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The Scottish Government is committed to developing plans to deliver free breakfasts to all primary and special school children. Understanding the need from children and families for breakfast provision and planning how to respond to that forms part of several civil servant roles within the Directorate for Children and Families. Civil servants operate flexibly across a range of policies and programmes according to the specific requirements of the work at any time. For example, Directorate officials routinely engage with stakeholders, such as providers and partners in school age childcare early adopter communities, to discuss this policy.

Zero Waste Scotland is not measuring or assessing textiles reuse systematically at a national level.

The timing of each legislative stage will be for the Scottish Parliament to decide, once the Circular Economy Bill has been introduced.

The Scottish Government is determined to ensure that buildings with unsafe cladding are remediated and that developers meet their responsibilities. The Scottish Government has been working closely with Homes for Scotland and the 10 largest developers who work across the UK (wave one developers) to agree a Scottish Safer Buildings Accord.

We have now reached an in-principle agreement with Homes for Scotland and a number of those wave one developers on the Accord. This is an important step in the process. We will now move to agree the long form legally-binding contract to support the remediation of developer linked buildings with unsafe cladding. We will continue to engage with the remaining wave one developers to address outstanding technical questions and open discussions with the smaller and medium sized developers on their responsibilities. We are continuing to explore legislative options to safeguard residents and homeowners.

The Scottish Government has no current plans to extend free travel to people on employability schemes.

However, we recognise the important role that public transport plays in our lives. Accordingly, we are progressing the Fair Fares Review to ensure a sustainable and integrated approach to public transport fares that supports the future long term viability of a public transport system that is accessible, available and affordable for people throughout Scotland.

The Fair Fares Review is considering both the cost and availability of services and the range of discounts and concessionary schemes which are available on all modes including bus, rail and ferry to ensure our public transport system is more accessible, available, and affordable, with the costs of transport more fairly shared across government, business, and society.

The Fair Fares Review will report by the end of 2023 and will recommend a package of measures which can be considered for implementation from 2024-25 and onwards. These will provide opportunities to address the wider issues for the cost and availability of public transport services across all modes of public transport.

Apprenticeships are a vital resource for employers to invest in their workforce and for people to develop their skills. Investing in skills across people’s lifetimes is critical to our future productivity and success, underlining our commitment to a skilled workforce set out within the National Strategy for Economic Transformation.

Skills Development Scotland (SDS) is responsible for managing the modern apprenticeship programme in line with Ministerial expectations, and taking into account industry demand. The Modern Apprenticeship demand assessment includes consultation with industry to inform the contracting strategy .

It is standard practice for SDS to work with employers and review changing employer demand for apprenticeship starts in-year, and they adjust the number of starts allocated to respond as appropriate within their budget.

This month, SDS concluded a reallocation process and will issue updated contract awards for over 2,000 new Modern Apprenticeship starts to providers with strong evidence of employer demand and where there is a need to support critical skills in the economy. SDS will continue to follow this process this financial year.

Previous Governance models for Scottish Government chronic pain policy have involved people with lived experience in a variety of methods – including individual representation, a wider reference group of lived experience, elected representatives and members of chronic pain or associated other condition advocacy groups. Views from these groups had therefore already been solicited to help inform the development of the Framework.

Our Equality and Impact Assessment for the Framework identified the need to amplify the voices of groups of people who may be impacted by chronic pain but typically overlooked when it comes to engagement as they are not members of organised groups associated with a condition. Therefore there was a specific requirement for participants to be recruited independently of existing groups and structures to broaden the reach of engagement and ensure diversity of experience was included.

Scottish Government officials meet regularly with counterparts from other UK administrations and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), as the UK regulator, on general pesticide policy and specific points of interest. Sustainable methods for the control of bracken and the 2023 application for the Emergency Authorisation of Asulox has been regularly discussed at these meetings.

Stakeholders have the opportunity to raise and discuss pesticide issues, including bracken control, at the quarterly Pesticide Stakeholder Group meeting with Scottish Government officials. I regularly attend these meetings and bracken control has been discussed. The Scottish Government also continues to listen to views presented by the Bracken Control Group (BCG), and other stakeholders, on appropriate methods for the future control of bracken.

The Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) is currently the national measure of progress on widening access to higher education. This was recommended by the Commission on Widening Access in its final report, A Blueprint for Fairness, in 2016, and Ministers committed to adopting the recommendations in full. We recognise that there may be other suitable measures to work alongside SIMD, which is why Scottish Government officials are chairing an Access Data Short-Life Working Group to investigate this.

The successful Hydrogen Innovation Scheme applicants were informed throughout April and May 2023. All grants are paid in arrears, and will be awarded on successful completion of key project milestones.