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Spectating at sporting events is important to the people of Scotland and brings benefits in terms of enjoyment, stress reduction, socialisation and camaraderie with community, friends and family. Public transport has a role to play in enabling fans to get to and from sporting events, especially families and young people. The extension of free bus travel to all children and young people under 22 makes public transport more affordable, helping to improve access to such events while enabling them to travel sustainably early in their lives.

In Scotland we take a modal corridor approach to strategic transport issues for the last two decades. The Scottish Strategic Transport Projects Review 2 (STPR2) makes recommendations on the strategic corridors and TS continues to work hard with local and national partners to provide such connectivity; and local authorities have a key role to play too.

Transport Scotland engages with transport operators on decision making for meeting spectator requirements. With the introduction of Scotrail’s Fit for the Future timetable from 20 July 2022, reliability of rail service to sporting events has improved as driver availability has improved. Transport Scotland will monitor public transport offerings for sporting events.

Information on the number of children receiving free school meals, broken down by parliamentary constituency, is not available. The Pupil Census of 2021 reported there were 274,938 children in primaries 1 to 5 at all schools across Scotland, and 17,482 of those were registered with schools managed by South Lanarkshire Council.

Free school lunches are available to all children in primaries 1 to 5 during school term-time, therefore all children within this age group are automatically registered to receive them if they wish. We estimate that providing free school meals will save families around £400 per child, per year on average.

Asylum is reserved to the UK Parliament and handled by the Home Office. This includes provision of support and accommodation for people seeking asylum. The Home Office Interpreter Language Services Unit (ILSU) holds overall responsibility for the delivery of interpreting and translation services on behalf of the Home Office.

Asylum seekers living in Scotland can access translation and interpretation support when engaging with services in Scotland on the same basis as other residents, including resettled refugees.

Translators are not provided to individual refugees and asylum seekers when they arrive. Translation and interpretation support is provided at the point of need or service access. Funding and provision are therefore managed across different public services and organisations to enable people to engage with services and support.

The Scottish Refugee Council is working with the Scottish Government to deliver the Warm Scottish Welcome scheme for displaced people arriving from Ukraine. This includes translation and interpreting services. The Scottish Refugee Council have received funding from the Scottish Government to recruit additional advisors for their Refugee Integration Service, including Ukrainian speakers, as part of their work to deliver the Warm Scottish Welcome scheme.

We recognise that translation and interpreting services for displaced people arriving in Scotland from Ukraine are extremely important. The Scottish Refugee Council has asked that anyone wishing to offer assistance in this area contact them to discuss what support they can offer.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that everyone in Scotland whose first language is not English can contribute to Scotland’s future and the society they live in. Having support to learn English is key for many refugees and people seeking asylum, enabling them to participate in learning in schools, colleges and universities; engage within communities; and pursue their employment goals. The Scottish Government’s aim is to support high quality, relevant, appropriate and accessible ESOL provision that meets learner need. The Scottish Government’s ESOL funding is currently provided through colleges as part of the grant allocated to the Scottish Funding Council. Colleges are instructed to work with Community Planning Partnerships (CPPs) to determine the level of need for provision and agree with partners how this need can be met.

ESOL courses are delivered through colleges and community organisations. The Scottish Refugee Council website also has information on ESOL courses available across Scotland.

A key action within the recently launched Adult Learning Strategy for Scotland is to undertake a review with ESOL learners and practitioners on the impact of the ESOL Strategy. It will produce recommendations on next steps for ESOL within the context of the Adult Learning Strategy.

English as an Additional Language for school aged children is available through Education Scotland’s Parentzone .

The shared policy programme in the 2021 Bute House Agreement committed to establish a 10-year £500 million Just Transition Fund for the North East and Moray, with £20 million allocated to year one of the Fund.

The published criteria for projects seeking to access the first year of Fund allocations included a location based stipulation that “the bidding organisation must be headquartered, or demonstrate a strong connection to at least one of Aberdeenshire, Aberdeen City or Moray. The majority of project activity and benefits realised must also be within these regions. If bidding jointly, at least one partner must be based or have majority of operations in one of the regions.”

The First Minister's Environmental Council has met twice since it was established, on 5 November and 13 June.

The Scottish Government appreciates the spotlight that Shelter Scotland shines on our shared vision of a safe, secure, affordable home for everyone in Scotland.

Having delivered our previous 50,000 affordable homes target, we have now started to deliver against our commitment to 110,000 affordable homes by 2032, 70% of which will be for social rent and 10% in remote, rural and island areas.

We do not conduct our own polling and public perception research. However, we do publish quarterly Official Statistics and annual Outturn Reports that focus on how the Affordable Housing Supply Programme resources were spent and what they delivered, in line with priorities and outcomes identified within local authority Strategic Housing Investment Plans which set out the key strategic affordable housing investment priorities.

As set out in the response to S6W-06821 on 10 March 2022 the vast majority of homelessness funding provided to local authorities has been included in the block grant. It is at each local authority’s discretion as to how they use this resource to prevent and respond to homelessness.

In addition, the Scottish Government provides local authorities with an annual share of £23.5 million for homelessness prevention and response measures and an annual share of £8 million to support the implementation of rapid rehousing transition plans (RRTPs). This funding is transferred to local government over the course of the year, and the breakdown of this funding for 2021-22, the last full financial year, is set out in the tables below. The final table includes resource provided to local authorities for coordination of the five Housing Options Hubs across Scotland.

Section 11 of the Homelessness etc. (Scotland) Act 2003 requires a landlord to notify the local authority when proceedings for possession are raised providing information prescribed in Schedule 1 of The Notice to Local Authorities (Scotland) Regulations 2008. Local authorities produce templates in line with Schedule 1. The Scottish Government does not require local authorities to provide these templates for validation so if any local authorities have amended the section 11 notice form to include information not prescribed within Section 1 of The Notice to Local Authorities (Scotland) Regulations 2008, the Scottish Government is not made aware of this.

(a) – The relevant part of the Homelessness etc (Scotland) Act 2003 can be found under Section 11 of the Homelessness etc (S) Act 2003 at Homelessness etc. (Scotland) Act 2003 (legislation.gov.uk)

(b) – Schedule 1 of the Notice to Local Authorities (Scotland) Regulations sets out the form of notice that must be provided to the LA under section 11 of the 2003 Act at The Notice to Local Authorities (Scotland) Regulations 2008 (legislation.gov.uk) . As this is a statutory notice, local authorities must require notice to be provided in this form.

We are considering carefully the Joint Committee on Human Rights report along with the responses to our recent questionnaire on the issue of historical adoption.

This will help to determine the next steps and will also provide more understanding of what support is needed to help the people affected by historical adoption practices.