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No-one should be the victim of abuse or violence while at work. Assaults on emergency service workers and police officers are despicable and the Scottish Government fully supports courts having their current extensive powers to deal robustly with perpetrators.

The maximum sentence for an assault on emergency workers including the police is life imprisonment. This is the most severe form of penalty available under the criminal law and is available under the common law of assault.

In addition, there are specific offences in the Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act 2005 and the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012 which also provide protection for emergency service workers and police officers.

The combination of these laws provide full protection under the law with the independent court deciding what an appropriate sentence is in a given case.

We continue to encourage all organisations to support staff who experience violence in the workplace including reporting such incidents for appropriate action to be taken by Police Scotland.

The criminal law is always kept under review to assess whether changes can be made to improve how it operates. In the context of maximum penalties for assaults on emergency workers being life imprisonment, the Scottish Government has no current plans to change the laws in this area given the extensive powers courts have.

The Scottish Government is committed to expanding the universal provision of free school lunches to include all primary school children, during school term-time, by August 2022.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-01507 on
‎ 30 July 2021. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at Written questions and answers | Scottish Parliament Website

The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government or by Public Health Scotland.

Information relating to the number of patients awaiting a colposcopy and their length of wait would be held by individual Health Boards.

Table 1 shows the average daily number of Whole Time Equivalent (WTE) Contact Tracers scheduled to work on the COVID-19 Test and Protect service each week from 1 May. These are projected workforce figures taken from management information submitted by Health Boards in weekly returns and therefore do not necessarily represent final deployment figures. Wider support and administration staff are not included in these returns.

The Scottish Government does not hold data centrally on the proportion of these staff who are secondees or redeployed; the secondment and deployment of staff is a matter for each board.

Table 1. Whole Time Equivalent Contact Tracers working for the COVID-19 Test and Protect service in each week from 1 May 2021

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-01507 on
‎ 30 July 2021. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at Written questions and answers | Scottish Parliament Website

The breast screening programme is governed by the Breast Screening Programme Board as well as the National Screening Oversight and the Scottish Screening Committee. They monitor and evaluate performance, including uptake rates, against a set of standards developed by Healthcare Improvement Scotland.

Since the breast screening programme restarted last summer, additional steps have been taken to ensure uptake of appointments despite the impact from the Covid-19 pandemic. These include:

• breast screening centres contacting participants ahead of their appointments to confirm their intention to attend;
• providing information to reassure people that infection control measures are in place and, during lockdown, that attending a screening appointment was considered essential travel; and
• clearly communicating the importance of screening, along with tailored messaging to recognise additional concerns and challenges caused by the pandemic, for example for people who were shielding.

The Scottish Government recognises that the Covid-19 pandemic may have exacerbated inequalities in screening uptake across all national screening programmes, and we have committed £2 million over the next two years, to build a programme of evidence-based, sustainable and scalable projects that tackle inequalities in a systemic way.

The British & Irish Lions match and EURO 2020 were flagship events approved by the Scottish Government through an events gateway process. Flagship events are internationally significant events which maintain Scotland’s longer-term profile as a host of major events, with an eye to recovery from the pandemic, and with appropriate Covid-19 mitigations in place which were supported by months of very detailed planning.

On 22 June 2018 the Scottish Government and COSLA wrote to public sector leaders, including all chairs and Chief Executives of public bodies, inviting them to submit proposals to the Local Governance Review. 20 Local Authorities, 6 Community Planning Partnerships and 16 other public bodies responded. Appendix One of the summary report published in May 2019 sets out the full list of respondents.

On 28 November 2019, the Scottish Government and COSLA provided an update to all public sector leaders . This highlighted opportunities for functional, fiscal and community empowerment and invited place-specific proposals for alternative governance arrangements. Councils have been working with local partners to develop proposals and dialogue with Scottish Government officials has commenced to explore the proposed changes and how they could improve outcomes.

Tackling health inequalities remains a clear ambition for this Government. Our Programme for Government 2020 sets out our commitment to promote lifelong health and wellbeing including a renewed focus on tackling health inequalities.

The impact of persistent deprivation, poverty and other long-standing social inequalities – which we know impact on health – have been thrown into sharp relief by COVID-19. In the face of the pandemic we acted quickly to ensure that local authorities, third sector partners and community organisations were empowered to take the action needed to protect people from the social harms of the virus. In the course of 2020-21, we allocated over £1 billion to help people and communities impacted by the pandemic and to build resilience in public services. We will continue to give our communities and local services the support they need to tackle these issues head on.

We know that socioeconomic inequalities drive health inequalities and we must focus our efforts on addressing poverty, promoting fair wages and improving our physical and social environments. In line with the Scottish Fiscal Commission forecasts, we are committing £3.5 billion in forecast social security payments which will reach over 800,000 people. Money which will go directly to the people in Scotland who need it the most. This includes £68 million for the first full year of the Scottish Child Payment, a ‘game changing’ new benefit which will be instrumental in tackling child poverty. We are bringing this together with healthcare through our Welfare Advice and Health Partnerships that integrate local authority and third sector welfare rights and money advice services into primary care services.

Scotland has a proud history of taking ambitious action to improve health and we continue to make progress against our Public Health Priorities and major healthy living action plans. These strategies are already tackling some of the most significant health challenges we face including diet, alcohol and smoking. These bold packages of measures will help tackle key issues and support everyone in Scotland to live longer healthier lives. This includes bringing forward legislation to restrict promotions of unhealthier foods, evaluating the impact that Minimum Unit Pricing of alcohol has had and introducing a smoke-free perimeter around all hospital buildings.

As we look to renew and recover as a society, we will continue to ensure the necessary resource is directed at improving equity for our people and communities who are most in need.