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We understand that some parents may have concerns about children and young people attending school due to the associated risk of transmission of COVID-19. We also recognise the responsibility of local authorities and the school workforce to support families with these concerns. We therefore continue to work with local authorities via CoSLA and ADES to ensure that Directors of Education receive relevant and up-to-date information on COVID-related mitigations in schools.

I would like to reassure any families with concerns that we continue to take a data-led approach to all mitigations in relation to the pandemic, and mitigations in schools specifically are developed and reviewed with the advice of the Advisory Sub-Group on Education and Children's Issues , and guidance from the COVID-19 Education Recovery Group. We are particularly reassured by recent PHS analysis indicating that of close contacts in school settings identified during the last academic year, just 5% of pupils later tested positive within 14 days of contact. This 5% includes community as well as in-school transmission. We also know that 62% of positive pupil cases had no close contacts that tested positive within 14 days.

The risk of transmission in schools is now reduced further thanks to the rollout of vaccines to pupils aged 12 and over. This sits alongside the asymptomatic testing programme, and other proportionate mitigations, such as face coverings and physical distancing in some settings, as outlined in the Reducing risks in schools guidance.

We recognise that there have been a lot of changes for local authorities and the school community throughout the pandemic. Therefore, in order to support local authorities to implement this guidance and to address education disruption caused by Covid-19, we have invested £450m to fund various actions over 2020-21 and 2021-22. This includes £90m for logistics such as enhanced cleaning, and more recently £10m to ensure that schools and childcare settings have access to CO2 monitoring.

In relation to attendance, national guidance is clear that measures of compulsion for attendance should only be used as a last resort once all other approaches to support attendance have been undertaken. Additional codes have been developed within SEEMiS to support the recording and monitoring of attendance and absence, including specific codes relating to COVID-19.

Applications from Registered Social Landlords for grant funding through the Affordable Housing Supply Programme at tender stage contain information on any projected rent levels at the date of completion which are more than 5% above the relevant social rent benchmark published by the Scottish Government. Information on the Registered Social Landlords’ applications which were approved began to be collected in 2018-19 as follows:

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Interim Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

A solution was identified with the provider in relation to illicit SIM cards being used in prison issued mobile phones and it is currently being implemented across the prison estate. This solution enables the SPS to blacklist handsets on various network providers rendering the handsets unusable with a non-prison issued SIM. The security measures in place will continue to be monitored by the SPS.

This is a matter for the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission. The information that has been requested is not held by the Scottish Government.

Mr McArthur may be interested to know that a consultation seeking views on options for changes to the way legal services are regulated and how the legal complaints system operates is currently open and is running from 1 October to 24 December 2021. The consultation is available at: https://consult.gov.scot/justice/legal-services-regulation-reform-in-scotland .

Our Tackling Prejudice and Building Connected Communities Action Plan includes a number of actions around raising awareness of hate crime and to encourage reporting. For information, a full list of action commitments in this area can be found at http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2017/06/1336/5 . We will publish a report on progress made in delivering those actions during the coming months.

Implementation of the Hate Crime Act provides a good opportunity for the Scottish Government, justice partners and stakeholders to take stock of and refresh our approach to tackling hate crime and we are committed to developing a new hate crime strategy later this year. The new strategy will support implementation of the Hate Crime Act, as well as further work to consider the need for the Scottish Government to define Islamophobia, including consideration of the UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Group’s definition.

As noted in the Programme for Government, we intend to consult shortly on proposed reforms to the law relating to bail and release from custody. Public protection and victims’ safety are at the heart of our proposals for reform, which focus on reduce reoffending and associated victimisation.

In relation to bail, we will be consulting on proposals to refocus how remand is used, especially for those who pose little or no risk to public safety. With regards to release from custody, we intend to consult on reforms to support release arrangements, with a focus on enabling reintegration into the community.

The responses to this consultation will inform a year 1 bill.

The Scottish Government advises anyone who has experienced domestic abuse or sexual violence to report crimes committed against them, regardless of the impacts of Covid-19. Police Scotland remain committed to proactively target perpetrators and protect victims and their families from domestic abuse or further harm.

Domestic abuse cases continue to feature in the court programme as a key priority, with a view to mitigating the impact of the pandemic on timescales for these types of cases. £50m of Scottish Government Covid recovery funding was allocated this year and the recruitment and training of extra justice staff has enabled additional court capacity recently. This will support the process for reducing the backlog in criminal cases through the collaborative Recovery programme.

The Scottish Government meets regularly with Scottish Women’s Aid to discuss their concerns, and to outline the approach being taken to addressing the impact of the pandemic on all court cases. We understand the pandemic has extended waiting lists for support and have allocated £4.5 million split between Scottish Women’s Aid and Rape Crisis Scotland to address this issue.

The Cabinet Secretary for External Affairs wrote to Lord Frost on 10 September stressing the necessity of representation of Scottish stakeholders on the Domestic Advisory Group and Civil Society Forum, including the representation of remote communities, disadvantaged groups and all sectors of society and business. Prior to the Cabinet Office consultation closing, the Cabinet Secretary met with representatives of the third sector to discuss their participation in the groups and officials have encouraged stakeholders to respond to the consultation. Plans are in place for follow up discussions with stakeholders in the autumn to help ensure that they are adequately represented.

We recognise that there is very limited data on Islamophobia in Scotland and that this is essential to effectively tackle Islamophobia in Scotland.

In respect of anti-Muslim hate crime, in February 2020, the Scottish Government published a research report ‘A Study of the Characteristics of Police Recorded Hate Crime in Scotland’. This is the first time that such information has been publicised, and includes information on the type of prejudice shown. In around one-quarter (26%) of religiously-aggravated hate crimes recorded in 2018-19, the perpetrator showed prejudice towards the Muslim community.

Another study into the characteristics of hate crimes recorded in 2020-21 is ongoing and is currently planned to be published in 2022. The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 includes provision to require disaggregated data on hate crime to be published annually and we are currently developing our approach in partnership with justice agencies. This will provide key information about the nature of hate crime in Scotland, including information about those involved. Such data will be essential to effectively tackle hate crime in Scotland and to inform future interventions in this area.

The Scottish Government is committed to tackling racial inequalities. Our recently-published Immediate Priorities Plan (IPP) sets out how we will work across government and beyond to tackle deep rooted inequalities, and implements the recommendations of the Expert Reference Group on Covid-19 and Ethnicity. The IPP captures work ongoing across government, including our Fair Work First approach; the development of a race equality toolkit for employers; a Workplace Equality Fund to support minority ethnic people into employment; an ethnicity pay strategy; and a £20 increase to the Scottish Child Payment. We recognise the need for our work to tackle poverty to reach minority ethnic families in particular. That is why they are one of six priority groups we want to focus on in our national mission to eradicate child poverty in Scotland. Health inequalities are being tackled through a concurrent focus on improving Covid-19 health outcomes and targeting diseases, such as diabetes, which are overrepresented in certain minority ethnic communities.