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In 2021-22, £1,200,863 was made available to Access to Music Making and Strengthening Youth Music Funds. Of this, £1,116,575 funded Access to Music Making and £84,288 funded Strengthening Youth Music.

In 2022-23, £574,466 has been available to both funds to date, of which £544,467 has been allocated to Access to Youth Music and £29,999 has been allocated to Strengthening Youth Music. A second application round for 2022-23 is currently open. Decisions will be communicated in March 2023.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information. The Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 (Licensing of Short-term Lets) Order 2022 requires licensing authorities to maintain and publish a public register of short-term let licences on their website, or other website established for that purpose. The register is required to include a note of the kind and terms of each licence granted by the licensing authority, as well as other information set out in paragraph 13 of Schedule 2 of the Licensing Order.

Licensing authorities are also required to share content of their public register with the Scottish Government on a quarterly basis for statistical analysis purposes. We expect to receive the first quarterly return for processing and analysis early in the new year. This initial return will include data relating to the number of short-term let licence applications received by 31 December 2022, and the status of those applications.

As I said in the recent debate on violence against women and girls, when women do need recourse to the Justice system, it is equally important that we respond effectively, competently and with compassion and understanding.

We are clear that the justice system must do more to ensure that women and girls who have experienced any form of gender-based violence have the confidence to come forward, and are supported to report these terrible crimes.

Our Equally Safe Strategy sets out a vision to prevent violence from occurring in the first place, build the capability and capacity of support services, and strengthen the justice response to victims and perpetrators.

Our Justice Vision, prioritises the experience women and girls have of the justice system. We know the justice journey can be deeply traumatising, and it is extremely important for this to minimised, in order to support recovery.

That’s why we are proposing the Criminal Justice Reform Bill. The Bill will be informed by responses to a recent public consultation on improving victims’ experiences of the justice system that takes forward the work of the Victims Taskforce and recommendations from Lady Dorrian’s Review on Improving the Management of Sexual Offence Cases.

Through the Women’s Justice Leadership Panel, we are also discussing all aspects of the justice system to consider the experience and unique needs of women, and what changes may need to be embedded within our criminal justice processes.

This is a matter for matter for individual health boards who are responsible for providing prisoner healthcare. The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

During the financial year 2020-2021 there were 20 trials open for patients with brain tumours in Scotland. 66 patients were recruited to these studies during the same period.

The Scottish Government does not directly hold information on the research spend of other funders.

An interrogation of the NCRI (National Cancer Research Institute) database indicated that £17,631,882 was spent on brain tumour research in the UK in 20/21 by charity and public funders.

This breaks down to £6,290,512 on biology, £872,201 on aetiology, £67,606 on prevention, £2,846,401 on Early detection, diagnosis and prognosis, £6,690,871 on treatment and £864,290 on cancer control, survivorship and outcomes research.

The following tables present the estimated value of Small Business Bonus Scheme (SBBS) relief awarded to self-catering units as at 1 July 2022, broken down in Table 1 by local authority, and in Table 2 by assessor, for properties (unit owners cannot be reliably identified from the information held) receiving 100% SBBS, 25% SBBS, and other proportions of SBBS (e.g. when combined with other reliefs), and no SBBS relief. These tables include all self-catering properties in receipt of SBBS relief.

The Scottish Government cannot reliably estimate the cumulative rateable value of each ratepayer’s non-domestic properties and can therefore not state the number of self-catering units with a combined rateable value of £35,000 in receipt of the Small Business Bonus Scheme relief. To note however, ratepayers with a combined rateable value of £35,000 may still be eligible for SBBS relief where the individual property has a rateable value of £18,000 or less. To note as well a property may receive an SBBS award other than 100% or 25% relief, e.g. if awarded in conjunction with another relief. Eligibility for non-domestic rates reliefs, including SBBS, is set out in legislation and it is for local authorities to administer reliefs to eligible properties in accordance with that legislation.

Figures are presented in £thousands, and those relating to more than zero but fewer than five units have been marked [x] to distinguish from actual zero values. The data sources for both tables are the Scottish Assessors’ Valuation Roll as at 1 July 2022, and local authority reliefs information as at 1 July 2022. Final outturn data for 2022-23 may vary.

Table 1: Estimated value (£ thousands) of SBBS relief awarded to self-catering properties as at 1 July 2022, by local authority and SBBS percentage

725 additional training places have been created for trainee doctors since 2014. This includes 152 posts which were agreed to this year and will be recruited to in 2023. This represents the largest annual expansion to date, exceeding last year’s record by 13 places. An annual breakdown is included in the following table.

Data is not held for years prior to 2014.

The Scottish Government is not responsible for meeting the cost of conducting repairs for the MS Victoria or the MS Ambition. Any faults or repairs are handled by ship staff and owners.

The Scottish Government places great importance on leisure facilities and recognises the significant challenges that are facing operators such as leisure trusts, particularly with swimming pools, as increased operational costs continues to put pressure on their operations.

I recently met with members of Community Leisure UK to discuss the issues facing the leisure and culture trusts in Scotland.

The Scottish Government has increased the local government funding by over £1 billion in 2022-23, a real terms increase of 6.3 per cent, despite a 5.2 per cent real terms reduction in the overall Scottish Budget. It is the responsibility of the individual local authorities to provide leisure facilities, including swimming pools, and local authorities are independent corporate bodies with their own power and responsibilities and are entirely separate from the Scottish Government. Ultimately, it is for locally elected representatives to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial recourses available to them, including on swimming pools, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

The Scottish Government will continue to make the case for the UK Government to do more to protect our public services.