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The Scottish Government is aware that the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) now recommend that the four UK countries should move toward the implementation of a targeted screening programme for lung cancer in adults aged 55-74 with a history of smoking.

The Scottish Government welcomes this recommendation, though notes that the UK NSC also acknowledges the significant complexities that must be worked through ahead of implementation. Scotland will play an active part in that work. The Scottish Government will also follow the advice of the National Screening Oversight (NSO) and Scottish Screening Committee (SSC) who will consider how the recommendation can best be taken forward in Scotland.

In the meantime, we have agreed to fund a one year extension of the University of Edinburgh’s feasibility study, LungScot, into targeted lung health checks for high risk individuals. This will help to inform future approaches.

Adult Disability Payment opened for new applications across Scotland on 29 August 2022, following successful pilots that began in March.

The Scottish Fiscal Commission is responsible for forecasting spending on Adult Disability Payment and publishes estimates on the number of people expected to receive Adult Disability Payment in each financial year. In their May 2022 forecast, the Scottish Fiscal Commission estimated that there would be 34,000 recipients of Adult Disability Payment in 2022-23 in Scotland. This would include successful new claims and cases transferred from Personal Independence Payment and Working Age Disability Living Allowance. They attached a high degree of uncertainty to their estimates and they have indicated they will revise the assumptions as more data becomes available.

The Commission does not forecast the number of new claims per month for Adult Disability Payment. However, internal Scottish Government analysis estimates that approximately 44,000 new claims for Adult Disability Payment will be received by the end of February 2023.

As the tax authority with responsibility for the collection and management of Scotland’s devolved taxes, Revenue Scotland publishes monthly and annual data on its website regarding the number of property conveyances and non-residential leases subject to the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT) Additional Dwelling Supplement (ADS) and the associated tax liabilities. These are available at https://revenue.scot/news-publications/publications/statistics .

Local authority level data is published on an annual basis, as part of Revenue Scotland’s Annual Summary of Trends in the Devolved Taxes. The report for‎ 2020-21, which provides data for the period from 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2021, is available at: Annual Summary of Trends in the Devolved Taxes 2020-2021 | Revenue Scotland . The report for 2021-2022 is due to be published in November or December 2022.

In particular, the ‘Data for Figure 19’ tab in the figures and tables file of this publication includes estimates of gross ADS declared due for qualifying conveyances by local authority and year. This tab also includes information on the proportion of ADS revenue which taxpayers did or did not intend to reclaim in each local authority area.

A new funding round of the Food Processing and Marketing Cooperation Grant Scheme (FPMC) ran in late 2021 to support food processors in developing local supply chains and transitioning to net zero operations. This ultimately saw £7.3m being awarded across 29 projects.

A further funding round, with a budget of £10.2m for new projects, was opened on 9 May 2022, and closed on 19 June 2022, with 65 applications having been received from the food processing industry. The assessment process has now concluded, and businesses will be notified of the outcome of their applications imminently.

This year’s Programme for Government was published in the context of the most severe cost crisis of our lifetimes, and for that reason, the nature and immediate focus of this Programme for Government is different. As well as facing uncertainty created by the inaction of others, we face difficult choices ourselves, both as a nation and as a government and the 22-23 Programme for Government clearly sets out immediate steps this government will take to help families and businesses to get through this crisis. It is also important to note that the Programme for Government does not cover all of the work being taken forward by the Scottish Government, and that we remain committed to supporting businesses to grow and expand, whilst contributing to the development of local supply chains, and supporting the transition to net zero emissions.

The information requested by Mr Kerr, MSP, is publicly available on the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) website. Last month, the SSSC published official statistics in the ‘ Scottish Social Service Sector: Report on 2021 Workforce Data’ report. This Report contains official statistics dating back to 2012. As well as this report, the SSSC will publish more detailed tables in late 2022, providing a breakdown of the number of people working in all sub-sectors in individual local authority areas.

Public Health Scotland publish figures on the uptake of COVID-19 vaccines by Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) quintile. The PHS report shows how uptake in the most deprived areas compares with the least deprived areas. The latest figures were published in May 2022 ( https://publichealthscotland.scot/media/13184/22-05-11-covid19-publication_report.pdf ). The next publication is planned for later this year. This publication will contain uptake data by SIMD for COVID-19 autumn/winter 2022 vaccinations only; there will not be analysis on spring/summer COVID-19 boosters specifically.

The requested information on how many nurses have (a) joined and (b) left the NHS in each year since 2007 is not centrally available.

Information on how many Nursing & Midwifery staff have (a) joined and (b) left the NHS since 2012 can be found in the following link: NHSScotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence

A number of papers covering the opportunities of independence will be published over the coming months as part of the Building a New Scotland prospectus series. The series will be published in good time before an independence referendum takes place, to allow the people of Scotland to make an informed choice over their future.

As the First Minister has previously set out, papers to come later in the series will cover matters including currency, the public finances, pensions and social security, EU membership and trade, and defence and security.

The First Minister has written once to the new Prime Minister. The letter, dated 6 September 2022 and focusing on the cost crisis, was published on the Scottish Government website and a link is provided below.

Cost crisis: letter to new Prime Minister - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-10787 on 3 October 2022. 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 .