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Scottish Ministers have committed to ending the practice of landfilling biodegradable municipal waste by 2025. In the update to our Climate Change Plan, we also committed to extend the ban to include biodegradable non-municipal waste, subject to appropriate consultation and work to provide assurance around some specific waste streams..

The Scottish Government, working with Zero Waste Scotland and local government partners, is providing centrally co-ordinated procurement support for local authorities without a solution in place in preparation for the ban coming into force in 2025. As part of this collaborative procurement programme, we are funding the provision of expert procurement, legal and technical support to local authorities to enable them to secure alternative solutions for their residual waste.

We are carefully considering all recommendations made in the report on the Independent Review of the Role of Incineration in the Waste Hierarchy, and will set out our initial response in June. This includes the recommendation that industry, local authorities and the Scottish Government should do more to make data around waste in general, and around incineration in particular, more transparent and accessible for all stakeholders.

The UK Government regularly publishes data relating to visas and arrivals under the Homes for Ukraine scheme: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ukraine-family-scheme-application-data/ukraine-family-scheme-and-ukraine-sponsorship-scheme-homes-for-ukraine-visa-data--2 .

Publications include information broken down by devolved administration and local authority area: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/ukraine-sponsorship-scheme-visa-data-by-country-upper-and-lower-tier-local-authority .

There is already a substantial body of evidence which shows that the areas with the highest levels of deprivation are disproportionately disadvantaged when it comes to health inequalities. For example, Healthy Life Expectancy data shows that those living in the most deprived communities spend on average 24 years fewer in good health than those living in the least deprived communities. Those in the most deprived areas also die younger and spend more than one third of their lives in poor health. Evidence also shows that the cost of living is considerably higher for households in the lowest income deciles compared to those with higher incomes. These households will therefore be hit hardest by any increases in the cost of living.

The Scottish Government is taking action to offset these challenges and minimise these harms, for example, by tackling child poverty and supporting households and businesses with the cost of living through £22.9 billion for social security assistance, increasing the Scottish Child Payment from £10 to £25 and expanding eligibility by the end of this year, providing universal free school meals to primary school children in P1-5 and expanding provision beyond that and uprating devolved benefits.

The Scottish Government works with other organisations such as Public Health Scotland and other stakeholders to ensure that our evidence base is as up to date as possible and focused on current and emerging priorities and challenges including work to understand the nature and impact of inequalities on health.

The Super Sponsor scheme is designed to provide a quick and safe route for displaced people from Ukraine to come to a place of sanctuary by removing the need for applicants to be matched to an individual sponsor prior to being given permission to travel to the UK.

Once people have arrived, a national matching service, delivered by COSLA, will match those settling here with longer-term accommodation across Scotland.

Displaced people from Ukraine are asked to complete a short questionnaire that captures key information and preferences. This information is then used to find suitable longer-term accommodation, which will be offered as a choice.

All 32 of our local authorities are taking part in this programme, and hosts have offered up their homes right across the country. The national matching service will ensure that people are offered settlement opportunities across Scotland, recognising that people will have different preferences and available housing is limited in some local authorities.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all people living in Scotland with epilepsy are able to access the best possible care and support, and benefit from healthcare services that are safe, effective and put people at the centre of their care.

Decisions on local staffing requirements are the responsibility of individual NHS Boards, such as NHS Western Isles which is reviewing its method of delivery for all people with neurological conditions, including epilepsy, across the island groups.

The Scottish Government and COSLA recently published a National Workforce Strategy on 11 March 2022. The Strategy commits to publishing new workforce projections in the autumn, once we have had the opportunity to consider Health Board and Health and Social Care Partnerships' three year workforce plans. The staffing needs for services and professional specialties across NHS Scotland will be, in partnership with stakeholders, factored into the development of those projections.

In 2019 we published a Neurological Care and Support – National Framework for Action 2020-25 , which sets out a vision to ensure everyone with a neurological condition, including epilepsy, can access the care and support they need to live well, on their own terms. Since October 2020, we have invested £324,500 in funding via the Framework to projects which specifically improve the health and wellbeing of people with epilepsy in Scotland.

The Scottish Government welcomes the announcement from the UK Government on the ambition to develop an Action Plan on ME/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), and fully supports its two core principles. We plan to work with the UK Government to explore areas of potential shared interest and learning, particularly in terms of research into ME/CFS.

We also welcome the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guideline for ME/CFS and are considering how best to review the existing Scottish guidance in light of this. On 12 May 2022, NICE published an implementation statement to support the implementation of the ME/CFS guideline. We intend to contact health boards in Scotland to raise awareness of the implementation statement and the key recommended changes to practice within the guideline.

We recently commissioned an external organisation to consult with the third sector, those with lived experience and clinical stakeholders to consider how we move forward in reviewing the existing Scottish guidance and on addressing priorities for service improvement in ME/CFS care. We will continue to work closely with stakeholders on how we progress the findings of this consultation and consider what other activity is required to support implementation of the NICE guideline recommendations.

Ministers were alerted to a decline in National Lottery ticket sales and to a consequent reduction in National Lottery good cause income in December 2016.

A mitigation strategy has been in place since October 2016 for a collaborative approach bringing together DCMS, the Gambling Commission, distributors and Camelot to address falling sales.

This includes Camelot undertaking a strategic review to return the lottery to growth; distributors promoting the link between National Lottery and Good cause projects; DCMS and the Gambling Commission are working with lottery distributors on potential levels of income if current trends continue.

Good cause returns for 2019-20 and for 2020-21 were better than expected and a total of £1,887 million was raised in 2020-21.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-08705 on 7 June 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 .

We have followed the recommendation of the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC), an independent scientific body that advises all four UK nations on screening, that women between the ages of 50 and 70 should be invited for three yearly routine breast screening. That is because there is clear evidence of benefit from screening women of that age group. The UK NSC does not recommend that women over 71 are invited for breast screening because the same evidence of benefit does not yet exist.

Prior to COVID-19, women aged 71 and over had the option to self-refer because there was enough capacity to allow them to do so. While programme capacity remains challenging due to the impacts of COVID-19, there remains a pause on self-referrals for those over the age of 71 to allow appointments to be prioritised for the recommended screening population.

However, in recognition of the anxiety that the pause on self-referrals is causing, work is underway with the National Screening Oversight and the Scottish Breast Screening Programme Board to explore ways to restart the self-referral route by Autumn 2022, in a way that does not unduly impact screening of the eligible cohort.

We continue to emphasise that, regardless of their age, women should remain symptom aware and report any concerns to their GP immediately for these to be investigated and followed up as appropriate.