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The Rural and Islands Housing Fund (RIHF) provides an additional funding route for organisations, such as community trusts, who are not able to access traditional affordable housing funding to further increase the long term availability of affordable housing in rural Scotland.

The RIHF has been described as a ‘game changer’ for community-led housing development helping increase the supply of affordable housing in rural and island areas. Taken together with our Affordable Housing Supply Programme, this Fund helped deliver more than 6,000 affordable homes in these areas between 2016-17 and 2020-21.

In November 2020, we announced that the RIHF would be extended beyond March 2021, with up to £30 million made available to support the development of affordable homes in rural and island areas across Scotland in the current Parliamentary term. Given this is a demand led fund, the monies made available in each year reflect the level of activity requiring to be funded in that year.

The following table shows the monies allocated by year to the fund and the actual spend:

The announcement of funding to support the development of Hospital at Home followed a round of engagement between Scottish Government and Healthcare Improvement Scotland with all Health Boards and Health and Social Care Partnerships. Initially Argyll and Bute and NHS Highland were one of a number of areas that did not submit an expression of interest in relation to national support and funding.

Following a further demonstration on Hospital at Home at the recent NHS Scotland Conference, Argyll & Bute’s Health and Social Care Partnership have expressed their interest in developing Hospital at Home, and Healthcare Improvement Scotland are facilitating a workshop to explore this opportunity further.

The Fair Fares Review was established to ensure a sustainable and integrated approach to public transport fares as we recover from the pandemic.

The review is being undertaken in a phased approach, to enable options to be considered and announced/ trialled or delivered throughout the course of the review. I expect interim options to be presented by Transport Scotland this year, given the cost of living crisis. The full review will conclude in early 2023.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information. Practices must apply to their Health Boards to close their lists and agree the conditions and timelines for reopening them.

Circumstances will arise where a practice experiences capacity issues and is unable to routinely accept new patients onto its list. We expect Health Boards to work with practices as constructively and as flexibly as is appropriate to help manage the situation and ensure that all patients have access to GP services.

Over the last two years our NHS has suffered the biggest shock of its 74 year existence. Caring for large numbers of patients seriously unwell with COVID-19 has inevitably meant that planned care procedures have had to be delayed, and while we are working hard to recover and remobilise our NHS, this will not be done in a few weeks or even months. Addressing the backlog of care, while continuing to meet the ongoing urgent health and care needs of the country, remains a priority for this Government.

We know that excessively long waits have grown as a result of the pandemic, which is why we now need to focus on treating people that are waiting too long for treatment. On 6 July 2022, I introduced a new set of targets for NHS Scotland to address the backlog of planned care.

We will continue to work with the National Complex Pelvic Mesh Removal Service in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde to improve the waits that people are currently experiencing.

In the first instance where patients have concerns regarding their appointments these are best addressed by contacting their local Health Board who can advise on rescheduling in a timely manner. The patient feedback team within the Health Board may also be able to advise or support if required.

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.

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.

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.

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 regulation of offshore oil and gas activities is not a devolved matter and falls under the remit of the regulator, in this case, the Offshore Petroleum Regulator for Environment and Decommissioning Programme, referred to as OPRED, which sits within the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

The role of the regulator is to review, approve and monitor the implementation of decommissioning programmes. All actions in decommissioning, both onshore and offshore, which relate to waste have to follow a regulatory process, and undergo an environmental impact assessment. These programmes outline the schedule of all planned works and are subject to public consultation. Where there is no set schedule, the timeframe for recovery of any temporarily stored materials is stipulated in the environmental justification documents and it is the role of the regulator to monitor this.

OPRED are advised by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, the Statutory Nature Conservation Body who provide information and advice on environmental impacts of offshore industries. Where it is shown there will be little to no impact on the protected features within a Marine Protected Area, these activities are able to be undertaken with appropriate mitigation measures in place. Furthermore, in accordance with OPRED guidelines, a localised ‘as-left’ survey is carried out on recovery.