Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Scottish Government does not hold the information you have requested. The most recent Cancer Waiting Times Data from 1 January – 31 March 2023, published on the Public Health Scotland website, can be found at the following link - Cancer waiting times - 1 January to 31 March 2023 - Cancer waiting times - Publications - Public Health Scotland . Here you will find information on the median waiting times from referral to first treatment or from decision to treat to first treatment, split up by Health Board and Cancer Type.

The Scottish Government does not hold the information you have requested. The most recent Cancer Waiting Times Data from 1 January – 31 March 2023, published on the Public Health Scotland website, can be found at the following link - Cancer waiting times - 1 January to 31 March 2023 - Cancer waiting times - Publications - Public Health Scotland . Here you will find information on the median waiting times from referral to first treatment or from decision to treat to first treatment, split up by Health Board and Cancer Type.

Whilst there are no plans to collect GP waiting time data, Mr Yousaf announced last November the formation of the General Practice Access Group, with a view to understanding the challenges and issues affecting access to General Practice. This group will establish high level core principles to support and enhance patients’ experience of accessing ‘The Right Care, Right Time, Right Place’. Patient groups have been consulted and we expect the group’s work to be published later this summer.

The General Access group will help to build on the findings from the Health and Care Experience survey ( https://www.gov.scot/publications/health-care-experience-survey-2021-22-national-results/pages/3/) , which seeks out peoples experiences of accessing and using their GP practice and Out of Hours services.

It is difficult to make accurate estimates of the proportion of palm oil imported into Scotland that is from sustainable sources. There is no reason to believe that the proportion is significantly different from that for the UK as a whole. The most recent Annual Progress Report from the UK Roundtable on Sourcing Sustainable Palm Oil states that "since 2010, the proportion of UK imports of palm and palm kernel oil that can be reported as certified sustainable has increased from 16% to 72% in 2021, with the vast majority of remaining imports likely to be sourced through a form of assurance." The UK Government has consulted about regulations to introduce due diligence on forest risk commodities, which are planned to place new obligations on businesses that import large volumes of commodities that can be grown on newly cleared forest land. Businesses will be required to demonstrate that production of these commodities has respected local laws.

We know there can be many barriers preventing someone who is experiencing domestic abuse from leaving that relationship and we are firmly committed to looking at what we can do, within our devolved powers, to provide financial support to women so that financial uncertainty does not create a further barrier.

We are currently working with partners, including Scottish Women’s Aid (SWA), the Convention Of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) and Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) to explore how a fund providing immediate financial support to women leaving an abusive relationship could be developed and delivered.

The Scottish Government is committed to delivering fisheries management measures for existing Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) where such measures are not already in place, as well as key coastal biodiversity locations outside of these sites. As outlined in the Parliamentary Statement of 29 June 2023, due to the complexity of the of the inshore area and the number of sites, the fisheries management measures will not be delivered before March 2024. The Scottish Government will consult on the proposals for offshore areas after summer recess and on proposals for inshore areas in 2024.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-18168 on 6 May 2023 for details of the total area, in square kilometres, of the Marine Protected Area network designated in the Scottish continental shelf area adjacent to Scotland.

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

This is a matter for Local Authorities. The information requested is not held centrally.

However, you may find it helpful to contact The Society for Chief Trading Standards Officers in Scotland (SCOTSS) who may be able to assist you with this request.

Publicly funded peatland restoration is delivered by Peatland ACTION – a flagship partnership programme established by the Scottish Government with five public sector delivery partners – NatureScot, Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority, Scottish Water, Cairngorms National Park Authority and Forestry and Land Scotland.

We published our National Peatland Plan in 2015 which can be found here: https://www.nature.scot/doc/scotlands-national-peatland-plan-working-our-future In 2020 we announced an investment of £250 million to restore 250,000 hectares of peatlands over a 10 year period to 2030, and reiterated this commitment in the First Minister’s new policy prospectus ( https://www.gov.scot/publications/equality-opportunity-community-new-leadership-fresh-start ), aiming to deliver up to 110,000 hectares of restored peatland by 2026.

In addition to currently providing up to 100% funding for peatland restoration, we are working on a variety of parallel fronts by leveraging activity across the Scottish Government and through Peatland ACTION to increase restoration rates, this includes:

• developing new models for private finance;
• improving our scientific knowledge base to ensure we target restoration where it can be most beneficial;
• encouraging landowners and managers to participate in restoration through our land and agriculture reform programmes as well as exploring opportunities for restoration on public land;
• signposting to the new National Planning Framework ( https://www.gov.scot/publications/national-planning-framework-4/pages/6/ ), which strengthens controls on future extraction and on other types of development on peat;
• our consultation on ending the sale of peat in Scotland (closed 12 May 2023) which will support further policy development;
• addressing the skills shortages through the Peatland Skills, Capacity and Training Group which brings together partners from Peatland ACTION, Skills Development Scotland, LANTRA, Confor, Scotland’s Rural Collage and the James Hutton Institute;
• developing a Technical Compendium (published November 2022) ( https://www.nature.scot/doc/peatland-action-technical-compendium ) which is providing robust and standardised guidance on how to restore peatland and is helping contractors to specify and plan works more efficiently.

Comprehensive and rigorous monitoring of Scotland’s water environment is already undertaken by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA). This monitoring shows that 66% of Scotland’s water environment as a whole is assessed as having ‘good’ status and that 87% of Scotland’s entire water environment is assessed by SEPA as having a ‘high’ or ‘good’ classification for water quality.

In its improving urban waters routemap, Scottish Water committed to installing 1,000 new CSO monitors by the end of 2024.