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We have no plans to monitor this Order. The comments received from statutory consultees at the time of making the Order confirmed that they were content with the proposal, providing the requirement for prior notification of the change remained in place, ensuring that any visual or environmental impacts resulting from the use of larger cages could be effectively managed under the planning process.

The Gateway Review team for the recent Gateway Review into Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme interviewed representatives of the following:

• Circularity Scotland Ltd
• Food and Drink Federation Scotland
• Lidl
• Scottish Environment Protection Agency
• Scottish Environmental Services Association and Suez
• Scottish Government
• Scottish Grocers’ Federation and G101 Stores
• Scottish Retail Consortium
• Scottish Wholesale Association
• Tesco
• Zero Waste Scotland

The Scottish Government only collects school pupil attendance and absence information every 2 years, so no data is available for 2017-18. In addition, the structure and format of data gathered in 2018-19, as well as some partial data gathered in 2019-20 (due to the Covid pandemic) does not enable the necessary analysis to be undertaken to answer this question.

For the 2020-21 school year, the Scottish Government does have daily attendance and absence data that would enable such analysis to be undertaken. However, this could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

However, information we do have in relation to school pupil attendance and absence can be found here

Summary statistics for schools in Scotland no. 10: 2019 edition - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Covid19ELCandHubs | Tableau Public

COVID19 - Schools and Childcare Information 2021 | Tableau Public

Coronavirus (COVID-19): daily data for Scotland - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Coronavirus (COVID-19): trends in daily data - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

COVID-19 Education Recovery Group: children and young people infographic - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

This information includes the attendance and absence rates over the course of the entire 2020-21 school year (when schools were open for all pupils to return from specific stages).

It shows that attendance generally started at around 95% when schools fully reopened after a lockdown (i.e. August 2020 and April 2021).

On any given day, more children and young people were not in school due to non-Covid reasons, and that most pupils not in school due to Covid-related reasons was due to pupils being required to self-isolate. The actual number of pupils who were absent due to having tested positive for Covid (or displaying Covid symptoms) was generally under 1,000 pupils (out of approximately 700,000 pupils) on any given day over the course of the entire 2020-21 school year.

The UK Internal Market Act was imposed on the rest of the UK by the UK Government, despite the refusal of consent from the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments, and poses a direct threat to Scotland’s ability to exercise devolved decision-making across a wide range of devolved policy areas including environmental policy.

We are currently analysing the text of the Act to understand how it could interact with Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme.

The information requested regarding the number patients who have contracted COVID-19 while attending hospital is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

However, on 14 July 2021 the Public Health Scotland weekly report titled “Hospital onset COVID-19 cases in Scotland” shows that up to 20 June 2021 in NHS Lanarkshire there were:

• 493 definite hospital onset cases (first positive specimen date was 15 or more days after admission)
• 270 probable hospital onset cases (first positive specimen on days 8 to 14 of admission to NHS board)
• 203 indeterminate hospital onset cases (first positive specimen on days 3 to 7 of admission)
• 1,223 non-hospital onset cases (first positive specimen on day 1 or 2 of admission)

These statistics are not published with a hospital breakdown. The report can be found at the following link:

https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/media/8430/2021-07-14-covid19-hospitalonset-week-24-2021-report.pdf

The Scottish Government is responsible for coordinating public awareness and understanding of the implications of the Children (Equal Protection from Assault) (Scotland) Act 2019. This responsibility extends to the whole of Scotland.

The Scottish Government has taken a variety of steps to raise awareness of the Act as I highlighted in my previous response. These include:

Information about the Act on gov.scot .

Information about the Act on mygov.scot

A dedicated page about the Act on ParentClub

The publication of a news release

Social media activity:

The ParentClub Instagram account - post on the Act

The ParentClub Facebook account - post on the Act

Scottish Government education tweet about the Act

Scottish Government tweet about the Act

The creation and publication of promotional materials about the Act for parents and carers, and for children and young people

The publication of an Easy Read factsheet about the Act

Writing to organisations, including local authorities and health boards, with information about the Act:

May 2020 letter

October 2020 letter and framework document

Arranged for information about the Act to be included in Ready Steady Baby

More generally, the Scottish Government is committed to supporting parents. The Scottish Government has run a marketing campaign which promotes positive parenting. This can be seen on the ParentClub website .

Working with the Implementation Group formed by the Scottish Government to consider work required to implement the Act, we will continue to explore options for raising public awareness and understanding about the removal of the defence.

All viruses naturally mutate over time and therefore it is important that we spot any changes quickly to understand the potential risk any variant may pose. We already have a comprehensive surveillance infrastructure in place, harnessing genomic sequencing and collaboration across scientific bodies to continually assess the risk of new variants emerging. Variants are declared to be under investigation or of concern independently for the entire UK and risk assessments and technical briefings are made available. The public health agencies do not hesitate to designate a new VUI or VOC when the evidence demonstrates this, and our surveillance is working effectively.

The Building Standards Futures Board was established in 2019 to provide guidance and direction on the development and implementation of recommendations made by the Compliance and Enforcement and Fire Safety Review Panels.

The Futures Board covers a number of work streams, one of which (Compliance Plan Approach) aims to reduce the risk of non-compliance with the building regulations for all building types including new-build residential developments.

Scottish Government has recently strengthened guidance on the roles and responsibilities of any person undertaking new building work. The Building Standards Procedural Handbook, published on 1 October 2019, emphasises the importance of regular and effective communication and partnership working to improve compliance with building regulations. It also recommends the use of more formal customer agreements and pre-warrant discussions between the applicant and verifier to discuss all the key aspects of design, and the importance of carrying out safety checks on critical design elements during construction.

We intend to consult on further proposals to strengthen the building standards system and reduce the risk of non-compliance in late summer/autumn 2021.

The agreement announced recently between the Scottish Government and COSLA will see the Scottish Government provide funding in the 2021-22 academic year to allow current levels of provision in local authorities to be sustained at no cost to families.

The Scottish Government is committed to working with local authorities to establish a sustainable approach to the service and to funding for future years.

To understand the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines in preventing the development of long COVID, an individual first has to have had COVID-19 in the first place.

Therefore, the question really is effectiveness of vaccines in preventing the COVID-19 virus and subsequent long COVID. A study published by Public Health England on 22 May 2021, Vaccines highly effective against B.1.617.2 variant after 2 doses , demonstrates the high effectiveness levels of two doses of both AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines against the Delta variant.

Two doses offer good protection against the Delta variant at levels of 88% and 60% for Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines respectively after two weeks. This is compared to 93% and 66% against the Kent variant. One dose of either vaccine offers protection of 33% against Delta variant after three weeks, compared to 50% against the Kent variant.

This follows data published on 23 April 2021 by the University of Oxford and the Office for National Statistics which showed that one dose of either the Pfizer or AstraZeneca cut coronavirus cases by nearly two-thirds and were 74% effective against symptomatic infection.

Clinical trials have found that vaccination against COVID-19 further reduces the likelihood contracting long COVID even if an individual develops COVID-19. A paper published by the Tony Blair Institute on 18 June 2021, The Hidden Pandemic: Long Covid , states ‘vaccination also provides additional protection against long COVID: even if a vaccinated individual goes on to contract Covid-19, that person’s chances of developing Long Covid are reduced by a further 30 per cent in the most at-risk age group.’

Additionally, the vaccines have shown to also relieve symptoms of long COVID in people that already developed COVID-19. Yale School of Medicine stated on 12 April 2021, Why Vaccines May Be Helping Some With Long COVID , ‘as many as 30 to 40 per cent of those who get the vaccine have reported improvements to their symptoms.’

However, analysis by Professor Karl Friston, of University College London, suggests that changes in people’s behaviour after being vaccinated have reduced the vaccines’ ability to prevent infection . People who have “let their guards down” by dramatically reducing social distancing and other safety measures have put themselves at much higher risk of contracting COVID -19 and potentially developing long COVID, believes Professor Friston, who publishes a weekly Covid-modelling report and sits on the influential independent Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies ( SAGE ).