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The safety of patients and staff within our A&E Departments is paramount. This is why the Scottish Government is providing Boards facing the greatest challenges, including University Hospital Monklands and Forth Valley Royal Hospital, with enhanced support over the winter period. The level of delayed discharge is driving up A&E long waits, which is why we are working jointly with Health Boards and Health and Social Care Partnerships to ensure people leave hospital without delay, freeing up vital beds for those who need them most.

Since the beginning of 2021, HIS has been carrying out COVID-19 focused inspections of acute hospitals, using methodology adapted from their previous ‘safe and clean’ inspections. As at November 2022, HIS have carried out nine Safe Delivery of Care acute hospital inspections.

Through our £600 million winter plan we are recruiting 1,000 new NHS staff. Additionally our £50 million Urgent and Unscheduled Care Collaborative looks to drive down A&E waits by improving the systems and processes to deliver better communications and robust escalation. This approach also aims to reduce unnecessary attendances through redesign of urgent care which signposts people to more appropriate care, avoiding admission where possible through Hospital at Home and our Out-patient Antimicrobial Therapy service which allows patients to be treated at home or in the community, ensuring people are discharged as soon as fit and ready.

Our Right Care Right Place media campaign aims to help 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 which is not always emergency care.

The Scottish Government remains absolutely committed to incorporating the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into Scots law, as far as possible within devolved competence.

Our intention is to bring the Bill back to Parliament for Reconsideration Stage. Preparations for that are well underway and include engagement with the UK Government to try assess whether they are broadly content that the amendments bring with the Bill within legislative competence and to reduce the risk of another referral to the Supreme Court.

We will lodge the motion to reconsider the Bill and publish the amendments to the Bill as soon as possible but cannot yet confirm a timetable.

A total of 254 Target Enhanced Recruitment Scheme (TERS) bursaries have been taken up by GP trainees in the South Scotland parliamentary region since 2018. A full breakdown is included in the following table.

The Scottish Government’s ambition is to explore fully the opportunities across the energy sector for public ownership in an independent Scotland. As an independent state, we would have full powers in relation to energy generation and borrowing and as such would enable Scotland to consider large-scale public sector involvement or ownership in key technologies.

We remain supportive of the future potential for a public energy company in Scotland and, through the new agency, Heat and Energy Efficiency Scotland, we will support others with an interest in exploring options to take forward new models for energy provision.

The Scottish Government has regular engagement on energy with the Welsh Government.

Transport Scotland officials have regular discussions with UK Government Department for Transport officials regarding a number of maritime issues, including direct ferry links to Europe.

I continue to discuss the Properties in Care, and their management, with Historic Environment Scotland. I can confirm that Historic Environment Scotland has been continuing to focus on managing the national High Level Masonry inspection programme, and undertaking repairs wherever possible.

We are consulting more broadly on a refreshed strategy for Scotland’s historic environment. This seeks to prioritise activity that supports economic recovery and renewal, focuses on creating a more resilient and sustainable historic environment, and helps to communicate the contribution that the historic environment makes to the nation.

The consultation will run until 20 February 2023 and is designed to gather views to make sure the strategy sets appropriate ambitions for the historic environment sector for the next 5 years. The consultation can be found at: https://haveyoursay.historicenvironment.scot/development-partnership/our-place-in-time-refresh-consultation/

Historic Environment Scotland responded to the High Level masonry issues at Properties in Care in line with their statutory responsibilities and corporate approach and continue accordingly to manage the properties .

The context for the risk management approach to Properties in Care is set by their statutory obligations under a range of health and safety legislation and regulation, common law obligations and their corporate approach to management of risk.

At present there are no plans to re-evaluate the criteria used by Historic Environment Scotland to risk assess the Properties in Care.

The Scottish Government does not hold all of this information. However, a question added to the Scottish Housing Condition Survey in 2016 to allow for more accurate fuel bill estimation means that we are able to provide figures from 2016 in the following table.

Due to enforced changes in response to Covid-19 restrictions the 2020 SHCS was not completed and it was not possible to collect this data as part of the 2021 SHCS. This data is being collected as part of the 2022 SHCS which we expect to publish in late 2023 / early 2024.

The Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 (the Act) sets a default position that no carbon credits purchased by Scottish Ministers can be used to meet any of Scotland’s statutory greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets, and the Scottish Government currently has no plans to change this by regulation using powers under the Act.

Thank you for your question. Emergency service workers who have been killed in the line of duty can be nominated by the emergency services through the First Minister’s Brave@Heart bravery awards which includes the St. Andrew’s Award. Brave@Heart and St Andrew’s Awards recipients are selected by an independent panel.