHS will be consulting on them shortly. Following this there will be further work to identify gaps in monitoring progress and address these. The finalised plan is expected to be published by the end of the financial year.

A new PHS-led blood borne virus and sexually transmitted infection dashboard is also scheduled for launch in 2024-25 which will help to monitor progress on elimination at national and NHS board level.

The Scottish Government has no immediate plans to expand emergency department opt-out blood borne virus testing beyond the current three-month pilots. It is important that decisions about any further expansion are based on the best available evidence.

A review will be undertaken once all three areas have completed their pilot projects and local evaluations later this summer. However, decisions about further interventions will also be informed by the findings of a Scottish Government-funded research project aimed at identifying optimal approaches to testing to reduce undiagnosed blood borne viruses, which are expected in spring 2025.