Seòmar agus comataidhean

In line with the Grant Agreement between Scottish Rail Holdings Ltd and ScotRail Trains Ltd, the first Service Level Commitment (SLC) has to be prepared within the first quarter from 1 April 2022 i.e. end of June 2022.

Transport Scotland’s will publish the Service Level Commitment on the Transport Scotland website once this process has been agreed and finalised.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-09444 on 27 July 2022. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

According to the latest published statistics (April 2022) there were 2953 electric vehicle charge points in Scotland at this time. This figure includes 2257 from ChargePlace Scotland, Scotland’s publicly funded electric vehicle charging network.

There is no budget allocated as part of the Scottish Government marketing budget for 2022-2023 for campaigns on buses and coaches.

The Scottish Government spent a total of £507,452.36 in 2021-22. This spend relates to a public information for the Travel Demand Management campaign, which ran during October-November 2021 to encourage people who would previously have driven into Glasgow city centre during the two weeks of COP26, to leave their car at home and commute using public transport.

b. No campaign activity involving buses or coaches has taken place from April 2022 to date.

Any decision on whether or not to introduce a new national screening programme in Scotland is guided by the recommendations of the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC), an independent expert advisory group which advises all four nations of the United Kingdom on screening policy. In 2017, the UK NSC recommended against the introduction of a Group B Streptococcus (GBS) screening programme. If a recommendation is made by the UK NSC to introduce GBS screening then the Scottish Screening Committee, in consultation with medical experts in this field, will advise Scottish Ministers on the most appropriate course of action for Scotland.

The GBS3 clinical trial , run by the Nottingham Clinical Trials Unit, is looking to gather evidence on whether a universal screening programme would be both clinically and cost effective. The UK NSC will review the evidence for screening once findings from the GBS3 clinical trial are published and the Scottish Screening Committee will give careful consideration to any recommendation the NSC makes. All NHS Boards have been made aware of the opportunity to participate in the GBS3 trial.

Litigation is ongoing and external costs will be published on a regular basis. We will publish initial data on spending in September, and on a quarterly basis thereafter, until the conclusion of the litigation.

We expect NHS Boards to follow the most up-to-date, evidence-based guidance in the diagnosis, management and treatment of Group B Streptococcus infection in pregnant women and their babies. NICE guideline NG195, Neonatal infection: antibiotics for prevention and treatment , published on 20 April 2021 and developed in partnership with the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), is the most recent clinical guidance available at present.

All pregnant women in Scotland are provided with a copy of Ready, Steady, Baby! ( RSB!), a guide to pregnancy, labour and birth and early parenthood up to 8 weeks. RSB! is also available via the NHS Inform website and includes information on GBS . The RCOG Group B Streptococcus in pregnancy and newborn babies leaflet is also provided to women. We would encourage any pregnant woman concerned about GBS, or any other aspect of her pregnancy, to contact their midwife for advice.

We know that inflation is having the biggest impact on those with the lowest incomes. We are doing what we can within our devolved powers and this year we have allocated almost £3 billion to support people who are struggling.

Our Best Start Foods provides pregnant women and families with children under the age of three who receive certain benefits, with a minimum of £4.50 a week to purchase healthy foods. Eligible foods include fruit and vegetables as well as milk, first infant formula milk, eggs and pulses. Between launching Best Start Foods on 12 August 2019 and 28 February 2022, more than 111,000 applications were authorised providing support of over £27.3 million to those families who need it most. In 2022-23 we expect 40,000 people will receive £12 million of support through Best Start Foods. In 2023-24 we will remove the income thresholds for all qualifying benefits which will mean an additional 20,000 people will be able to access Best Start Foods. At the same time, we will move to a cash payment instead of pre-payment cards – giving parents greater flexibility and choice in how they use this financial support.

We have maintained funding levels for community food networks so that they can continue to support people struggling to access healthier food options. These networks provide a broad range of activities including: cooking classes, benefit checks, grow your own groups, cafés and food pantries.

The Scottish Government is also providing local authorities with funding to make free school lunches available to all children in primaries 1 to 5, and in special schools, during school term-time. Our new regulations governing the nutritional standards for food and drink in schools came into effect in April 2021. This guarantees all children and young people have access to their five portions of fruit and vegetables per day on every day when they attend at school.

We will engage with a wide range of stakeholders, such as the Armed Forces Families Federations, the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland, Forces Children Scotland and the Napier University’s Centre for Military Research, Education and Public Engagement, as well as schools and local authorities to ensure that the views and needs of children and young people from Armed Forces and veterans families are taken into account in development of future versions of the UK-wide Strategy For Our Veterans as well as our own Veterans Strategy Action Plan. We intend to publish imminently our latest Strategy Action Plan, during the development of which we engaged with the Families Federations.

Approaches to address the specific needs of the children of serving families are currently being considered through the work being undertaken jointly by the UK Government, Devolved Administrations and third sector on the development and implementation of the Ministry of Defence’s Families Strategy.