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The agreed transaction structure secured the earliest realisation of the commercial and wider economic benefits of the deal and prevented the closure of the last remaining steel plant in Scotland and the loss of hundreds of highly skilled jobs.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting bereaved parents and tackling funeral poverty.

We have removed child burial and cremation fees for children under 18 years old and for stillborn babies, financially supporting bereaved parents.

Parents whose baby sadly dies after it was born, or is stillborn, may be eligible for Best Start Grant Pregnancy and Baby Payment. If the parent is under 18 or a dependent aged 18 or 19, they do not need to receive any benefits to be eligible.

Statutory Parental Bereavement Pay and Leave is reserved to the UK Government.

While we have no such plans given the important role that homes for mid-market rent play in the wider housing system, we will continue to work across the Scottish Government and with local and UK Government to respond to the housing emergency and to deliver on our target of 110,000 affordable homes by 2032 – of which at least 70% will be for social rent.

As set out in Programme for Government 2024-25 we are making a new long-term commitment of £100 million, to grow with institutional investment to at least £500 million, supporting the construction of around 2,800 mid-market rent homes by making public funds go further.

Local authorities as strategic housing and planning authorities are responsible for assessing affordable housing needs in their area and setting out their investment priorities in their Strategic Housing Investment Plans (SHIPs). These plans set out planned proposals for affordable housing supply over a five year period, including homes for mid-market rent, and should be available on each local authority’s website.

The Scottish Government only holds development information relating to projects on site and does not hold information relating to projects in planning beyond projects outlined in SHIPs. It is worth noting that not all mid-market rent projects in planning would necessarily be delivered through the Affordable Housing Supply Programme (AHSP).

The following table provides a breakdown by local authority area of mid-market rent homes receiving funding through the AHSP which are currently on site. The figures include Registered Social Landlord mid-market rent and Council mid-market rent homes, and other mid-market rent homes through programmes such as Places for People Capital MMR Initiative and Rural and Island Housing Funds.

The creation of a Safer Drug Consumption Facility in Glasgow is progressing well - construction work is nearing completion to convert the existing facilities and make them fit for purpose and necessary staff recruitment and training is well underway. A provisional opening date of 21 has been announced by Glasgow Council.

We are committed to help deliver drug checking facilities across Scotland. The three pilot areas (Dundee, Aberdeen and Glasgow) have now submitted their licence applications to the Home Office and we are providing support as they are being progressed. We expect the application for the National Testing Laboratory, which will provide additional analysis of drug samples, to be submitted shortly. Edinburgh have also recently joined the national project group and they are at the early stages of considering the establishment of a similar facility.

Over £38 million has been made available through two rounds of the Residential Rehabilitation Rapid Capacity Programme (RRRCP) to increase residential rehab capacity across Scotland. This fund supports eight capacity projects – of which four are new projects and four are expansions to existing services. This will provide 140 more bed by 2025-26.

36 of these beds are already operational and additional projects will be completed over the coming year to add a further 34 beds across Ayrshire, Aberdeenshire and Highlands and Islands. Collectively, these not only substantially increase the number of bed spaces available but also importantly widen access to specific groups and addresses geographic barriers to accessing rehab.

Work is continuing through a range of projects and initiatives to expand access to naloxone and the latest estimated reach of the National Naloxone Programme was 74.7% (percentage of people at risk of opioid overdose who have been supplied with THN) at the end of 2023-24 Quarter 3. We continue to support Police Scotland in their carriage of naloxone by all front-line police officers, where it has been administered to over 450 individuals. Our click-and-deliver service continues to distribute large numbers of kits (894 in quarter 3 of 23-24, last data available) while the work we have supported through the Scottish Ambulance Service also meant 211 kits were distributed by them in the same period.

Recent activity to further expand access to naloxone has included making it available in first aid kits (crash packs) within Scottish prisons while also expanding the work being done by the Scottish Drugs Forum to distribute naloxone to people on liberation from prison through peers. We also continue to engage with UK Government colleagues around the forthcoming legislative change to naloxone prescribing regulations which will make accessing kits easier across the UK.

Additional harm reduction measures being implemented can be found on the Scottish Government’s website: https://www.gov.scot/policies/alcohol-and-drugs/national-mission/

The Scottish Government does not have a procedure in place to report collisions between its Marine Protection Vessels and cetaceans, basking sharks and other marine mammals. There have been no known incidences of collisions and so no procedure has been developed. Should an incident occur, our crews would assist where possible and report to the British Divers Marine Life Rescue and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, both of which crews have worked with before to assist stranded cetaceans.

The Scottish Government publishes figures relating to the supply of affordable homes across Scotland, on a quarterly basis, which can be found online at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/housing-statistics-for-scotland-new-house-building/.

The following table provides a breakdown of mid-market rent homes delivered with Scottish Government funding in each local authority area between April 2019 and end March 2024. The figures include Registered Social Landlord mid-market rent and Council mid-market rent homes. The figures also include other mid-market rent homes delivered through programmes such as National Housing Trust, Local Affordable Rent Housing Trust, Places for People Capital MMR Initiative and Rural and Island Housing Funds.

With the passage of the Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Act 2024, work is now progressing to have pilot buildings on an SBA pathway. The first step in this work is to complete a pilot cleanse of the 107 developments on the pilot list to ensure they are within the scope of the legislation. This would be conducted by a suitable expert, likely a Fire Engineer to provide assurance the correct buildings are on a pathway.

Scottish Government are aware of 30 Pilot assessments that have been undertaken for of the pilot entries. A pilot assessment includes any assessment carried out prior to the publication of the Single Building Assessment specification on the 21 June 2024. These numbers relate to known pilot assessments only as developers, home owners or other organisations could have commissioned assessments without informing the Scottish Government and therefore the true numbers may be higher and could increase as further information becomes available.

Pilot works to mitigate or remediate risks have started for five of the pilot entries. Works in this context refers to any action taken to address known cladding-related risks, including Urgent Interim Measures.

For those within the scope of the legislation, homeowners and residents will be informed and they will continue on the SBA pathway with the aim of completing a SBA in line with the newly published specification as soon as possible after the commencement of the Act.

The information requested on how many full-time equivalent nurses there were in 2023-24 can be found on the TURAS NHS Education for Scotland workforce statistics site at: NHS Scotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence

The training costs for an average nursing or midwifery student is in the region of £60,000 and a full breakdown of these costs including teaching grants, tuition fees, bursary and the various allowances was reported in S6W-28706 on 6 August 2024.

In the academic year of 2021-22, there were 190 entrants to first degree courses at a Scottish university on midwifery courses. Training costs for the 190 Scots Domiciled students for 3 years would be in the region of £11.4 million.

However combined with student attrition / withdrawal, pauses in education due to academic failure, ill health or maternity leave taken into account, the full cohort of students would not be expected to graduate in 3 years. Of those delayed students, many will go on to complete their programmes after 4 or even 5 years.

Vacancies fluctuate across NHS Scotland Boards and by specialism but vacancies will continue to be advertised across all Boards as they arise over coming months allowing graduates additional opportunities to apply. Health Boards are autonomous institutions, separate from the Scottish Government, and as such are responsible for recruitment. The Scottish Government’s role is to set policies and frameworks at a national level, and Health Boards, as employers, are responsible in recruiting graduates through fair and consistent recruitment practices. In some specialist areas the workforce profile means that turnover is lower and so anticipatory recruitment is more challenging than in higher volume / higher turnover roles.

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.