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The Scottish Government currently has no plans to undertake a consultation on the introduction or piloting of bans or other restrictions on Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs) over 7.5t in weight from overtaking on Scottish trunk roads.

There are no Scottish Government staff working within our international offices, who are also employed by the UK Government.

Scottish Government international offices are staffed by Civil Servants and Country Based Staff.

Civil Servants are appointed to represent Scotland in our international offices by a recruitment panel which includes the posts’ line manager. Appointees are recruited from existing Scottish Government roles or from wider UK Government departments.

Country Based Staff are recruited using the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office recruitment processes in each country and are paid for by the Scottish Government. There are currently 17 Country Based Staff employed within our Scottish Government international offices. It is common practice with the Welsh Government and Northern Ireland Executive to recruit country based staff for their overseas offices in the same way.

Following the emergency budget review announced by the First Minister on 11 August 2022, the Scottish Government took the difficult decision not to provide funding for the Scotland’s Winter Festivals Fund in the 2022-23 season. This decision was considered carefully and taken based on the need to focus the Scottish Government’s finite resources in order to mitigate the impact of the cost-of-living crisis, where possible.

Round 46 of Event Scotland’s National Events Programme is providing approximately £280,000 for 29 events taking place from September to December 2022 (inclusive). Additionally, over £600,000 has been provided to support 21 events to take place during 2022 through the Year of Stories 2022 Open Events Fund, with 181 community events supported by over £700,000 through the Year of Stories 2022 Community Stories Fund, which is funded by the Scottish Government, National Lottery Heritage Fund and Museum Galleries Scotland.

The Scottish Government wants green ports to promote regeneration in local economies and communities by driving inclusive and sustainable growth locally, regionally and nationally, unlocking the potential of our regions for the benefit of the national economy, businesses, workers, and local communities.

The joint bidding prospectus , delivered in partnership by the Scottish Government and the UK government, confirmed successful applicants should explain the steps taken or planned to engage with local communities to consider how proposals will maintain and, where possible, enhance the quality of the locality.

The tender design stage is ongoing, and further work is required prior to the publication of the Invitation to Tender document. However I am hopeful that significant progress on this will be made this year and I will of course continue to keep the member and Parliament updated of any significant developments.

The following table gives all Spaces for People expenditure for local authorities and other statutory bodies since April 2022. A small number of local authorities have yet to claim their full agreed grant.

Through our £1 million partnership with the Climate Justice Resilience Fund (CJRF) we have begun to support communities to address the impacts of loss and damage in Bangladesh, the Pacific Region and Malawi. This includes supporting the rights and needs of climate-forced displaced people, as well as helping families make more informed decisions about migration as a means to diversify livelihoods. Separate to the CJRF funding, the Scottish Government is also providing £500,000 to support communities in Malawi facing losses and damages resulting from recent tropical storms. The Scottish Government is funding research on needs assessments and case studies as part of our commitment to build evidence around how to most effectively address loss and damage.

The First Minister and I will be hosting a conference in October [11 & 12] in partnership with the High Level Champions and Global Resilience Partnership, which will explore how we can mobilise finance, drive solutions and develop best practice for addressing losses and damages. We hope to demystify how to fund loss and damage by establishing clear routes to action with the outputs of the conference synthesised into a report launch at COP27.

The Landlord Register came into effect following the Antisocial Behaviour Act 2004, with associated monitoring information available from 2007. Local authorities are responsible for the administration and enforcement of landlord registration, and are the data controllers of the information on the landlord registration IT system for landlords in their area. The Scottish Government receives monthly aggregate information extracted from the system, including on the total number of active registrations and the number of properties that these relate to, which are set out in the tables below for each of the years in which these figures are available between 2007 and 2022. However the Landlord Registration System is an administrative system used primarily to manage the registration of landlords and rental properties, and has not been designed to produce robust statistical figures on the sector. The figures presented should therefore be considered in the context of data quality issues which include impacts from changes to IT systems over time, a risk of duplicated data and double counting of rental properties in certain instances for joint owners, as well as data issues stemming from any potential lags in the provision of information by landlords on changes to circumstances to existing registrations, and we would advise caution in the use of these figures if making any specific comparisons over time or between local authority areas especially the number of properties within the 2017 – 2019 period which have been subject to significant data quality issues and are not considered to be accurate counts of the number of properties across these years .

associated monitoring information available from 2007 onwards which have been subject to significant data quality issues and are not considered to be accurate counts of the number of properties across these years

Asylum is reserved to the UK Parliament and handled by the Home Office. The Scottish Government does not have access to Home Office systems or hold data on individuals who are in the asylum system or who hold refugee status, which could be used to identify how many people who arrived before 24 February 2022 are living in temporary accommodation.

NHS Scotland and the Scottish Government remains focused on delivering high-quality care in the safest possible way for patients of all cancer types, including blood cancers.

The National Cancer Plan, published on 9 December 2020, includes actions to improve access to treatments for all cancers.

The Covid-19 National Cancer Medicines Advisory Group (NCMAG) was established to oversee interim governance arrangements for cancer medicines in response to the impact of Covid-19 on the health service. These arrangements include two new medicines approved for use with patients with leukaemia, a type of blood cancer.

We have established the Scottish Cancer Network, which is a dedicated national resource to support and facilitate a ‘Once for Scotland’ approach to cancer services. Its aim is to enable equitable access to care and treatment across Scotland.

Lastly, an updated Framework for Effective Cancer Management was published on 3 December 2021. It supports clinicians and NHS managers to drive improvements in cancer pathways, including blood cancers, providing Health Boards with the tools to effectively manage cancer patients and ultimately recover waiting times.