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The Scottish Government is working with the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) and other stakeholders to look at current and future risks associated with electric car charging points and more widely, lithium batteries. SFRS has also implemented the Lithium-Ion Partnership Group to focus on this subject of which the Scottish Government is part of, and work continues to ensure the safety of our communities in Scotland from any potential emerging risks.

The Scottish Government wants everyone to receive the best possible care and treatment from our health and care services. We have set out the wider policy within which NHS Scotland is expected to deliver services, and we expect all NHS Boards to continue to provide high quality care that is safe, effective and person-centred. Across our health service, pharmacists, the ambulance service, NHS 24, GPs and hospital staff are working hard to ensure that patients get the care they need.

In common with health services across the UK and globally, NHS Scotland is working under significant pressure as the pandemic continues to affect services, and we expect this winter to be one of the most difficult the NHS has faced. While these challenges persist, people who are unwell should always seek help.

The Scottish Government’s Winter Resilience Overview sets out £600m of investment to support winter resilience across our health and care system. These measures across will help ensure people get the right care they need at the right time and in the most appropriate setting. We will also expand our workforce, particularly registered nurses, to assist with the expected increase in workload.

On 2 November, we launched the Right Care Right Place media campaign as part of the wider Stay Well This Winter messaging. We want the public to better understand the healthcare services available to them so they can make more informed choices about the right care in the right place for their specific health care needs.

The Scottish Government's Infrastructure Investment Plan, which was published in February 2021, sets out the government’s infrastructure priorities for the period from 2021 to 2026. The Infrastructure Investment Plan is available online at A National Mission with Local Impact: Infrastructure Investment Plan for Scotland 2021-22 to 2025-26 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Under the Infrastructure Investment Plan the Scottish Government is:

• Doubling the annual funding for maintenance over 5 years, investing over £1 billion in enhancing or refurbishing existing facilities, and modernising key equipment.
• Investing over £220 million in the Baird and Anchor project in Aberdeen which brings together all Maternity, Neonatal, Reproductive Medicine, Breast and Gynaecology services in the Baird Family Hospital and consolidates Haematology, Oncology and Radiotherapy Day and Outpatient services in the ANCHOR Cancer centre.
• Delivering a programme of investment in National Treatment Centres in Clydebank, Inverness, Livingston, Aberdeen, Tayside, and Kirkcaldy.
• Upgrading the Edinburgh Cancer Centre, building the new national secure adolescent inpatient service in Irvine and replacing the St Brendan’s facility in Barra.
• Investing in the provision of a new health and social care community hub in Parkhead that will replace 10 different buildings across Glasgow northeast area.
• Investing over £50 million to modernise our radiology equipment nationally, and over £100 million to upgrade and replace our ambulance fleet.
• Investing £25 million in the system development required to build on the 50-fold increase in patient use of NearMe digital healthcare services.

Table 1 shows the number of patients under the age of 16 with a recorded diagnosis of tooth decay who were admitted to hospital for a tooth extraction in (a) 2012 (b) 2016 and (c) 2021, in NHS (i) Ayrshire and Arran, and (ii) Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

Table 1:

  Source: SMR01, Public Health Scotland, extract: November 2022.

My condolences go to any families who have lost loved ones through drink-driving. The Scottish Government takes this issue very seriously and any road death, no matter what the cause, is tragic.

The Scottish Government is committed to achieving safer road travel in Scotland. Scotland’s Road Safety Framework to 2030, launched in February 2021, sets out a compelling long-term vision for road safety, Vision Zero, where there are zero fatalities and injuries on Scotland’s roads by 2050. The journey to achieving this vision also includes ambitious interim targets where the number of people killed or seriously injured on our roads will be halved by 2030.

On drink driving, through Road Safety Scotland, we have campaigned on this issue for many years. These campaigns have been developed and delivered with our partners in Police Scotland to ensure that our innovative media campaigns align with Police targeted enforcement campaigns.

In 2014, this Government introduced the lowest drink-drive limit in the UK. Working closely with Police Scotland and Transport Scotland, we will continue to support the use of police enforcement initiatives and awareness-raising campaigns to help eradicate drink-driving in Scotland.

The Residential Property Developer Tax is a tax on corporate profits levied on certain companies operating across the UK primarily in the domestic construction sector. This is a reserved tax and Scottish Government has no power to introduce the same.

The Hunting with Dogs (Scotland) Bill is concerned with the use of dogs to hunt wild mammals. The Bill does not differentiate between breeds of dogs. Field trials which only involve the hunting of birds are not covered by the provisions of this Bill.

For field trials that involve the use of dogs to hunt wild mammals the participants will have to abide by the provisions of the Bill.

These provisions set out that any person who uses a dog to, for example, search for and flush a wild rabbit from cover, may continue to do so provided that the conditions set out in section 6(2) of the Bill are met, including:

• The activity does not involve the use of more than two dogs
• Any dog used in the activity is under control
• Reasonable steps are taken to ensure that any dog used in the activity does not join with others to form a pack of more than two dogs

An estimate of the number of households with legislation compliant alarms will only be available when the results of the 2022 Scottish House Condition Survey are published. This is expected to be by early 2024. For social housing, the Scottish Housing Regulator will publish its annual Social Housing Charter report for 2022-2023, which will set out the information for this sector, in August 2023.

Scottish Government has provided a total of £2.1 million between Care & Repair and Scottish Fire and Rescue Service to support those in greatest need or at greatest risk of fire, to meet the new standard.

We are carefully considering the next steps on how to address the responses to our engagement with people affected by historical adoption practices. We are in the process of obtaining some additional consultation from the Cabinet on how we should proceed with this matter.

In the meantime, we have issued a tender to commission research into support services and have also started the implementation of a new dedicated peer-support service for mothers affected.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-02957 on 12 October 2021 . 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 .