Seòmar agus comataidhean

Our commitment of up to £500 million strategic investment over the next five years, with investment of £67 million in the next financial year, will allow the Scottish Government to capitalise on offshore wind supply chain opportunities across the country.

This commercial and grant investment will help stimulate and support private investment in the infrastructure and manufacturing facilities critical to the growth of our world-leading offshore wind sector, underlining our absolute determination to truly maximise the economic opportunities and benefits from our offshore wind potential.

The Scottish Government continues to work closely with the UK Government on the planned delivery for their Advanced Manufacturing Plan which outlines £960 million for a Green Industries Growth Accelerator focused on expanding manufacturing capacity across the country.

Our National Strategy for Economic Transformation (NSET) also sets out our ambition for Scotland to continue to take global leadership in the design, development and operationalisation within the renewables sector.

Our Making Scotland’s Future (MSF) programme helps ensure a coherent and focused approach to the provision of support to the manufacturing sector.

Centred within the MSF lies the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland which represents investment of £75 million from the Scottish Government and its agencies to which drives an industry-led research and development group with the mission to make Scotland a global leader in advanced, sustainable manufacturing.

Research into sea-lice infestation dynamics is an ongoing area of interest for the Scottish Government’s Marine Directorate. Most notably, in 2015 we initiated a ten-year programme of research to investigate any potential risk to wild salmon from sea lice in the Scottish coastal environment titled ‘The interactions and effects of sea lice on wild salmon’ (project number FW0050).

Public sector support for research and development does not sit within the Wellbeing Economy, Fair Work and Energy portfolio. This support is directed and delivered by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC).

SFC strategic initiatives, such as Alliances for Research Challenges, Innovation Centres, and Research Pools, aim to harness our research and knowledge exchange capabilities across a number of priority areas, including Life Sciences.

The Scottish Government continues to support high-quality research and innovation across Scotland, and has increased the investment in higher education capital to over £350m for 2024-25.

Within the Scottish Government, funding of Health and Care Research comes under the remit of the Chief Scientist Office (CSO). CSO provides funding support through NHS Research Scotland who are currently supporting 13 Brain Tumour Clinical studies with over 190 patients recruited.

Additionally, Scottish Enterprise are an active investor and collaborative partner supporting the life sciences sector.

The Scottish Government and its relevant agencies proactively consider the potential impacts of any introduction of, or changes to, regulatory controls in place to prevent damage to the marine environment. When a new regulatory control is being considered for the purpose of maintaining the environment, consultation is the standard approach applied by the relevant body prior to explore all potential impacts, including those relating to fish health. Recent examples include consultation by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) throughout its development of the forthcoming spatial framework for managing interactions between sea lice from marine fish farm developments and wild Atlantic salmon, SEPA published its response to its most recent consultation on 7 December 2023. In addition, the Scottish Government undertook consultation on the implementation of the new Environmental Quality Standard for Emamectin Benzoate. This consultation closed on 24 July 2023 and responses are being carefully considered.

The identification of a host institution can only take place when the co-design process has concluded. This process is currently being set up with key stakeholders, including teachers and professional bodies, with timelines to be agreed as part of that.

I can today announce that the Scottish Government will establish an Expert Group to lead on scoping work to consider and provide recommendations on how Scotland will work towards reaching the targets set by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to eliminate Cervical Cancer.

The WHO advises that to eliminate Cervical Cancer, all countries must reach and maintain an incidence rate of below four per 100 000 women. Achieving that goal rests on three key pillars and their corresponding targets:

• vaccination: 90% of girls fully vaccinated with the HPV vaccine by the age of 15;
• screening: 70% of women screened using a high-performance test by the age of 35, and again by the age of 45;
• treatment: 90% of women with pre-cancer treated and 90% of women with invasive cancer managed.

Each country should meet the 90–70–90 targets by 2030 to get on the path to eliminate cervical cancer within the next century.

Scotland has already observed many successes in tackling Cervical Cancer and is close to, or has met many of the targets to work towards achieving elimination status.

The Expert Group, due to meet soon will comprise Scottish Government policy officials, clinicians, Public Health Scotland (PHS), National Services Division, Third Sector organisations such as Jo’s Trust.

We will progress work with key stakeholders and develop actions to address inequalities to ensure that the work to meet the targets does not only focus on overall population levels, but addresses the inequalities gap.

Once the Expert Group have considered and provided their recommendations on when Scotland is likely to meet the WHO targets, I will provide a further update to Parliament.

Scottish COVID-19 vaccination policy and delivery is based on advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation and the information contained within the COVID-19 Green Book Chapter.

Individuals who have a condition that puts them at higher clinical risk from COVID-19 are eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine this winter. Anyone unsure about their health condition or circumstance, should speak to their health professional, specialist or local vaccination services. Further information on the COVID-19 vaccine and health conditions can be found on NHS inform .

The COVID-19 Chapter 14a of the Green Book states that examples in tables 3 and 4 are not exhaustive, and, within these broad groups, the prescriber may need to apply clinical judgment to take into account the risk of COVID-19 exacerbating any underlying disease that a patient may have, as well as the risk of serious illness from COVID-19 itself. A more comprehensive list of potentially eligible diagnoses, and the appropriate clinical codes, is found in the link at the end of the chapter.

Clinicians can refer patients to their local immunisation teams, if they believe the individual to be at risk, but does not have one of the conditions listed in tables 3 or 4. Patients can also refer themselves. The local immunisation team will assess the patient and decide if vaccination is appropriate.

The Government takes animal welfare very seriously and is committed to the highest possible welfare standards. We welcome Ms Grahame’s effort with the Welfare of Dogs (Scotland) Bill and support the general principles of the Bill. We need to emphasise to people that they must be responsible owners and act responsibly when deciding to buy a dog or take one into their lives.

The Scottish Government is committed to exploring increasing the Scottish aquaculture sector’s adoption of new and innovative technologies which achieve both positive environmental and health and welfare outcomes, including the potential use of semi and closed containment systems, as stated in our Vision for Sustainable Aquaculture , published in July 2023.

In 2021 the Scottish Government, via the Marine Fund Scotland, awarded £2 million to a four-year project led by Bakkafrost Scotland (the then Scottish Salmon Company) to apply research and development as well as innovative husbandry to the rearing of larger salmon smolts in Recirculating Aquaculture Systems (RAS). This underlines our commitment to supporting innovation and also promoting advances in areas which will contribute to the sector’s sustainable growth. These and similar developments will create new rural jobs and benefit local and wider economies.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) encourages new innovative techniques to reduce overall fish farm emissions through its application charging scheme. For example, where an operator shows the new site will reduce emissions by 80%+ then the application charges will be reduced by 50%.

The Fish Farming Businesses (Reporting) (Scotland) Order 2020 places a legal requirement for aquaculture production businesses to report average sea lice numbers per fish per week to Scottish Ministers.

The Aquatic Animal Health (Scotland) Regulations 2009 place a legal obligation for increased mortality to be reported to Scottish Ministers or a veterinarian. This applies to unexplained mortality, and there is a voluntary agreement in place with aquaculture production businesses for any instances of mortality above specified thresholds to be reported to Scottish Ministers as part of wider aquatic animal health surveillance. This agreement is a requirement of the Code of Good Practice for Scottish Finfish Aquaculture.

Gill health is a term used to describe a category of conditions which have a detrimental impact on fish gills and is not a single disease. The Aquatic Animal Health (Scotland) Regulations 2009 place an obligation for the presence or suspected presence of listed diseases, some of which affect gill health, to notify to Scottish Ministers.

There is no obligation to report fish wellbeing which has no specific definition. The Fish Health Inspectorate will raise any concerns regarding fish welfare with the Animal and Plant Health Agency which is responsible for investigating potential breaches in welfare law.