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In relation to (a), (b) and (c)(i), the Care Inspectorate does not hold data in relation to care homes that have closed. However, the number of adult care home services in the public, private and third sectors which have had their registrations cancelled in each of the last five years is in the following table:

The Scottish Government, through the Home Energy Scotland (HES) provides interest-free loans and grant funding to improve the energy efficiency of homes in Scotland.

Funding is available in the form of interest-free loans with up to 75% cashback for eligible renewables measures, 40% cashback for eligible energy efficiency measures and in the form of grants through our Warmer Homes Scotland fuel poverty scheme.

Funding is available to all households who meet the eligible criteria.

To further support households to make their homes greener, HES also provide:

• free, impartial advice through Home Energy Scotland, including specialist home renewables advice;
• the Green Homes Network which allows households to find out about the experience of others who have already installed measures; and
• the Renewable Installer Finder Tool which helps households find installers and suppliers in their area.

Under the HES Loan and Cashback scheme, homeowners can borrow up to £17,500 for a total of two renewables measures (attracting up 75% cashback). For energy efficiency measures, loans of up to £15,000 is available (attracting up to 40% cashback).

Warmer Homes Scotland (WHS) is the Scottish Government’s national fuel poverty scheme, designed to make homes warmer for those living in fuel poverty or at risk of fuel poverty through installing insulation and heating measures into individual properties.

Home owners and private rented sector tenants struggling to heat their homes may benefit under the Warmer Homes Scheme. Heating measures are available to those in receipt of certain benefits and who are pregnant or with children under the age of 16 years.

Full details of both schemes can be found on the Home Energy Scotland website.

The Scottish Government recognise that GPs are often the first port of call for people in distress, or those seeking mental health and wellbeing support. We are already investing to meet our commitment to ensure that every GP Practice will have access to a mental health and wellbeing service by 2026. This will create 1,000 additional staff who can help grow community mental health resilience and direct social prescribing. £1.5 million was allocated in 2021-22 to support local planning and development and we will continue to invest in this.

This new commitment builds on the significant investment already made to recruit additional mental health workers in primary care settings. At 1 January 2022, 263.5 WTE additional Mental Health Worker posts had been created in GP settings through Action 15 of the Mental Health Strategy and, at the 31 March 2021, 215.7 WTE Mental Health Worker posts had been created under the Primary Care Improvement Fund.

The implementation of these multi-disciplinary mental health and wellbeing services will ensure more timely access to assessment, support and treatment and they will be available to all age groups, including children and young people. These services will interface with wider community support, such as the Distress Brief Intervention model which provides an innovative alternative for staff in Primary Care who encounter people in distress who are assessed as not requiring emergency clinical intervention, but need emotional and practical support. DBI is now available nationally to those aged 16 or over, and we are also trialling DBI for 14/15 year olds.

Additionally, in 2021-22, we allocated around an extra £40 million to NHS to support implementation of the National Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service Specification. However, not all children and young people who require mental health and wellbeing support require treatment by CAMHS. That is why we provided local authorities with £15 million last year to deliver a range of mental health and wellbeing support for children and young people experiencing emotional distress in their communities. There are now over 230 new supports and services available across Scotland that supported over 18,500 children and young people between June-December 2021. We have committed to double the investment in children and young people’s community mental health support by the end of this Parliament.

We know that providing emotional support to school age children is vital. As a result of our £16 Million per annum investment, every secondary school now has access to counselling support.

The National Suicide Prevention Leadership Group is setting up a Youth Advisory Group to bring together young people with lived experience of suicide, self-harm and poor mental health. This Group will ensure suicide prevention policies and approaches are designed to reach, and support, children and young people. This includes informing the new suicide prevention strategy which will publish in September. Finally, the NSPLG is planning a social media campaign over the coming months aimed at young people, with the objective of encouraging young people to talk more openly about suicide, and to seek help.

We are committed to a Just Transition, reducing emissions from our homes and buildings in a way that leaves no one behind. Planned actions that will support a wide range of households, including young families, to invest in home renewables and make sustainable lifestyle choices include:

• Introducing a standalone grant through the Home Energy Scotland support scheme, giving young families and other households more flexibility to tailor support for home renewables to their needs
• Collaborating with a range of partners through the Green Heat Finance Taskforce on innovative mechanisms needed to ensure an affordable transition to zero emissions heating, for example, ‘heat as a service’ models
• Developing a specific Heat in Buildings Public Engagement Strategy that will increase awareness and understanding of the heat transition and the benefits it can deliver.

Heat in Buildings Strategy: https://www.gov.scot/publications/heat-buildings-strategy-achieving-net-zero-emissions-scotlands-buildings/

Our Fisheries Management Strategy contains a range of actions to support more sustainable and responsible fisheries management in Scotland. Policies, such as the Future Catching Policy and the introduction of Remote Electronic Monitoring to key parts of the fishing fleet, will support increased sustainability of practice, and will increase accountability and confidence that we are fishing at sustainable levels. These consultations are open until 07 June 2022.

In addition, the Bute House Agreement aims to deliver on our shared commitment to achieve and maintain good environmental status for all of Scotland’s seas. The agreement includes a commitment to consult on a cap on inshore fishing activity, as well as implementation of Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs) which will provide additional protection for some fish nursery areas, both of which will help to improve fish stocks.

As a guiding principle we will follow the scientific advice and take a Precautionary Approach with regards to management of our pressure stocks, in line with the Fisheries Act of 2020.

Finally, we will continue to work closely with our network of Regional Inshore Fisheries Groups, and are already using learning from our Outer Hebrides Inshore Fisheries Pilot which commenced in November 2020. This Pilot is trialling pot limitation in order to inform sustainable management options for other discrete inshore fisheries to ensure that our fish stocks are sustainably managed.

No assessment has been undertaken by the Scottish Government or VisitScotland.

VisitScotland does not create driving routes but rather, promotes successful ones on its website. Its website outlines that the route begins over the Border. VisitScotland is not however responsible for signage for such routes which is managed by the relevant authority. In the case of local roads, this falls to local authorities.

VisitScotland does not hold information on visitor numbers to businesses based outside of Scotland. VisitEngland may however hold this data.

VisitScotland’s summary of statistics in relation to pre-pandemic visitors to Dumfries & Galloway can be found here: Dumfries & Galloway - Tourism Statistics & Research | VisitScotland.org

The Scottish Milk and Healthy Snack Scheme expands and improves on the UK Nursery Milk Scheme, which it replaced in August 2021, promoting better health outcomes for children through a nutritious and varied diet. All pre-school child care settings who are registered with the Care Inspectorate are eligible to apply to the Scheme if a child in that setting attends for 2 hours or more each day. When a settings registers to the scheme each child will be provided with a serving of milk or non-dairy alternative and a portion of fruit or vegetable every day they attend the pre-school setting.

• The budget for the Scottish Milk and Healthy Snack Scheme in 2022-23 is £12.5 million compared to £9.5 million in 2021-22.

Scottish Government funds a Scottish Dental Access Initiative Grant for Health Boards to provide capital funding to dental practices looking to set up or increase their facilities in areas where NHS dental provision is less available. Qualifying areas include remote, rural and island locations, with the number of areas increased at the last annual review in December 2021.

The Recruitment and Retention Allowance has recently been reviewed to ensure that Boards with more rural geographies have the opportunity to attract newly qualified dentists. The new arrangements mean that newly qualified dentists joining the list of a Classification 1 area can receive additional payments of up to £25,000 over two years, with vocational trainees attracting payments of £12,500 over one year. The full details can be found at UPDATE: Amendment No. 155 to the SDR – Recruitment and Retention Allowance | Scottish Dental .

All Covid-19 or presumed Covid-19 deaths where the deceased may have contracted the virus in the course of their employment or occupation or where the deceased was resident in a care home when the virus was contracted fall to be reported to COPFS. A specialist Covid-19 deaths investigation unit has been set up and continues to receive and consider all such reports and direct further investigations, where appropriate, into the circumstances of each death.

It would not be appropriate, at this stage, to comment on the potential outcome of its investigations or the course which those investigations will take. This includes any individual or collective actions or otherwise of those involved in Covid-19 deaths. However, in appropriate cases where criminal proceedings are in contemplation, all relevant charges will be considered.

We are determined to ensure that NHS dental services emerge well-placed to care for the oral health of the whole population and we are now moving forward with NHS dental recovery.

We have seen in April that the revised payment arrangements combined with the relaxation of IPC measures are having a substantial positive impact in improving NHS patient access and ensuring the sector is able to quickly return to more normal levels of activity and clear the backlog.