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The Scottish Government appreciates the spotlight that Shelter Scotland shines on our shared vision of a safe, secure, affordable home for everyone in Scotland.

Having delivered our previous 50,000 affordable homes target, we have now started to deliver against our commitment to 110,000 affordable homes by 2032, 70% of which will be for social rent and 10% in remote, rural and island areas.

We do not conduct our own polling and public perception research. However, we do publish quarterly Official Statistics and annual Outturn Reports that focus on how the Affordable Housing Supply Programme resources were spent and what they delivered, in line with priorities and outcomes identified within local authority Strategic Housing Investment Plans which set out the key strategic affordable housing investment priorities.

Following completion of an innovative co-creative process with the community, work to assess four route options, including the community’s preferred route option, is ongoing. A preferred route is expected to be announced later this year. Once a preferred route option is announced a timetable for the statutory processes will be set. It is necessary that the correct statutory process is followed to ensure a fair and transparent assessment of options and impacts on local communities and road users.

Work is ongoing to determine the most suitable procurement options, when the statutory process is complete, for the remaining sections of the A9 dualling. This is a complex exercise which looks at a number of factors including how the project can be delivered most efficiently by the industry, whilst minimising disruption to road users and helping to support economic recovery post-COVID. An update on the outcomes of this complex piece of work will be provided when the work is completed.

Information on the number of children receiving free school meals, broken down by parliamentary constituency, is not available. The Pupil Census of 2021 reported there were 274,938 children in primaries 1 to 5 at all schools across Scotland, and 17,482 of those were registered with schools managed by South Lanarkshire Council.

Free school lunches are available to all children in primaries 1 to 5 during school term-time, therefore all children within this age group are automatically registered to receive them if they wish. We estimate that providing free school meals will save families around £400 per child, per year on average.

The Scottish Government’s Social Enterprise Strategy was launched in 2016 and sets out a wide-ranging, ambitious and long-term programme to develop the potential of Scotland's social enterprise sector. The latest Social Enterprise Action Plan was published on 24 th March 2021 and covers the period 2021-24.

In 2021-22 we spent £7.1M in supporting social enterprise and expect to spend £6.6M in 2022-23. £15M was distributed through COVID support funds in 2021-22.

Funding is provided to third sector organisations, including social enterprises, from across Scottish Government portfolios and is not collated centrally.

Under the provisions of Curriculum for Excellence education authorities and schools have the flexibility to decide upon the content of their own lessons at the local level, this includes for activities offered in physical education (PE) lessons, taking into account the local needs and circumstances of all children and young people, including boys and girls.

The Scottish Government does not hold information about how many schools offer access to football as a part of their PE lessons or afterschool clubs, however schools can offer football training where is a demand for it.

Active Schools aim to provide more and higher quality opportunities to take part in sport and physical activity before school, during lunchtime and after school, and to develop effective pathways between schools and sports clubs in the local community. sport scotland works in partnership with all 32 local authorities to invest in and support the Active Schools Network.

All Active Schools teams are working to deliver their mainstream extracurricular programmes with an inclusive focus whilst targeting those groups in greatest need of inclusion. This allows for local teams to use their local data to determine who the inactive are for their school communities to ensure that they can tailor delivery on a need led basis.Specific activities such as football, and the structure of these activities, provided through Active Schools are at the discretion of each local authority/Active Schools team.

I understand that sport scotland will write to Mr Ruskell separately to highlight various opportunities that girls and young women have to take part in sport and physical activity – including Active Schools, and more widely across club and community sport. sport scotland are currently processing the 2021-22 Active Schools data. Data on girls and young women’s participation in football through the Active Schools programme will be shared with Mr Ruskell by sport scotland once available.

As set out in the response to S6W-06821 on 10 March 2022 the vast majority of homelessness funding provided to local authorities has been included in the block grant. It is at each local authority’s discretion as to how they use this resource to prevent and respond to homelessness.

In addition, the Scottish Government provides local authorities with an annual share of £23.5 million for homelessness prevention and response measures and an annual share of £8 million to support the implementation of rapid rehousing transition plans (RRTPs). This funding is transferred to local government over the course of the year, and the breakdown of this funding for 2021-22, the last full financial year, is set out in the tables below. The final table includes resource provided to local authorities for coordination of the five Housing Options Hubs across Scotland.

In 2021-2022, the Scottish Government invested over £12 million to support free income maximisation, welfare and debt advice services and has allocated the same amount in 2022-2023. This overall figure includes frontline and second tier advice and debt services.

We also invest in a range of other services that provide advice and information to people on specific issues including Housing, Consumer, Additional Support for Learning, Kinship Care, NHS Patient Support and Fuel costs. In 2021-2022, we invested over £17.5 million in these services and have allocated over £20 million in 2022-2023.

Section 11 of the Homelessness etc. (Scotland) Act 2003 requires a landlord to notify the local authority when proceedings for possession are raised providing information prescribed in Schedule 1 of The Notice to Local Authorities (Scotland) Regulations 2008. Landlords are not legally obliged to provide any further information.

The process of gathering cull returns is ongoing and NatureScot continues to gather returns for the last three years. The most up to date figures are captured in the table below and will be available on the NatureScot website later this month. These figures will be regularly updated as additional information is received.

At present returns from approximately 950 properties for the 21/22 are still to be received.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-10057 on 18 August 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