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The Scottish Government maintains an open dialogue with Liberty Steel and meets with them regularly.

The question of whether or not to install additional equipment at the Dalzell or Clydebridge facilities is an operational matter for Liberty Steel. From recent discussions I understand that there are currently no plans to install an Electric Arc Furnace at either Dalzell or Clydebridge.

I have met with a range of stakeholders in the energy industry since taking on this ministerial role. A comprehensive list of all Ministerial engagements is routinely published online three months in arrears and in line with the Scottish Ministerial Code . It can be found at Ministerial engagements, travel and gifts - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

I most recently met with the UK Government Minister Andrew Bowie on 27 April regarding the Energy Bill, to discuss the enabling legislation required to deploy the Acorn project and to ensure this vital piece of legislation best reflects Scotland’s interests.

I welcome the recent refurbishment of Glasgow Royal Concert Hall earlier this year. The refurbishment upgraded the Main Auditorium seats and the stage lifts and allowed for important accessibility improvements.

There have been no discussions between the Scottish Government and Glasgow City Council and Glasgow Life regarding the future of the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.

In April 2022 increased planning fees came into effect, providing much needed additional resource to Planning Authorities. Whilst the use of this additional resource is a matter for individual authorities, some authorities have reported that the fee increase has allowed them to retain or recruit new members of staff.

Improving the resourcing and performance of the planning system are important priorities and we continue to work with Heads of Planning Scotland, the Royal Town Planning Institute and other stakeholders to implement the recommendations of the Future Planners Project Report which focuses on supporting the growth of entrants into the planning profession.

Through the work of the Building Standards Futures Board, work is being undertaken to support the Local Authority Building Standards Workforce through the development and implementation of a three year workforce strategy. In addition, the Board is overseeing a number of recommendations that aim to strengthen the building standards system. These will require investment in the system and workforce and a public consultation on building warrant fees will be undertaken over the summer.

The Scottish Government remains committed to the ambition. We are working with partners to explore how we can enable the transformational change required to ensure that by 2030 at least 5% of all community-based health and social care spend across Scotland is invested in preventative whole family support measures.

This includes providing £32m of Whole Family Wellbeing Funding on an annual basis to Children's Services Planning Partnerships to shift investment towards timely and sustainable early intervention and prevention activities that are flexible, responsive and proportionate to ensure families can access the support they need, when they need it and where they need it, before they reach crisis point.

Annual waste data will be submitted to SEPA who will also undertake verification inspections. It is our intention to ensure that DRS packaging data is identified in our waste data reporting.

The Scottish Government recognises the findings that have been highlighted within the Disability Price Tag 2023 report, that disabled people have been disproportionately impacted by the current cost-of-living crisis.

One of the First Minister’s first acts upon taking office was to increase the budget for our Fuel Insecurity Fund to £30 million for 2023-24 to ensure support is available to households who would otherwise be at risk of self-rationing their energy use, or self-disconnecting entirely. Assistance is provided on the basis of a holistic assessment of individuals’ circumstances, which can include increased energy usage arising from the need to run essential medical devices.

The Scottish Government provide a range of disability benefits to help disabled people and those with long-term conditions. These benefits provide financial support to disabled people to mitigate the additional costs of living with a disability or health condition. In recognition of the cost crisis, all Scottish Government social security benefits were increased by 10.1% in April, except for Scottish Child Payment, which was uprated early, with an investment of around £430 million. This uprating is in line with inflation as measured by the Consumer Prices Index.

The Scottish Government did not make a decision on the re-instatement of shared cabins. This decision was taken by the ferry operator following their own internal review.

Official statistics covering processing times for Child Disability Payment are published as a part of the regularly scheduled quarterly publication. The latest Child Disability Payment statistical publication was published on Tuesday 16 May 2023. Information on the average processing time by month is included in table 9. This publication is available from https://www.gov.scot/collections/social-security-scotland-stats-publications/#benefitsforcarersanddisabilityassistance .

Processing time is the number of working days from part 2 of the application being received to a decision being made or the application being withdrawn. It does not include time to make payments. We would normally advise to allow up to 5 days to reach a bank account once a payment is authorised.