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The Scottish Government works with the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), NatureScot, fisheries boards and trusts, and other stakeholders to protect the natural environment and wildlife from water shortages.

Our River Basin Management Plans identify areas in Scotland already impacted by abstractions and set out objectives to improve those watercourses. SEPA licences and regulates abstractions to ensure that water use does not exceed the available capacity. At times of water scarcity, SEPA has the powers to temporarily stop abstraction, to protect the environment.

The National Water Scarcity Plan sets out how SEPA and other key stakeholders will prepare and respond to water shortages. SEPA works closely with NatureScot and other environmental organisations to provide advice and information on water scarcity so they can act to protect wildlife.

The Homelessness Statistics team are in the process of collecting, processing and quality assuring data returns from local authorities for the Housing Options (PREVENT1) Statistics in Scotland: 2020-21 publication. As such, we are not yet in a position to confirm a publication date. The statistics will be released as soon as they are considered ready, under the guidance of the Chief Statistician. At this stage we anticipate this will be between October and November.

Once there is more certainty around a publication date this will be pre-announced no later than 4 weeks in advance, in line with the Statistics Code of Practice, on the Scottish Government website: Official statistics: forthcoming publications - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

We have confirmed with Public Health Scotland (PHS) that there is a sentinel surveillance scheme. The symptomatic dataset is a very small sample; consequently, any potential analysis would not be robust. However, we are assured that the ZOE app does include Scottish data; moreover, PHS does not believe that there is any reason to assume Scottish only data would be different.

No meetings have taken place with The National and the Sunday National since the beginning of the current parliamentary session.

The following table provides the information held on the number of closures due to roadworks and incidents on the M8 between junctions 13 and 26 between July 2017 and July 2021. We have been advised by our operating Company that figures for 2016/17 are currently unavailable. However, these are being sourced and will be forwarded to you once received.

Government budgets contribute to alleviating the climate emergency through a range of investments, including spend that reduces greenhouse gas emissions towards net zero, spend that delivers emissions reductions through a fair and just transition, and spend focussed on adapting to the effects of climate change.

The 2021-22 Budget increased low carbon capital investment across government to over £1.9 billion, comprising 36% of overall capital spend. This proportion has risen from 29% in 2018-19, when reporting began. In March, following budget negotiations, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance committed to a further £40 million in capital investment for active travel and energy efficiency initiatives that align with our green recovery and net zero ambitions. These figures that we track on low carbon capital investment, as mentioned above, provide only a partial picture of the wide range of investments across all government spend that contributes towards alleviating the climate emergency.

Some of our key commitments on climate change in this budget include increasing our Heat in Buildings investment by £30 million to £213.4 million; increasing forestry investment by £26.9 million to £121.2 million; committing £40 million for our Agricultural Transformation Fund to assist the sector in reducing greenhouse gas emissions; and committing the first £165 million of our £2 billion Low Carbon Fund, including: £14 million for the Green Jobs Fund, £25 million for bus priority infrastructure and £15 million for zero emissions buses.

A review of the energy standards of the Scottish building regulations is currently under way. This is considering options to further improve the energy performance of both new residential developments and all other new buildings. It also considers the energy performance requirements where relevant new construction work is carried out to existing buildings.

The consultation can be accessed at:

Scottish Building Regulations: Proposed changes to Energy Standards and associated topics, including Ventilation, Overheating and Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure - Scottish Government - Citizen Space (consult.gov.scot) .

The new energy performance requirements are programmed to take effect in 2022.

The Scottish Government looks forward to a successful COP26 in November that delivers increased global ambition to net zero in a way that is fair and just. Scottish Ministers have engaged widely on COP26, and will continue to do so in the run up to, during and after the conference.

Between 1 January 2020 and 20 July 2021, all Scottish Ministers (excluding the First Minister) attended a total of 36 meetings in relation to COP26. Between 1 January 2020 and 28 July 2021, the First Minister attended 4 meetings in relation to COP26. The majority of meetings included in these figures are external engagements, including meetings between the previous Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change And Land Reform Ms. Cunningham and the UK Government. Whilst meetings referenced here include those with COP26 as a specified focus of the engagement, a significant amount of climate- related Ministerial meetings since Glasgow was announced as the COP26 host city are likely to have included discussions of COP26 to some extent.

This is a reserved policy area. Responsibility for security of supply sits with National Grid ESO (the GB electricity system operator), which works closely with generators and network operators across Scotland to ensure that there is always enough electricity to meet demand.

This includes preparing for the closure of individual generators several years in advance, to ensure that closures do not impact electricity supplies. National Grid ESO has worked closely with EDF, owners of Hunterston and Torness, and with Scotland’s electricity network owners, to ensure that the network is able to respond to and support the closure of these nuclear power stations in the coming years.

National Grid ESO is currently overseeing a “Stability Pathfinder”, the second phase of which is looking at network and commercial options to replace the various network stability requirements currently provided by existing generation. This is designed to ensure that the networks are ready for the greater share that Scotland’s renewable resources will constitute in the future.

The latest data cut of 22.07.2021 showed 262 active Cancer Clinical Trials in Scotland. On that date there were 22 Covid-19 suspended Cancer Clinical Trials.