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Safeguarding the health of displaced people on the M/S Victoria I passenger ship is our priority, as it is in other temporary accommodation such as hotels. We are closely monitoring the spread of COVID in Scotland and we are liaising closely with Public Health colleagues to monitor any risks of contracting COVID within the passenger ship.

Displaced people from Ukraine can also ask for a free COVID-19 vaccination from the NHS after arrival, if they choose to be vaccinated.

The ship has a policy for common infectious diseases including COVID-19, with safeguards in place and crew appropriately trained. The NHS is servicing the vessel with a medic and staff throughout the week, providing medical care for both Ukrainian guests and crew. COVID-19 isolation rooms have been identified and set aside if needed, and the ship has a full protocol on board just for COVID-19, which includes self-isolation, testing and doctor well-being checks.

Doctors aboard the ship are obligated to report any cases of infectious disease to the NHS, and Tallink, the ship’s operator, is also responsible for reporting COVID-19 cases that are detected by the ship’s on-board team to the NHS.

There are a few cases where different households are sharing rooms aboard the ship, however only those who have chosen to do so.

Every effort will be made to ensure that guests on board have access to appropriate support services, including healthcare, and staff at temporary welcome accommodation advise displaced people on how to register with a GP.

When displaced people from Ukraine arrive at Scotland’s Ukraine Welcome Hubs, they are given an immediate warm welcome to Scotland and immediate support in a safe and secure space. If those from Ukraine need temporary accommodation they will be placed in a hotel or similar accommodation where they can stay until they can move into longer term accommodation.

Some people may choose to rent privately, while others can use the national matching service, delivered by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the Scottish Government, which will seek to match them with an appropriately sized and located Scottish household under the super sponsor scheme. This matching service is working hard to find longer-term accommodation for all those in hotels or similar temporary accommodation.

We are taking actions to accelerate matching to the levels needed to move those from Ukraine out of temporary accommodation as soon as possible, including enhancing teams to boost capacity.

The Scottish Government has committed £11.2 million to increase capacity of resettlement teams, support refurbishment of properties, help integration and enhance the pace of checks.

The police investigation is ongoing and direction of that investigation is provided by lawyers in the Specialist Casework Division in Crown Office.

The Crown does not routinely collate the total costs associated with investigating individual cases and thus does not hold the information requested.

If the member could share more detail on the specific concerns and services she is referring to then I would be happy to write directly to her.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting and accelerating the transition of the North East as a centre of excellence for the transition to a net zero economy, as evidenced by our £500 million Just Transition Fund. The Scottish Government is also a full partner in the Aberdeen City Region Deal, contributing £125 million over 10 years alongside an additional £254 million, which will help ensure economic transformation for the North East with inclusive growth, increased wellbeing and a just transition to net zero. We are investing a separate £32.5 million through the Moray Growth Deal to support a number of projects that will grow the region’s economy.

The Scottish Government recognises the private sector action required to deliver a just transition to net zero. Our Global Capital Investment Plan outlines these opportunities and we are expanding our Green Investment Portfolio to bring together market-ready projects worth £3 billion as well as establishing an investor panel to attract investment to a pipeline of projects.

In the North East, we engaged extensively over Spring 2022 on the design of the £500 million Just Transition Fund to understand how it can have maximum impact in the region. We are also a full partner in the Aberdeen City Region Deal, which is stimulating private investment through partnership with Opportunity North East and has already seen £59 million of private investment committed to the region for digital infrastructure.

The ScotWind projects committed to investment of up to £25 billion across the Scottish supply chain across the 17 ScotWind offshore wind projects as set out in their Supply Chain Development Statements. This work is further complemented by the Scottish Offshore Wind Energy Council’s (SOWEC) Collaborative Framework as a practical way for developers and Scottish ports to work together, helping to build a long-term pipeline of work, creating certainty that ports need to prioritise investment in higher value activities like fabrication. By working together developers can identify joint opportunities, mitigating risks in bringing together the infrastructure needed to build out the full pipeline of ScotWind projects. The call for year one projects of the Just Transition Fund closed on 15 July 2022 and expressions of interest are currently being assessed against the published Fund criteria. It will not be possible to indicate what portion of the Fund will be allocated specifically to manufacturing capability until final decisions on awards have concluded.

The Just Transition Fund was established to support and accelerate the transition of the region and support the role of Aberdeen and the wider North East as one of Scotland’s centres of excellence for the transition to a net zero economy. The call for year one projects closed on 15 July 2022 and expressions of interest are currently being assessed against the published Fund criteria. It will not be possible to indicate what portion of the Fund will be allocated specifically to upskilling activity until final decisions on awards have concluded. An announcement of successful bids will be made in due course.

During the current outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1, representatives of the Scottish Government Animal Disease Control Branch have had daily interactions with Defra and the Welsh Government regarding all manner of policy matters relating to the outbreak, including the impact of avian influenza on the game industry.

In addition to this, the Scottish Government, along with Defra, the Welsh Government and DAERA (NI) Officials have hosted twice-weekly meetings with the GB Avian Diseases Core Group (with representatives from industries impacted by the outbreak), which includes the Game Farmer’s Association.

These discussions have included consideration of how government could assist with the shortage of gamebird hatching eggs available for import into the UK from France, which had been hampered by the unprecedented number of outbreaks of HPAI across a number of French regions, in particular the Vendee and Loire Atlantique areas, where the majority of French game farms are located. These areas had been accordingly subjected to strict restrictions on the movement of game birds and hatching eggs, including restricting exports to other countries.

In response to this and in acknowledgment of the dependency of our game sector on imports from these affected French regions – and also to the narrow window of this part of the breeding cycle for game birds – the Scottish Government, along with Defra and the Welsh Government, worked with the French government (including the Chief Veterinary Officer of France) and industry officials to develop a temporary strategy whereby gamebird hatching eggs from HPAI restricted zones in France could be licensed for landing at ports in the UK.

Under this scheme, a new model health certificate for the import of hatching eggs, other than ratites, from France had been developed to accompany consignments that would be imported under licence, and which would require adherence to a set of strict biosecurity requirements throughout the transfer process.

However, the scheme was not taken forward at the request of French authorities and industry, who reported that weather conditions at the time in France, in the form of extremely high temperatures, had not only had a significant impact on egg production levels, but also presented challenges for the safe and successful transportation of gamebird eggs.

The Scottish Government continues to work closely with the game industry, along with the poultry and other captive bird sectors, to minimise the spread, and the social and economic impact, of highly pathogenic avian influenza in Scotland.