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The consultation document will be published on Scottish Forestry’s website on 22 February at 10:00 am. The consultation will be open for 12 weeks. I would welcome all those interested in the future of forestry in Scotland to respond.

The final report of the independent group chaired by Professor Elizabeth Aston, was published today https://www.gov.scot/ISBN/978-1-80525-352-5 .

The final report has been published alongside five associated reports that helped contribute to the Group’s work. The final report confirms that Scotland is in a strong position to seize the opportunity to become world leading in adopting a rights-based, ethical, evidence-based, consultative approach to innovation and adoption of emerging technologies in policing.

The Scottish Government’s response to the report has also been published today www.gov.scot/publications/emerging-technologies-in-policing-report-scottish-government-response

The Scottish Government stands ready to work with policing stakeholders on how they plan to follow up the recommendations made by the Group. This will enable the Scottish Government to continue to work with policing bodies to ensure that new technology will be used in ways which help in the detection and prosecution of crime, as well as protecting our communities first and foremost.

Skills Development Scotland deliver careers services to all 358 publicly funded secondary schools in Scotland.

We are taking all the action we can to help students overcome the issues they face through the cost of living crisis, including food insecurity.

No one should have to compromise on food or other essentials. We are supporting students directly by providing £16.8m in hardship funding for the current academic year to support Higher Education students experiencing financial hardship, in addition to tuition fees and a range of living cost support.

We have also provided £135m in student support for Further Education students attending college in the current academic year. Colleges can use these funds flexibly to meet demand across Further Education student bursaries, childcare and hardship funding.

The Scottish Government recently provided an additional £2.4 million funding for groups that can get vital support to people quickly – and with an emphasis on cash grants so that people can access food with dignity and choice.

We encourage anyone who is struggling financially to get advice through their local authority, a local advice service, or Social Security Scotland as well as visiting our cost of living website - www.gov.scot/news/accessing-help-for-cost-of-living

Yes, the felling of trees is regulated through the issuing of Felling Permissions, under the Forestry and Land Management (Scotland) Act 2018. Permission must be granted before felling, thinning or deforesting an area of woodland; the sale and transfer of land has no impact on this requirement. The potential effects on flood risk would be taken into account when assessing applications to fell trees.

The following details the number of people employed by the requested organisations in each period asked for:

National Security, which includes the Prevent strategy, is reserved to the UK Government but delivered through devolved functions in Scotland. Prevent has been a statutory duty on Policing, Healthcare, Education, Local Authorities and Prisons in the UK as a whole, Scotland included since 2015.

The collective focus of Prevent in Scotland is always on identifying the earliest opportunity to offer support to individuals who may be vulnerable to being drawn into or supporting terrorism, or who are exposed to divisive extremist narratives.

There is no fixed profile for someone who may benefit from support in this context. However, as exposure to radicalisation and a range of extremist narratives has grown in the online space in particular, referrals to Prevent across the UK have indicated an increase in individuals being exposed to such harms at a younger age.

Scottish Government works closely with Police Scotland and other key partners including the education sector to ensure proportionate responses to such challenges across a broad spectrum of threat.

Our alignment of Prevent to existing safeguarding processes such as the Getting It Right For Every Child (GIRFEC), seeks to ensure Prevent works in a supportive, multi-agency way in line with other strategies designed to prevent harm and safeguard children from exposure to such issues as drug use, criminal gangs, physical abuse and sexual exploitation.

A Prevent referral allows for a multi-agency safeguarding assessment to be conducted where appropriate, and all referrals are carefully assessed based on the specific details of the case.

Where a referral is deemed appropriate for Prevent case management, the type of support available is wide-ranging, and can include help with education, parental or carer support or child social care involvement. The ongoing provision of training and online guidance aims to ensure that when a Prevent referral is made, it is robust and appropriately informed, and that the response is considered and proportionate.

The publication of Prevent referral statistics on an annual basis is reflective of efforts to ensure as much transparency as possible in respect of the Prevent programme, within the confines of what is appropriate in line with the protection of individuals’ data.

Applications for warrants of entry are dealt with by the courts. The information requested is not held centrally. The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service have established a working group to review the process for dealing with utility warrants, including the data recorded, with a view to improving the information currently available.

We welcome the 2023 Lancet Series on breastfeeding and will consider its recommendations in due course.

Scottish Government is committed to supporting breastfeeding as the normal nutrition for babies. We have invested over £7m of additional funding over the past four years to NHS Boards and partners, to improve breastfeeding experiences.

Globally, it is recognised that breastmilk and breastfeeding provide clear health benefits to both mother and baby, over infant milk formula.

We believe that every child should get the best nutritional start in life, and that families should be able to make fully informed choices on how they feed their baby.

The Scottish Government does not hold data on the number of knives confiscated in schools, though information is available on the number of recorded crimes of having in a school an article with a blade or point. This is provided in the following table. At least part of the reduction in cases during 2020-21 (and subsequent increase in 2021-22) will likely reflect the closure of the school estate during the pandemic related lockdowns.

Possession of articles with a blade or point in schools