Seòmar agus comataidhean

Table 1: Percentage of repeat alcohol-related hospital admissions by NHS board and financial year.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all people living in Scotland with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) are able to access the best possible care and support, and benefit from healthcare services that are safe, effective and person-centred.

While the NHS Recovery Plan is not condition specific, the aim is to effect whole system recovery and support prioritisation and planning. In that respect we would expect this to directly affect neurology services and the experience and outcomes for people with neurological condition, including MS.

There is a commitment to update on the progress of the plan on an annual basis and to review the strategic plan. Work on the first annual review will commence shortly and is expected to be published in the summer of 2022.

In 2019, we published a Neurological Care and Support – National Framework for Action . The aims include improving the provision of co-ordinated health and social care services, developing sustainable workforce models and ensuring high standards of person-centred care for people with neurological conditions.

Through implementation of the framework, we have awarded £1.4m since October 2020 to fund innovative projects working to achieve better outcomes for people living with neurological conditions. Over £300,000 of this has been committed to projects which improve the health and wellbeing of people with MS in Scotland.

The Scottish Government continue to engage with our stakeholders to improve animal welfare and this is an issue we would be open to considering.

The Scottish Government would be content with this suggested change if the UK Government were minded to amend the Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill [1] , which is currently at Report Stage in the UK Parliament. The Scottish Government also agreed with the Legislative Consent Motion in relation to the Bill. However, it should be noted that the Bill, should it come into effect, will reduce the number of animals to five per vehicle , as opposed to five per traveller, which will be a significant improvement on the present situation.

Scotland does not have any Pet Travel Scheme (PETS) routes [2] for vehicles entering Scotland directly, but the Scottish Government would wish to retain a consistent GB-wide approach where possible.

[1] Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill - Parliamentary Bills - UK Parliament

[2] Pet travel: sea and rail routes and companies you can use - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

I have frequent discussions with Ministerial colleagues on a range of matters. We are committed to reforming council tax to make it fairer, working with the Scottish Green Party and COSLA to oversee the development of effective deliberative engagement on sources of local government funding. including Council Tax, that will culminate in a Citizens' Assembly.

Data on local authority debt are published as part of the annual Scottish Local Government Finance Statistics (SLGFS). The latest available data is from SLGFS 2020-21 which was published on 22 March 2022. Figures on General Fund debt by local authority at 31 March 2021, including figures per person, are provided in Table F of the 'Scottish Local Government Finance Statistics (SLGFS) 2020-21 - Additional Analysis - Capital' supporting excel file which can be downloaded at https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-local-government-finance-statistics-slgfs-2020-21/documents/ .

From the 26 July to the 31 December 2021, there were 25 instances where a client submitted more than one application, accounting for 50 applications in total. Of these 50 applications, 20 have been withdrawn and five have been denied.

As set out in Annex F to the amended Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA) for our Deposit Return Scheme (DRS), published on 15 December 2021, we consider that there is a degree of uncertainty attached to the figures proposed by Circularity Scotland Ltd (CSL) for the number of scheme articles and return points under DRS. For that reason our final and best estimate remains that set out on p19 of the amended BRIA.

Nevertheless, as Annex F shows, even if we were to adopt these two figures there would continue to be a strong economic case for DRS.

We have seen no evidence for higher numbers of RVMs than the roughly 3,000 assumed in the Full Business Case Addendum and I understand that CSL is continuing to work from this figure. That is therefore the figure modelled in the updated Final BRIA that was published in December last year.

Audit Scotland provides advice and support to ensure that public money is spent properly, efficiently, and effectively. Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) is financed and administered by industry under the principles of producer responsibility, therefore Audit Scotland is not involved.

There is not a single offence of modern slavery in Scotland. Several offences fall within the ambit of modern slavery. These offences are listed below.

On 31 May 2016, the Human Trafficking & Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015 came into effect.

The 2015 Act introduced new offences and aggravations, which apply to conduct occurring on or after 31 May 2016.

Offences that were in effect prior to the implementation of the 2015 Act continue to apply to conduct occurring before 17 December 2016.

The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service are able to provide statistical data from 2002/03 onwards. Table 1 details the number of accused persons reported to the Procurator Fiscal, for one or more of the offences listed below, in each financial year since 2002-03.

Table 1

The most recent data for environment protection expenditure is published as part of the Country and regional analysis published by HM Treasury ( Country and regional analysis: 2021 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) ). The relevant information can be found in Table A-15 of the published tables.

Table 1 is taken from the publication and summarises expenditure per head for Scotland, England and Wales for 2020–21.

Table 1