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The Glasgow School of Art (GSA) is an autonomous Higher Education Institution (HEI), and as such has responsibility for its own strategic and operational decision making, including those related to the rebuilding of the Mackintosh building. The GSA has made clear its intention to rebuild the Mackintosh as a fully functioning art school, engaging fully with the local community in taking this forward.

All category A listed buildings, including the Mackintosh, are of significant cultural and historic importance to Scotland and are defined in Historic Environment Scotland (HES) guidance as buildings of “outstanding special architectural or historic interest”. HES, as the lead public body for investigating, caring for and promoting Scotland's historic environment, will continue to work with the GSA, Glasgow City Council and other interested parties on the complex issues surrounding the rebuild of the Mackintosh building.

All Scottish HEIs in receipt of public funding must comply with the terms of their Financial Memorandum with the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), and the principles of good governance set out in the Scottish Code of Good HE Governance.

The SFC continues to engage regularly with the GSA at senior management and board level on a range of issues, such as institutional governance, its plans for the delivery of high quality education, and the use of its estates for this purpose. This includes the Mackintosh and the approach the GSA is taking to inform decisions around its rebuilding.

The GSA will shortly publish the first stage of this process, the Strategic Outline Business Case (OBC), which was developed in accordance with UK and Scottish Government guidance and includes input from a range of internal and external stakeholders.

Our National Infrastructure Mission plans for over £33 billion of Scottish Government investment over the course of the current Parliamentary term. This means that annual investment in our hospitals, schools, houses, transport, low carbon technology and digital connections, will be around £1.56 billion higher by 2025-26 than in 2019-20.

All international studies show that boosting infrastructure investment is expected to have a positive impact on Scotland’s long-term economic growth. Scottish Government analysis published in 2018 available at www.gov.scot/Infrastructure investment: evidence summary showed the annual UK government investment was around 2.6% of UK GDP, one percentage point below the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) average.

The National Infrastructure Mission represents an increase in annual investment by 1% of 2017 Scottish GDP by the end of this Parliament, raising the level of public investment in infrastructure in Scotland to internationally competitive levels and providing economic stimulus.

The Scottish Government allocated £475,000 of additional funding to Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park Authority over this year and last year to meet the costs associated with additional visitor management pressures in the National Park following the easing of restrictions put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic in the National Park. This is in addition to £425 000 which has been allocated to mitigate the wider impact of the pandemic on businesses and local communities.

The additional funding for visitor management has been spent on a range of additional measures by the Park Authority, including increasing its seasonal staff complement (such as rangers, campsite wardens and environment officers) to manage the substantial number of visitors to the national park and the high volume of litter and waste generated; providing and maintaining additional temporary toilet facilities; making adjustments to Park Authority sites to ensure COVID-safe access for the public; and providing additional signage, for example to help manage traffic in congested areas.

In addition, the Scottish Government allocated £70,000 to the Park Authority from the Scottish Government’s COVID Recovery Task Force Funding in 2021 to fund strategic development plans for East and West Loch Lomond to assess how these areas can continue to attract visitors whilst reducing visitor pressures such as traffic and parking capacity issues.

Looking to the future, the Scottish Government’s increase in the Park Authority’s Capital budget by £540,000 for 2021-22 and for each of the next three years will enable the organisation to deliver visitor infrastructure improvements and develop a capital investment plan to better support visitor management in the National Park.

The Scottish Government criminal proceedings database does not hold information on the specific type of vessel involved in charges prosecuted under Loch Lomond Byelaws.

The Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service were able to manually search relevant case records and confirmed that 3 people have been prosecuted for offences involving a jet ski under Loch Lomond Byelaws 2013 B3.5(1)&3.17 - Knowingly/recklessly/negligently navigate and behaviour of vessel.

A University of Glasgow study on lifelong health outcomes in former professional footballers, especially in relation to dementia, was published in 2019 containing evidence of possible increased risk of dementia for this group. Further work is underway to establish why footballers may be at greater risk and we will give full consideration to the report published into this subject in August 2021 led by Dr Willie Stewart.

We remain in close contact on these issues with experts at the sportscotland Institute of Sport and the Chief Medical Officer at the Scottish FA and will work with partners, including PFA Scotland, to carefully consider emerging evidence on former footballers developing dementia.

We are funding a new body, Brain Health Scotland, for five years , to embed brain health within clinical services and across public health. As part of this, we are exploring links between pilot brain health clinics from next year and the feasibility of additional national work focussing specifically on brain injury.

We are in daily contact with Health and Social Care Partnerships (HSCPs) facing the greatest challenges and are monitoring the situation closely. Health Boards and HSCPs have provided assurances that people in need of the most urgent care will continue receiving care during this challenging period.

We are working with local partners to address these pressures at a local and national level, including putting in place measures to support recruitment and multi-disciplinary working. Some of the immediate actions we have taken include: funding support to advertise vacant posts on a dedicated social care webpage; and targeted communication with Further and Higher Education nursing students and Social Work students, to encourage applications to join the workforce.

We have allocated an additional £380 million to Health Boards to help with costs arising from the pandemic. This comes on top of the £1.7 billion already provided to Health Boards and Health and Social Care Partnerships last year.

For unpaid carers, we have invested an additional £28.5m for local carer support in this year’s budget, bringing total investment in the Carers Act to £68m per year. The previous Cabinet Secretary wrote to authorities in March to highlight the importance of using this additional funding to expand carer support. We also added a further £1.1m last year to the annual £3m voluntary sector Short Breaks Fund and have committed an additional £570,000 this year, enabling more families/carers and young carers to take a break from caring.

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

The SPS is currently undertaking a policy review of its ‘ Gender Identity and Gender Reassignment Policy for those in our Custody’. The review is comprised of two main stages.

The first stage is underway and consists of an in-depth analysis of evidence that has emerged since the SPS’ current policy was introduced in 2014.

The second stage will consist of a series of discussions with key stakeholders. The SPS will also publish the current policy and underpinning legal framework on its website, inviting comment and feedback.

It is anticipated that the review will conclude in spring 2022 and a refreshed, evidence based policy position will be published by the SPS.

No specific risk assessment has been carried out for the impact of the Household Recycling Charter on recycling rates.

The Scottish Government has committed to evaluate the Household Recycling Charter. This work has been delayed temporarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but we are working with COSLA and local authorities to take forward this evaluation.

Over and above the local government finance settlement, between 2015 – 2019 the Scottish Government provided around £8 million through Zero Waste Scotland to support local authorities in aligning their services with the Household Recycling Charter Code of Practice.

In March, we launched a £70 million recycling improvement fund to support improvements in local authority recycling infrastructure. One of the objectives of the fund is to Support Local Authorities with aligning their services to the Code of Practice which accompanies the Household Recycling Charter.

The Scottish Government has made clear its commitment to maintain or exceed environmental standards in place upon EU exit, and to maintain alignment with developing EU standards, as far as possible. We have legislated under the UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Continuity) (Scotland) Act 2021 (“the Act”) for a discretionary power to align devolved law with EU law, where appropriate and practical to do so.

Scottish Ministers are currently preparing the policy statement, as required by section 6 of the Act, which will set out the approach to be taken, the factors to be taken into account and the process to be followed when considering whether to exercise this discretionary power.

The Scottish Government is committed to action to protect its natural environment. The policy on the protections and standards afforded by the Habitats Regulations remains unchanged following our departure from the European Union. The proposed amendments to the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017 must not result in a reduction of the level of environmental protection.

The UK Internal Market Act was imposed against the will of the devolved administrations and is a risk to our ability to exercise devolved decision-making powers across a wide range of policy areas, including environmental policy. The Scottish Government will seek to ensure that regulations made by the UK Government take into account potential cross-border impacts on Scottish interests.