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Under current constitutional arrangements in the United Kingdom immigration, including the Afghan resettlement schemes, is fully reserved to the UK Government and is dealt with by the Home Office.

Funding to local authorities to help them support Afghan refugees is provided by the UK Government, and instructions for this funding are published online: Afghan relocation and assistance: funding instruction - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Theatre in Schools Scotland is an initiative managed by Imaginate and National Theatre of Scotland (NTS) to develop the provision of theatre and dance performances available for nursery and primary schools to host for their pupils.

In the first three years, fourteen productions toured over six hundred performances to schools and nurseries in every local authority across Scotland. Information on the reach of TISS is available in the following table:

Through subsidy from NTS and Imaginate tickets cost approximated £2 per child. Schools in low-income areas can use their Pupil Equity Funding to pay for access to pay for the TISS programme. The Pupil Equity Funding is allocated directly to schools and targeted at closing the poverty related attainment gap.

In addition, NTS has approached different local trust and foundations to enable free or very low cost performances in economically deprived areas.

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

The six recommendations of the 2011 report, ‘Inspiring change’ were embedded in the SPS transformational review ‘Unlocking Potential – Transforming Lives’ document published during 2013 and the Learning & Skills Strategy which was renewed in 2016.

SPS continue to monitor performance against agreed criterion with their Learning Provider Fife College.

A refresh of the Equally Safe Delivery Plan outlining the joint commitment of the Scottish Government and COSLA to preventing and eradicating all forms of violence against women and girls, which includes stalking and sexual harassment, and tackling underpinning attitudes that perpetuate it, was published in June 2022. The Scottish Government also regularly monitors the effectiveness of legislation and the funding it provides to relevant support services, such as Action Against Stalking and the Scottish Women's Rights Centre.

Skills Development Scotland (SDS) has operational responsibility for our Modern Apprenticeship (MA) programme. Official MA statistics are published quarterly by SDS, including the number of starts, with a full year report available at the end of each financial year.

All MA starts are asked to complete an equality monitoring form. In terms of measuring and reporting on disabilities, SDS asks for participants’ self-reported information on impairment, health condition or learning difficulty. The number and proportion of MA starts self-identifying this from 2017-18 to 2021-22 is detailed in the following table:

The Scottish Government is working on a package of measures in relation to cladding that will provide direct support to homeowners and details will be published in the coming months. We are taking steps to ensure a potential scheme has the appropriate funding and delivery model to adapt to demand.

The Scottish Government is monitoring in line with the Report on the work of the 2021 Affordable Housing Investment Benchmarks Working Group. The situations under which a meeting of the sector should be convened ahead of the planned 1 April 2023 publication of new benchmarks have not arisen and therefore a meeting has not been convened.

This is a question for the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland (RoS).

Following on from the previous question, figures are provided for the last 10 years, for properties over 3000 ha.

Transfers are divided between sales/leases for the full monetary market value of the property, versus transfers for discounted or non-monetary consideration (e.g. succession).

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

Theatrical performances and cultural activities are embedded within each local establishment regime. However, the level of engagement is shaped by location, staffing resource, third sector participation and prisoner profile within each locus.

The steps taken to incorporate them are similar across the estate, where the operational needs, logistics and outcomes associated with each activity are considered within an event-planning forum and in partnership with the organisation delivering the activity.

With formal governance in place through Annual Learning Plans (ALP’s) in all establishments, the quantitative and qualitative outcomes associated with each performance or cultural activity can be considered alongside each establishments own delivery plans.

The latest available information on the number of people convicted for ‘stalking offences’ is provided in the following table.

Number of people proceeded and convicted for stalking offences (where main crime) in Scottish courts, 2018-19 to 2020-21.