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Lateral Flow Devices (LFDs) used in the National Testing Programme are routinely evaluated and reviewed to detect early signals of changes in performance with emerging variants to ensure they can detect new variants of concern as soon as possible after they are identified.

LFDs that have passed validation at UKHSA Porton Down are currently being assessed against the Omicron variant, with priority being given to the LFDs currently deployed in the UK National Testing Programme.

LFDs used in the National Testing Programme have been evaluated against, and successfully detect the Delta variant, which is currently the dominant variant in Scotland.

Shooting with lead shot over wetlands has been banned in Scotland by the Environmental Protection (Restrictions on the use of lead shot) (Scotland) (No. 2) Regulations 2004. This was achieved before current GB-wide chemical safety regulations were in place. Both NatureScot and Forestry and Land Scotland have committed to ending the use of lead ammunition to shoot deer on Scotland’s national forests and land over the next five years, and non-lead ammunition is used in approximately 95% of circumstances.

Work is ongoing under the restriction mechanism of the UK Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and restriction of Chemicals (REACH) Regulation, that operates across England, Scotland and Wales, to produce a restriction dossier for lead in ammunition. This is the first step towards potential future GB-wide legislation.

The restriction dossier, which will be published in April 2022, will propose options for consolidating and extending the current national bans. Once published interested parties can submit comments on the dossier to the UK Chemicals Agency. The UK Chemicals Agency will then form an opinion on the most suitable restriction option and its timing for introduction based on control of risks to the environment, socio-economic factors and comments received, before April 2023.

The Agency’s opinion is then communicated to UK Government and the Devolved Administrations for a decision, which can only be made with the consent of Welsh and Scottish Ministers. Legislation would follow through powers included in the UK REACH regulation.

There is no system of coroners' inquests in Scotland unlike England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The responsibility for the investigation of any death that requires further explanation rests with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. Any sudden, suspicious, unexpected or unexplained death and any death which has occurred in circumstances which give rise to public concern, can result in a Fatal Accident Inquiry (FAI) a public examination of the circumstances of that death conducted before a sheriff.

Legal aid is available for relatives participating in an FAI on the same basis as for civil proceedings and the same statutory tests must be met.

Civil legal aid has generous financial eligibility thresholds and those who are entitled to participate in an FAI, such as family, are assumed to have probable cause. In terms of assessing ‘reasonableness’ the Scottish Legal Aid Board expects that the Procurator Fiscal will usually be able to represent the interests of the relatives. However, where a relative of a person who died in prison or police custody applies, SLAB will look favourably on the application.

SLAB holds data in respect of applications from 2012 only. In respect of FAIs I can confirm that since 2012 there has been a total of 134 applications received, of which 111 were granted. That is a grant rate of approximately 83%.

In the financial year 2012-13 90% of applications received were granted.

In the financial year 2013-14 78% of applications received were granted.

In the financial year 2014-15 71% of applications received were granted.

In the financial year 2015-16 93% of applications received were granted.

In the financial year 2016-17 88% of applications received were granted.

In the financial year 2017-18 87% of applications received were granted.

In the financial year 2018-19 79% of applications received were granted.

In the financial year 2019-20 81% of applications received were granted.

In the financial year 2020-21 86% of applications received were granted.

Legal aid is currently available to meet the costs of mediation where appropriate. Again, interaction between mediation and legal aid is a matter that will be considered a part of development of a Bill and I refer to my response to
‎ S6W-04609 on 8 December 2021. In the meantime, the Scottish Government is actively working with stakeholders to expand the availability of mediation and arbitration services within the civil justice system to give our citizens, businesses and organisations access to flexible, affordable and less stressful means of settling disputes, benefitting them and saving time in courts.

The Scottish Government is making available £2.332 million to the Scottish Legal Aid Board in 2021-22 to support projects offering in court expert advice and representation to help people tackle and resolve a wide range of problems including debt, housing, homelessness and small claims court actions.

The Scottish Government is also making available £100k to Scottish Mediation and £115k to the Scottish Arbitration Centre in 2021-22 to promote and expand the provision of Mediation and Arbitration services in Scotland.

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

Substance misuse services (often catering for drugs and alcohol misuse) are accessible either by open access or through GP referral to these services for review and support. These vary across Health boards with regards to support and resource available and mode of initial access.

This information is not held centrally.

We currently provide £42 million annually to local authorities through the flood component of the general capital grant. We are committed to providing an extra £150 million to the flood component over the next five years. This is a 70% increase to the flooding budget from £210 million to £360 million. We are working with SEPA and local authorities to decide the best way of allocating this additional funding.

A portion of the current flood component allocated to the City of Edinburgh Council can already be used for projects to reduce surface water flooding. SEPA prioritise flood risk management actions across Scotland every 6 years. 80% of the current funding is set aside for 40 large scale flood protection schemes, and 20% is divided amongst the 32 local authorities for other actions to reduce flood risk, including from surface water. A number of local authorities are undertaking studies to identify why surface water flooding is a problem in a given location and how it might be resolved.

SEPA are currently prioritising new flood risk management works based on information submitted by local authorities for the period 2022-2027. A number of surface water schemes or works have been put forward as part of this process.

Ministerial decisions will be informed by the recommendations of the joint Scottish Government/COSLA working group that is currently considering these issues.

The Scottish Government first established firm annual peatland restoration targets in 2018 in its report Climate Change Plan: third report on proposals and policies 2018-2032 (RPP3) .

Based on a 1990 baseline, this set a commitment to restore 50,000 hectares of degraded peatland by 2020 (including 10,000 hectares in 2017-18 and 20,000 hectares per year thereafter) as the first phase of a longer target to restore 250,000 hectares by 2030.

This implies a total restoration target of 70,000 hectares between 1990 and April 2021. Against this target, around 60,000 hectares of degraded peatland have been put on the road to recovery since 1990 as shown in the following table. Annual restoration totals are only available from 2012-13 when the Scottish Government began funding Peatland ACTION, the national peatland restoration programme delivered by NatureScot.

A full and accurate report of numbers of people registered as sight impaired and severely sight impaired cannot be produced at this time, but the latest data received shows a snapshot of people registered across 16 local partnerships. In 2020 (1 January to 31 December), 405 people were registered as sight impaired and 382 people were registered as severely sight impaired. In 2021 (1 January to 25 November), 449 people were registered as sight impaired and 456 people were registered as severely sight impaired.

This information is kept by each local authority, but a number of issues have been experienced, including GDPR problems and under-utilisation of the web platform designed to capture this information.

The Scottish Government remains committed to working with Public Health Scotland (PHS) to provide accurate diagnostic and registration data, in order to enable better access to services, support and care for people with sight loss. The GDPR issues relating to the Certificate of Vision Impairment (CVI) (Scotland) form has been resolved, and we are currently working with PHS on the development of a data collection solution that will replace the current web platform.

EventScotland aims to support the Scottish events industry by developing programmes which focus on supporting an exciting portfolio of sporting and cultural events. EventScotland has previously supported a number of motor events including the Scottish Classic Speed Fair, Jim Clark Rally and Bo’Ness Speed Hill Climb. Funding is aligned to specific programme criteria and is subject to a thorough assessment process.