Seòmar agus comataidhean

On 4 November 2021, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Veterans chaired a roundtable on spiking to discuss how we can achieve the right balance of targeted and universal intervention to ensure the safety of the public. Twenty-six partners attended including representatives from Police Scotland, SPA Forensic Services, Health services, Night Time Economy, Further and Higher Education, Local Authority, and Third Sector organisations.

A further roundtable was convened on 8 December 2021 at which time Police Scotland reported a downward trend in recorded spiking incidents. Key outcomes focussed on consistent messaging, training and prevention, with the Violence Reduction Unit supporting partners to continue roll out of the bystander training for night time industry staff to raise awareness and help keep people safe.

In January 2022, Police Scotland subsequently noted that there has been no corroborated evidence to support claims of needle spiking in Scotland, and forensic analysis has found no traces of drugs used for spiking in any alleged victims. ‎

We continue to work with partners to strengthen our response to spiking, and ensure that women feel safe and are supported to report. This includes continuing to implement our Equally Safe Strategy.

Please see a breakdown of the available data for a) and b)

Waste Incinerated and electricity produced at MWIs 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021

1. Waste incinerated by site (Tonnes)

The following data is from Waste Data Returns. Please refer to attached table which notes that the data below is higher for some sites than incinerated tonnages in Annual Reports made under the Permit.

All the underlying assumptions used in the analysis, including the information requested by the member, are available in the Zero Waste Scotland report The Climate Change Impacts of Burning Municipal Waste in Scotland and the accompanying technical report. Both are available on the Zero Waste Scotland website: The climate change impact of burning municipal waste in Scotland | Zero Waste Scotland .

The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care has not met with the Chair or Lead Clinician of the Scottish Respiratory Advisory Committee.

Respiratory policy falls under the portfolio remit of Ms Maree Todd MSP, Minister for Public Health, Women's Health & Sport. The Minister has not met with the Chair or Lead Clinician of the Scottish Respiratory Advisory Committee.

However, officials meet regularly with the Lead Clinician of the Scottish Respiratory Advisory Committee to discuss the implementation of the Respiratory Care Action Plan for Scotland.

We are committed to improving outcomes for people living with diabetes across Scotland. Our Diabetes Improvement Plan contains specific commitments to support increased access to diabetes technologies, with significant focus on equity of access to care and services.

Our national policy is to further increase access to diabetes technologies for everyone who would benefit from these life changing therapies, and we expect NHS Boards to provide insulin pumps and flash glucose monitors to all clinically suitable children and adults.

We are aware that children and adults from the most deprived areas are less likely to use diabetes technologies and we are committed to understanding the reasons for this. We are working in partnership with Diabetes Scotland and the Alliance to ensure that the needs of people living with diabetes are fully understood. In December 2021 we launched a lived experience network through the Alliance, to ensure that the experiences of those living with diabetes are taken into account when shaping policy. We are working to ensure that to the membership of this panel is as diverse as possible.

We will take targeted action to ensure equity of access across Scotland and share progress of this using data from SCI-diabetes.

As per S6W-06417 answered on 28 February 2022 , measurement of CO2 emissions using calibrated flow meters and CEMS is not a current requirement in SEPA permits for existing MWIs.

All SEPA Permits for existing sites must comply with the requirements of the Waste Incineration BAT Conclusions (WI BATCs) by 3 December 2023. SEPA will review Permits for MWIs to ensure they will be compliant by the deadline. This will include the new requirement for a calibrated flow meter.

The calibration of CO2 CEMS is not required by the WI BATCs. However, as part of the BAT review process, SEPA will consider whether to include a requirement for calibration of CEMS for CO2 and reporting of CO2 mass emissions to align with the approach taken by the Environment Agency. Whether or not each MWI has an appropriate CEMS in place which is able to be calibrated for measurement of CO2 will be confirmed during the BAT Review for each Permit.

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

There is no requirement for the direct measurements of CO2 via calibrated flow meters and calibrated CO2 CEMS in SEPA permits for municipal waste incinerators (MWI) in Scotland. The requested information is therefore not available either in total, or as a breakdown by proportion derived from fossil fuel and proportion derived from biogenic sources.

Permit holders are however required to report their annual CO2 emissions via the Scottish Pollutant Release Inventory (SPRI) and SEPA can therefore provide this data for the last reported year although this may include CO2 from additional sources to those from the incineration process eg. standby generators. This data can be found in SEPA’s SPRI data tool informatics.sepa.org.uk/SPRI/ . This is usually estimated using emission factors. There is no requirement in SPRI for MWIs to further breakdown their reported CO2 emission data into the proportions derived from fossil fuel or biogenic sources so this data is not available.

Additional funding of £14.6 million was allocated to NHS Boards in January 2022 to support increased access to diabetes technologies, including closed loop systems.

The Scottish Government also provides baseline funding to NHS Boards and it is for individual Boards to determine how best to utilise this funding to meet the needs and priorities of their local populations. This includes offering closed loop system technologies to all those for whom they are deemed clinically appropriate.

The information requested is not held centrally.

The Scottish Diabetes Survey provides an annual summary of key issues and trends in diabetes care and treatment in Scotland. The 2020 Survey was published in January of this year and can be found by following link: https://www.diabetesinscotland.org.uk/publications/#survey-docs.

The Scottish Diabetes Survey shows information on ethnicity from NHS Boards in Scotland is available for 81.7% of the registered population with type 1 and type 2 diabetes.

The Scottish Government recognised the impact on businesses of measures to control Omicron including licensed clubs. As such they were eligible for hospitality funding including the Hospitality: December and January Business Support Top Up Fund and the Hospitality and Leisure: January Business Support Top Up Fund. These funds closed to applications on the 31 January 2022.