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The public health surveillance system for drug harms will be fully operational by 31 March 2022 and led by Public Health Scotland. An early warning system is in development and structures are in place to ensure evidence based approaches to reducing drug harms are implemented.

The system collates and analyses a range of information relating to drug harms made available through organisations such as Police Scotland, Health Boards Scottish Prison Services, Local Authorities, the third sector and people with lived and living experience.

The Scottish Drug Deaths Taskforce has funded a project through Stirling University to research and develop the key components required to implement Drug Checking facilities in three areas in Scotland (Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen). Research began in January 2021 and will conclude with an evaluation report in January 2023. The project will also include a parallel programme of implementation.

The project team has committed to submitting applications to the Home Office in early 2022. Assuming support from the Home Office is forthcoming, we expect services to be established in Aberdeen, Dundee and Glasgow in 2022.

We have highlighted our desire to introduce these facilities to the Home Office as any activity which involves the possession of controlled drugs would require a Home Office licence. Kit Malthouse, the UK Government Minister for Policing, has indicated that he is open to discussing this with the Scottish Government and conversations have taken place between Scottish and UK officials to progress this.

The emergence of new drugs is regularly monitored by Public Health Scotland and, following the alert from Public Health England in 2021, work is underway to incorporate screening for isotonitazene into toxicology procedures for both drug-related deaths and police seizures in Scotland.

In relation to detection of substances, unfortunately we do not hold information broken down to the level of detail requested. Scottish Government publish statistics on the number of drug possession and supply crimes and the quantities seized. These statistics relate to drugs controlled under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. The full report can be accessed via this link:

Drug seizures and Offender Characteristics, 2018-2019 and 2019-20 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The Psychoactive Substance Act 2016 made it an offence to produce, supply, offer to supply, possess with intent to supply, possess on custodial premises, import or export psychoactive substances. The number of crimes of production, supply or possession in custody of a psychoactive substance was 2 in 2018-19, 10 in 2019-20 and 8 in 2020-21 (source: annex of the above noted report).

Unfortunately, we do not hold the information requested.

National Records of Scotland produce an annual National Statistics publication each year on drug-related deaths in Scotland. The most recent year for which this drug death information is available is 2020. The next report, covering drug-related deaths during 2021, is due to be published in summer 2022.

Public Health Scotland information on hospital activity relating to illicit drug use in Scotland does not identify the substances specified - heroin and methadone are the only opioids with specific ICD-10 diagnostic codes (ICD-10 refers to ‘International Classification of Diseases 10th Revision, the international standard diagnostic classification for all general epidemiological, health management purposes and clinical use).

From September 2021 we have introduced quarterly reporting of suspected drug-related deaths, providing far more timely data on the DRD crisis/situation for the first time. This report uses management information from Police Scotland on suspected drug deaths. The second publication of these suspected figures was in December 2021 and covered the period from July to September 2021 ( Suspected drug deaths in Scotland: July to September 2021 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) ). The next report will be published in March 2022 and will cover suspected deaths up to the end of December 2021.

We continue to work with Police Scotland, Public Health Scotland and National Records of Scotland to review the surveillance data we have, review quality and determine whether additional information could be published in the future.

The Scottish Government currently provides the most generous non-domestic rates regime for renewable energy generation in the UK. Under the Valuation for Rating (Plant and Machinery) (Scotland) Regulations 2000, solar panels, wind turbines and storage batteries are already exempt from rating where they are used for the generation, storage, transformation or transmission of power, where the power is mainly or exclusively ‘for distribution for sale to consumers’.

The Scottish Budget 2022-23 will expand the Business Growth Accelerator relief for property improvements to include the installation of solar panels as a qualifying improvement. The Business Growth Accelerator is unique in the UK and provides 100% relief on new builds for up to 12 months after first occupation and no rates increases for 12 months after a qualifying property improvement.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-05040 on 11 January 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

The Scottish Government is committed to working in partnership with COSLA, local authorities, and the wide range of public bodies on the shared national endeavour to tackle the global climate emergency.

The Scottish Government and Sustainable Scotland Network (SSN) has collaborated on new guidance, Public Sector Leadership on the Global Climate Emergency, published on 29 October 2021. The Guidance sets out that the public sector is crucial to the implementation of national and local climate policy and that public bodies are expected to show leadership by continuing to reduce their own emissions quickly and will need to reduce emissions close to zero without offsetting for Scotland to meet its national climate change goals.

No investigations have yet been undertaken under section 48 of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009.

The statutory targets to reduce Scotland’s economy-wide emissions to net-zero, set under the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 and Climate Change (Emissions Reductions Target) (Scotland) Act 2019, are set at the national level and are not disaggregated to local authority levels.

New regulations, which came into force on 9 November 2020, require around 180 Scottish public bodies by November 2022 to report, where applicable, the body’s target date for achieving zero direct emissions of greenhouse gases (or such other targets that demonstrate how the body is contributing to Scotland achieving its emissions reduction targets) and, where applicable, targets for reducing indirect emissions of greenhouse gases. It is for those public bodies to determine where best to target their resource and effort to support achievement of respective targets to reduce emissions.

Since 2015-16, around 180 listed Scottish public bodies have been required to report annually on compliance with their statutory climate change duties. To assess progress on emissions reduction, the Scottish Government funds the Sustainable Scotland Network (SSN) Secretariat to produce an annual analysis of the submitted reports. Reported emissions from the public sector continue to decrease, with Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions down 28.5% since mandatory reporting began in 2015-16.