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The UK Department of Health and Social Care has recently established an expert panel to provide advice to the UK Chief Medical Officers (CMOs) on which patient cohorts should be eligible for access to COVID-19 treatments, including whether changes should be made to which patient cohorts are currently eligible for direct access to antivirals to reduce the risk of hospitalisation. More information about the Therapeutics Clinical Review Panel, including how to submit an enquiry to the panel can be found online at: https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/covid-19-therapeutics-clinical-review-panel .

The original eligibility criteria were developed - using an evidence-based approach - by an independent expert working group commissioned by the UK Department of Health and Social Care. The current criteria are set out in a UK-wide clinical commissioning policy . The policy targets those higher risk individuals who have the potential to both be least likely to generate a material immune response to vaccines and be at highest risk of disease progression, hospitalisation and death.

COVID-19 oral antiviral treatments are also being evaluated through a study called PANORAMIC, run by the University of Oxford. The study is testing whether these antiviral treatments may benefit a wider group of patients than the current eligibility criteria. The results from the first part of the study are due to be published later this year.

General information on the arrangements for direct access to COVID-19 treatments in Scotland can be found on NHS Inform .

All territorial health boards were invited to submit a gap analysis providing an assessment of care and support available to people with long COVID and areas identified for future development.

Returns were discussed during a meeting of the Strategic Network’s Service Planning Group on 14 April 2022, to enable Health Board representatives to reflect on priorities identified by other Health Boards, identify any services that could be delivered collaboratively, and make best use of the £3million funding across Scotland. The meeting also enabled NHS Board representatives to hear priority issues put forward by organisations representing people living with long COVID.

Boards were requested to use the insight from this process to develop and submit an application for funding, outlining initiatives they planned to undertake over 2022-23 supported by their Resource Allocation formula (NRAC) share of the available long COVID Support funding.

Thirteen applications were received by Health Boards by the Strategic Network by 28 April 2022 and were discussed during a meeting of the Network’s Strategic Oversight Board on 3 May 2022.

No applications had to be resubmitted due to rejection by the Strategic Network’s Oversight Board before funding allocations were confirmed, on 19 May 2022.

Scottish Government has continued to support the Clyde 2020 with funding to the Clyde Marine Planning Partnership (CMPP) to develop and deliver a regional marine plan which will support achieving good environmental status for the Clyde. In addition, Marine Scotland Directorate provides support to the Clyde 2020 initiative via participation in meetings and the sharing of relevant information, including, for example survey data. Marine Scotland Directorate has supported work relevant to Clyde 2020 Action Plan including the Clyde demersal fish survey (conducted annually 2016-2021) and a number of PhD studentships, also providing supervisory time and relevant fishery and survey data for the latter.

There are a range of publicly available grant programmes that the Clyde 2020 can apply for, depending on the type of research or piece of work for which they are seeking support and the relevant eligibility criteria for each fund. Examples of these programmes in the marine space are the Marine Fund Scotland, the Scottish Marine Environmental Enhancement Fund (SMEEF), the UK Seafood Fund and the Nature Restoration Fund.

We are actively working with local authorities and partners, including Education Scotland, to support local authorities to identify and meet the additional support needs of pupils arriving from Ukraine.

Education Scotland are currently engaging with each local authority to understand their current plans to support these children and young people. We will work with authorities to ensure that teachers can continue to access appropriate professional learning and development to support the needs of pupils, including wellbeing support.

Education Scotland already have a range of resources to support refugee and migrant children, including Supporting child refugees and their families and specific resources on welcoming families from Ukraine. There is also Beginner’s English for Ukrainian Families , as part of the national e-learning offer.

I intend to signpost these and other resources further in a letter to all Directors of Education later this month.

The Scottish Government believes that renewables, particularly wind, has a vital role to play to achieve our net zero targets and to the decarbonisation of the energy system.

Scotland’s natural resources, which include strong and consistent wind resource, along with our established expertise in offshore oil and gas, skilled offshore workforce, excellent port structure and strong innovation hub, make Scotland one of the best places in the world to develop offshore wind and its supply chain.

The recent ScotWind leasing round demonstrates this, by delivering around £700 million in option fee revenues to the public purse, plus the ScotWind projects committed to investment of up to £25 billion across the Scottish supply chain across the 17 ScotWind offshore wind projects as set out in their Supply Chain Development Statements

This work will be further complemented by the Scottish Offshore Wind Energy Council’s (SOWEC) Collaborative Framework. This Charter signed by 24 organisations offshore wind developments in Scotland, is a practical way for developers and Scottish ports to work together, helping to build a long-term pipeline of work and creating certainty that ports need to prioritise investment in higher value activities like fabrication. By working together developers can identify joint opportunities, mitigating risks in bringing together the infrastructure needed to build out the full pipeline of ScotWind projects.

Energy markets are reserved to the UK Government. As part of our response to the rising cost of energy, the Scottish Government has raised concerns that many consumers who are not registered directly with a licenced energy supplier may not receive a £400 energy rebate. Although no solution is currently in place, the UK Government has advised that, this Autumn, it intends to widen support to include those consumers who are not currently reached through the Energy Bills Support Scheme such as park home residents.

The Scottish Government published an update to the 2018 Climate Change Plan in 2020, including over 200 policies and proposals which will drive our delivery of emissions reduction between 2020 and 2032.

The Scottish Government is currently in the process of developing the next climate change plan which covers the period from 2025 to 2040. The Scottish Government has committed to fully costing the next Climate Change Plan as set out in the Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Act 2019.

Our focus now is on delivering the existing plan as well as the polices that have been developed since to achieve our climate objectives. The challenging nature of delivering these targets will depend on a national endeavour, with action from all sectors of society. The updated plan sends a clear market signal which should give businesses the confidence to act, invest and achieve our climate targets, driving new green jobs, growing a thriving sustainable and fair economy.

All these actions require co-operation from the UK Government to maximise action in reserved actions. Our updated Plan set out the main asks of the UK Government and calls on them to match Scotland’s climate ambition in a credible way. As we develop our next plan and the vision for 2040, we will be required to go further and require reductions in currently reserved areas to achieve the 90% reduction by 2040.

The National Audiology Review Group convened on 3 May 2022 and on 28 June 2022. Review Group members were invited to share their key priorities for development of the Terms of Reference to help shape the future of audiology services in Scotland.

The Terms of Reference were agreed by the Group on 7 July 2022 and will be published on the Scottish Government’s website alongside minutes and a current membership list. Independent Review of Audiology Services in Scotland - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Following the publication of the review findings in December 2021, NHS Lothian has had extensive interactions with a wide range of professionals who work with children and young people to highlight the key findings in the report and this has included Speech and Language Therapists, Health Visitors, General Practice, Ear Nose and Throat clinicians, Community Paediatricians and teaching staff, with further communication to the Director of Education. This has involved individual meetings with professionals as well as the development of a staff briefing document, which was widely circulated across key networks. As part of this process, those working with children who had any concerns about a child's hearing were encouraged to contact the Audiology department directly or to refer the child through the normal referral route (e.g. Health Visitor, Speech and Language, GPs).

The Scottish Government supports the principles underpinning the green taxonomy, especially the need to establish criteria for sustainable economic activity, to give investors certainty on the sustainability of projects, and to combat greenwashing, and we look forward to continuing to work internationally with our partners in the European Union and its Member States to combat climate change.

The Scottish Government position on nuclear power is clear – we do not support the building of new nuclear power stations in Scotland under current technologies. Given that new nuclear power will take years, if not decades, to become operational and will be expensive, we do not believe classifying nuclear as sustainable or transitional should be our focus.

The best pathway to net zero is through increased investment in renewables, storage, hydrogen and carbon capture. Concentrating growth in these technologies is better for both energy security and the climate. As the UK taxonomy is a reserved matter, we are working with UK government to ensure the forthcoming UK taxonomy reflects the level of climate ambition the Scottish Government has set. We will be publishing our Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan later this year, including energy scenarios that will set out how Scotland can achieve our climate targets and meets our energy needs in a sustainable manner by 2050, and will provide a long term basis for investment in energy generation in Scotland.