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The 2021 Fuel Poverty Strategy, states that the required level of capital expenditure to bring fuel poor households up to EPC C, including the replacement of existing fossil fuel heating systems, will be in the region of £6 billion. The Scottish Government have committed to investing at least £1.8 billion this parliamentary term to help kick-start growth in the market and support those least able to pay. Alongside public investment, we need innovative mechanisms to increase individual and private-sector investment into energy efficiency and zero emissions heating. The Scottish Government has established a Green Heat Finance Taskforce to recommend ways that the Scottish Government and private sector can collaborate to scale up investment. It will provide an interim report by March 2023 and final recommendations by September that year.

Zero Waste Scotland have shared the draft of the Operational Assessment of Alternative Residual Waste Treatment Technologies report with the Review. It is for Dr Church, as independent Chair, to determine if and how this is incorporated into the Review.

Dr Church, the independent Chair of the Review, has stated his aim is to submit the report by Easter 2022 and we will publish it as soon as possible after this.

Scottish Government officials have had initial discussions with the UK Government, and other administrations regarding continued support for the survivors of Thalidomide in Scotland. Officials also continue to engage with the Thalidomide Trust to discuss future funding, with a further meeting scheduled next month.

The NHS Recovery Plan, published August 2021, commits an additional £20m for the Detect Cancer Early (DCE) Programme, to provide greater public awareness of signs and symptoms of cancer and support the development of optimal cancer pathways to improve earlier diagnosis rates. Research is currently being undertaken to better understand the possible barriers and levers to early diagnosis that any new DCE campaigns should focus on. In addition, our public facing website (getcheckedearly.org) signposts people to the possible signs and symptoms of cancer including sarcoma.

The Scottish Referral Guidelines for Suspected Cancer support primary cancer professionals to ensure those patients with potential symptoms of cancer are swiftly referred into secondary care. In addition we have invested £3m in establishing Scotland’s Early Cancer Diagnostic Centres, providing patients with non-specific symptoms suspicious of cancer access to a fast-track diagnostic pathway.

Part 1 of the Child Disability Payment application form gathers key personal details of the client and Part 2 of the application form asks for more details on the impact of the client’s disability. For applications that do not progress to complete Part 2, an application outcome is recorded, which can include denied or withdrawn. Where applicable, a high level reason for an application being denied is also recorded.

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

The NHS Recovery Plan, published August 2021, commits an additional £20m for the Detect Cancer Early (DCE) Programme, to provide greater public awareness of signs and symptoms of cancer and support the development of optimal cancer pathways to improve earlier diagnosis rates. Research is currently being undertaken to better understand the possible barriers and levers to early diagnosis that any new DCE campaigns should focus on, with results expected in April.

A symptom-checker tool is included on our public facing website (getcheckedearly.org) to raise awareness of the early signs and symptoms of cancer, including ovarian cancer. A survivor’s story and a link to the ovarian cancer page on DCE’s website will also be shared on wee c social media pages during Ovarian Cancer Awareness month.

On 30 March, the Scottish Parliament will hold a members business debate for ovarian cancer awareness month to raise awareness of the common symptoms.

The Scottish Fiscal Commission published updated forecasts alongside the 2022-23 Scottish Budget on 9 December 2021.

In line with their forecasts, the Scottish Government is committing £3,949 million to social security assistance in 2022-23, and is investing an additional £2.7 million to uprate eight Scottish benefits by 6% from 1 April, subject to parliamentary approval.

The UK Government Spring Statement was made on 23 March and provided an updated set of Social Security Block Grant Adjustments for 2022-23 which total £3,601 million.

Therefore, the Scottish Government is making an additional investment of over £346 million in the social security benefits in 2022-23.

Social security spending is demand-led which means it is variable and harder to control than other areas of spending. We will manage any variance between actual and forecast expenditure or Block Grant Adjustment, in a competent, responsible and balanced way.

Vaccination policy in Scotland, is based on recommendations from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).

Following the Committee’s recommendation, from August 2019 the HPV immunisation programme in Scotland was extended to adolescent boys entering their first year of secondary school (S1).

The JCVI has not recommended a catch up for older boys as evidence suggests they are already benefitting from the indirect protection built up in the population over 10 years of the girls’ HPV vaccination programme.

From 2016 HPV vaccine has been available to men who have sex with men (MSM) up to and including 45 years of age who attend sexual health or HIV clinics. The HPV MSM programme is opportunistic and offers direct protection.

The JCVI keeps its recommendations under review and if the advice on HPV vaccination was to change we would of course give this due consideration.