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Article 24 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child includes the right to adequate nutritious food. Universal school breakfast provision does have the potential to give further and fuller effect to this right.

The Concluding Observations from the UK’s recent state party scrutiny by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child includes a recommendation that the UK administrations strengthen measures to address child malnutrition, food insecurity and growing trends in overweight and obesity, by expanding the free school meals programme to all children in disadvantaged situations. It is not specific about how provision could be strengthened in Scotland.

The current lists of Ministerial responsibilities are provided on the Scottish Government website at Cabinet and Ministers - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

Where Ministers have recused themselves from an issue within their portfolio to avoid an actual or perceived conflict of interest, this is recorded on the Scottish Government website at List of ministers' interests - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

These lists are kept up to date and reflect changes made since 15 June 2023.

The aim of our long-term staffing strategy for education is to ensure there continues to be a high-quality education workforce that is empowered to deliver improved learning and societal outcomes for all children and young people, and has access to a wide range of effective professional learning.

We are supporting the recruitment of teachers by providing local authorities with £145.5m in this year's budget to protect increased teacher and support staff numbers. We also work with partners on the Teacher Workforce Planning Advisory Group (TWPAG) to determine the number of initial teacher education students required across Scotland.

To help support recruitment and retention of high-quality professionals, we have agreed the most generous pay deal for teachers since 2001, meaning that Scottish classroom teachers on the main-grade scale are the best paid in the UK. The impact of this is shown by the fact that Scotland has the most teachers-per-pupil in the UK.

We are also supporting existing teachers with their wellbeing and ensuring that they have access to high-quality professional learning.

To ensure effective and evidence-informed longer-term teacher workforce planning, the Scottish Government has commissioned an external analysis and research exercise that will bring together a range of factors including current teacher numbers, pupil teacher ratios and the projected decline in the number of school-aged children. This analysis will inform decisions on education workforce planning for future years.

The Programme for Government 2023-24 set out major new commitments on childcare, including how we will test, for the first time, what an all-age childcare system will look like for Scotland in six local authority areas. We are working closely with communities, our partners and providers to consider how the early learning and school age childcare workforce can support these systems, and what they will need to do so. This includes regulation, qualifications, professional development and recruitment planning. We are also supporting a sustainable childcare profession by providing funding to increase pay to £12 per hour to early learning and childcare professionals working in the private, voluntary and independent (PVI) sector who are delivering funded provision.

Information on students and qualifiers is collected by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA).

The table below shows the number of students who qualified from Scottish HEIs between 2012-13 and 2021-22 academic years grouped by domicile.

We are committed to reducing the cost of school uniform and supporting families so that every child in Scotland can attend school feeling comfortable, confident, and ready to learn.

It is for local authorities to determine the eligibility criteria for school clothing grant and respond to the individual needs and circumstances of pupils in their area. This vital support for families has increased to at least £120 for eligible primary school pupils and £150 for eligible secondary school pupils. As part of action to further reduce the cost of the school day for families, we have committed through the
‎ 2023-24 Programme for Government to uplift funding by inflation to local authorities for school clothing grant in the next financial year.

We recognise that not all families will be eligible to receive school clothing grant. Therefore, we will introduce national guidance on school uniform to support schools to work with families to develop and implement affordable and sustainable uniform and clothing policies that recognise the individual needs, circumstances and identities of all pupils. It is anticipated that the guidance will be published in spring 2024.

In recognition of long waiting times for dental surgery which have been exacerbated due to the pandemic, the Scottish Government published the NHS Recovery Plan in August 2021. The £1 billion backed plan will support an increase in outpatient and inpatient activity to reduce waiting times through the implementation of sustainable improvements and new models of care.

Key actions of the plan include creating a network of National Treatment Centres (NTC’s) which will provide and create capacity nationally. This additional capacity will free up space for other specialties locally to address waiting times.

The Scottish Government and the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) regularly engage with universities on a wide range of issues, such as budgets and priorities for the future, including Net Zero.

Published in November 2022, SFC’s ‘Net Zero and Sustainability Framework for Action’ establishes a clear, long-term plan to support Scotland’s colleges and universities through the transition to Net Zero, reflecting improved corporate accountability and collective responsibility across the Further and Higher Education sector.

The plan sets out a clear timeline of actions which aim to embed net zero and sustainability across all aspects of the sector which you can find more information about here: Net Zero response (sfc.ac.uk)

The Scottish Government home education guidance sets out the legal position on home education and provides advice on the roles and responsibilities of local authorities and parents in relation to children who are home educated.

The Scottish Government and the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) engage regularly with colleges, which, are key anchors for the transition to Net Zero, acting as both community enablers and demonstration hubs in cities and regions.

Published in November 2022, SFC’s ‘Net Zero and Sustainability Framework for Action’ establishes a clear, long-term plan to support Scotland’s colleges and universities through the transition to Net Zero, reflecting improved corporate accountability and collective responsibility across the Further and Higher Education sector.

The plan sets out a clear timeline of actions which aim to embed net zero and sustainability across all aspects of the sector which you can find more information about here: https://www.sfc.ac.uk/net-zero/net-zero-reponse.aspx .

It remains an unwelcome reality that our communities experience health, quality of life and even life expectancy differently across our society. Increasing healthy life expectancy and reducing health inequalities across Scotland remains a clear ambition for the Scottish Government.

We know that deprivation is a significant driver of excess mortality and so reducing poverty and inequality sits at the heart of our investment across all portfolios, and remains the best way of improving life expectancy. In 2022-23, we invested £3bn across a range of programmes targeted at low income households, with £1.25bn directly benefitting children. We increased the Scottish Child Payment to £25 per eligible child per week – an increase of 150% in less than a year - and expanded the payment to all eligible children under the age of 16.

We have Community Link Workers and Welfare Rights Advisers embedded into 180 GP practices within our rural, island and deprived communities; who offer advice to patients regarding social security eligibility, debt resolution, housing and employability issues. We are also progressing a range of action to reduce population level health harming activities across tobacco control, preventing and treating alcohol related harm, improving the food environment to enable healthy weight, and improving physical activity.

We will continue to work with our partners to understand what is needed at a national and regional level to support local, preventative action to drive improvements in health, and embed health considerations within wider policy making.