Seòmar agus comataidhean

Keeping children and young people safe from online sexual abuse and exploitation is of the utmost importance to the Scottish Government.

We welcome the work of Childlight to harness worldwide data to help inform tangible action to protect children. We recognise that these problems are global and require global solutions.

In Scotland, we are working closely with partners to deliver a co-ordinated multi-agency response to preventing child sexual abuse and exploitation in all its forms.

We are establishing a new strategic group to provide national leadership and further improve our shared response in Scotland to child sexual abuse and exploitation, including online abuse. This group will first meet in the summer.

Through the Scottish Government’s membership of Police Scotland’s Multi-Agency Group on Preventing Online Child Sexual Abuse, we monitor emerging online threats and agree a shared approach to using technological advancements to tackle abuse, improve data-gathering, improve support for victims and survivors and promote key activities delivered by our partners.

We recognise that prevention is key to protecting children online and we are taking a range of actions to increase awareness of online child sexual abuse and exploitation and improve support to victims.

In 2023-24 we provided around £570,000 to third sector organisations involved in child safeguarding and prevention of child sexual abuse and exploitation, including online abuse. We have also updated our National Child Protection Guidance to support practitioners to develop effective, evidence-based responses to child sexual abuse and exploitation. In 2022 and 2023, we ran a national public awareness campaign to support parents are carers to keep their children safer online.

While regulation of the internet remains a reserved matter, we have successfully engaged with the UK Government on its Online Safety Act, to strengthen protections for children. We will continue to engage with both the UK Government and Ofcom to ensure that the Act does all that it can to protect children online. With the Minister for Victims and Community Safety, I will be meeting Ofcom to discuss implementation of this important legislation and to ensure that children in Scotland are kept safe online.

Short-term let accommodation is an important part of the tourism economy, and I am grateful to the many thousands of operators who have applied for a licence which shows their businesses are of high quality and safety for visitors.

Our Business Regulatory Impact Assessment in 2019 was informed by available online listings data, I am pleased that we are now able to publish quarterly official statistics on application levels, reflecting the importance of formal monitoring of the size of the sector, and any trends in application data. I do not wish to see any operator leave the sector and I am aware of a range of factors, including the impact of the costs crisis that may be influencing business decisions.

Since the deadline for existing hosts in October 2023, myself and my officials have undertaken a range of engagement with stakeholders which will be used as part of ongoing monitoring, and I will provide an update to Parliament on the implementation of licensing in June this year.

When the Ferguson Marine shipyard was threatened with closure in 2019 the Scottish Government stepped forward and saved the business. Taking the yard into public ownership preserved commercial shipbuilding on the Clyde, rescued more than 300 jobs and ensured that the Glen Sannox and Glen Rosa vessels – vital for our island communities – will be delivered.

We want to see the yard prosper, be competitive and continue the proud shipbuilding traditions on the Clyde. We are continuing to work with the business to understand its forward plans and to review proposals for investment.

In my statement to Parliament on 16 May, I set out that there is now a critical risk to the continued safe and effective operation of the prison estate, and that urgent action is needed.

If the legal test for use of emergency release is satisfied when section 11 of the Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Act 2023 comes into force on 26 May, then I intend to bring forward a proposal for Parliament’s consideration for the emergency release of prisoners.

This is not a decision I have taken lightly. But we must ensure the safety and wellbeing of Scottish Prison Service staff and those people in their care, and that our prisons continue to function effectively to accommodate those who pose the greatest risk of harm.

Members will have the opportunity to scrutinise and debate the approach and, in this instance, we will not release a single prisoner without Parliament’s consent.

I also intend to carry out a short consultative exercise over the summer, and to return after recess with a proposal for a Bill for Parliament’s consideration to change how long-term prisoners are released and managed.

Finally, I intend to bring forward secondary legislation to amend the eligibility criteria for use of Home Detention Curfew (HDC), increasing the period of time individuals can spend on release under licence conditions. These regulations will be subject to scrutiny under the affirmative procedure.

We remain committed to fair regulation of short-term let accommodation, which provides assurance to guests on safety and quality such as gas and electrical safety compliance and the suitability of hosts. We have listened to the sector and we have already made a number of changes to legislation and guidance, including extending the deadline for the overall scheme, and on 16 May I will lay an amending SSI, which makes further operational updates based on a range of feedback.

I have also written to the relevant lead committee to set out the monitoring we are undertaking of the new regulations, which includes ongoing engagement with stakeholders from the sector, local authorities, and residents groups. I have listened to specific feedback from Airbnb when I have met them in recent months, and I am cognisant of their desire to continue to build confidence in Scotland’s tourism offer ,which will also be achieved by stability of the scheme, which is still in a transitional phase. The global platforms I have met have said it is too early to draw conclusions on licensing more widely, and especially difficult to attribute trends to any one of multiple factors, however I would welcome any information they are willing to share as we prepare to provide a further implementation update to Parliament in the coming months.

The Scottish Government remains committed to banning conversion practices in Scotland.

Our public consultation, containing detailed proposals, ran for 12 weeks and closed on 2 April 2024. Responses to that consultation are now being analysed and considered. Future legislative programmes will be announced in relevant Programmes for Government in the usual way.

The majority of NHS dental services are provided by independent contractors, including corporate entities, who not employed by the NHS but instead make ‘arrangements’ with NHS Boards to provide dental services in their area. As the Scottish Government has no direct control on recruitment within these private businesses, policy focus to date has been placed on improving the NHS offer by introducing a new fee scale and increasing the incentives available to the independent sector to provide NHS dental services. The initial impression from the sector has been encouraging in welcoming the changes to NHS fees.

In addition, we continue to make available targeted ‘golden-hello’ workforce incentives in areas where access has proved more challenging; this pays out up to £37,500 for dental trainees who join the dental list in a qualifying area.

In recognising that we have no direct levers to improve recruitment, at the national level we are focused on actions to improve the workforce supply, including leading discussions with UK and other devolved governments on our shared challenges. We therefore welcome the consultation brought forward by UK Government to vary the General Dental Council’s powers, allowing for a new provisional registration status to allow overseas dentists to enter the workforce much more quickly, and we are having preparatory discussions with stakeholders to understand how this could work in practice. Alongside work to improve international pipelines, we are also working to consider our domestic routes into dentistry and other dental care professions by ensuring that our educational offering reflects workforce need in all areas of the country.

By increasing the fees payable to NHS dentistry and improving workforce supply, the intention is to provide an improved landscape for independent contractors and dental bodies corporate to sustain NHS dental services into the medium- to longer-term.

While the MV Glen Sannox and the MV Glen Rosa operate temporarily from Troon, LNG will be bunkered directly from HGV tankers to the vessels. The design of the potential improvement works at Ardrossan Harbour includes provision for an LNG storage facility to serve the vessels in the longer term.

The planned deployment of the MV Glen Rosa to the Arran route means that an LNG facility is no longer required at Uig harbour as part of the Little Minch Infrastructure Programme.

The Scottish Government notes the decision from NatWest Group to close 18 Royal Bank of Scotland branches this year which continues a trend seen across the banking sector. Scottish Ministers are fully aware of the negative impact this will have on affected communities – particularly for small businesses and vulnerable or digitally excluded consumers given the challenges they can face in accessing alternative banking services.

The regulation of financial services is reserved to the UK Government and they recently legislated through the Financial Services and Markets Act 2023 to grant the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) greater powers to protect access to cash across the UK. The FCA launched a consultation on a proposed new regulatory framework for access to cash which the Scottish Government formally responded to earlier this year. I will be meeting with Nikhil Rathi, Chief Executive of the FCA, on 26 June to continue the dialogue begun by my colleague, Neil Gray, to further consider their proposed access to cash plans and ensure the cash access and banking requirements of Scotland’s communities are articulated, understood and addressed.

The Scottish Government have also sought to engage directly with the banking sector in Scotland on the future of the in-person cash and banking services they provide. Through this engagement we have agreement in-principle from several of the major banks in Scotland to attend a Scottish Government hosted cross-party roundtable on access to cash and banking services. This will take place on 4 June and we have now issued invites to all political parties and stakeholders across the Scottish financial services sector. I am confident that this will provide a constructive forum between the Scottish Government, elected representatives and the financial services sector to fully understand the impacts of a declining branch network on Scottish communities, and find collaborative ways to ensure there are long-term sustainable solutions to protect access to cash and physical banking services.