Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Scottish Government engaged extensively with a number of organisations representing the Taxi and Private Hire vehicle trade including Unite Union, Scottish Chambers of Commerce and the Scottish Taxi Federation to explore how and where funding should be targeted. I also met directly with Unite the Union and representatives of the Private Hire industry prior to the launch of the fund.

NHS Lothian is performing in-line with the rest of Scotland and within national timeframes. All NHS Boards have the same timeframe in which to complete each JCVI cohort. There will be slight local variations in time taken to reach targets dependant on population demographics within each NHS Board i.e Lothian has proportionally the highest constituency population of younger adults. NHS Lothian have reached these targets for each cohort, with the percentage coverage for over 50s in line with the Scottish average.

The vaccination data are updated daily and can be found here: COVID-19 Daily Dashboard | Tableau Public

This data is available on the Public Health Scotland Education Surveillance Dashboard which provides a three-weekly rolling average of hospital admissions for 2-17 years olds - COVID-19 Education Surveillance dashboard - Enhanced surveillance of COVID-19 in education settings - COVID-19 data and intelligence - COVID-19 - Our areas of work - Public Health Scotland

Equivalent weekly data for children under 2 years is not currently published however, data on Cumulative COVID-19 Hospital Admissions since the start of the pandemic is available and shows that as of 26 May 2021, 238 children between 0-4 years have been admitted to hospital with COVID-19 since March 2020. The full set of data can be found here - https://www.opendata.nhs.scot/dataset/weekly-covid-19-statistical-data-in-scotland/resource/bd8a865f-10e6-47d2-a461-8633c61693fe .

All medicines prescribed for patients in Scotland on the NHS are free. Prescription charges were removed by the Scottish Government in 2011. Scottish Ministers believe that prescription charges are a barrier to good health for many people. This is particularly so for those with long-term conditions and those on low incomes who in the past have faced choices about which medicines they can afford to take. Evidence shows that this can lead to deterioration in health, absence from work, or extra hospital admissions.

Scottish Ministers believe that healthcare should be free at the point of access for everyone: this is the founding principle of the NHS. By abolishing prescription charges, we have ensured that everyone can access the medicines they need and make choices about managing and improving their health, whatever their income.

On 2 June 2021 the Scottish Government announced a further‎ £62 million fund to assist eligible Taxi or Private Hire drivers and Private Hire and Taxi licence holders in Scotland with fixed costs.

In order to be eligible for payment of £1,500 from the Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle Driver and Operator Support Fund, licensed Taxi or Private Hire drivers must hold a current local authority Taxi or Private Hire driver licence which is valid as of 3 June 2021 and have previously received an initial grant from the Taxi and Private Hire Driver Support Fund earlier in 2021.

As of 30 April 2021, over 21,800 drivers had been paid the initial grant from the Taxi and Private Hire Driver Support Fund. Local authorities are in the process of making automatic payments of the second £1,500 grant to eligible drivers, with many drivers already having received payment.

As at 30 April the Scottish Government has paid £32,725,500 to more than 21,800 taxi drivers through the Taxi and Private Hire Driver Support Fund. The Scottish Government recognised the continued financial challenges facing the sector and therefore taxi drivers who previously received a grant from the Taxi and Private Hire Driver Support Fund earlier in 2021 received a further grant of £1,500 taking support to a total of £3,000. We have allocated a further £62 million for taxi drivers and operators, bringing the total support for the taxi sector during the pandemic to more than £90 million.

The Scottish Government publishes statistics and management information relating to its Covid-19 business grants on its website at Coronavirus (COVID-19): business support funding statistics - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The next update is scheduled to be published on 7 July 2021.

Preliminary data indicates that in the Delta wave we are seeing a cohort of younger adults in hospital with Covid.

We do not recommend travelling to another area of Scotland to take part in an activity that is not permitted in your local protection level.

The risk of COVID-19 to young children remains low.

The Scottish Government remains committed to modernising crofting law to make it more transparent, understandable and workable. This is a complex area of work and officials will continue to engage with key crofting stakeholders with issues for consideration being discussed with members of the Crofting Stakeholder Forum, the Law Society and others.

The timetable for crofting law reform is being considered as part of the Government’s wider legislative programme. In the meantime non-legislative administrative solutions will be sought wherever possible and work will continue with the Crofting Commission to bring crofts back into active use, aligned to actions in the National Development Plan.

The Improvement Service has been commissioned by the ELC expansion programme to collect data from local authorities on progress towards delivery of 1140 hours of funded early learning and childcare, and to report on this data. The most recent report, on data returned by Local Authorities in April 2021, was published on 15 June and can be accessed via the Improvement Service and Scottish Government websites. This provides detail on progress with both recruitment and construction work.

The Scottish Government is committed to reducing water pollution at beaches across Scotland.

We do not know what water quality data range was used by Save on Energy, a price comparison website, to support its claim. They do not reflect the Scottish Environment Protection Agency’s bathing water classifications, which use statutory methods that are used across the UK and all EU member states.

Four of the seven Scottish beaches listed with the highest E.coli and intestinal enterococci in the Save on Energy survey are classified by SEPA as having ‘sufficient’ or better bathing water quality with one of these being rated as ‘excellent’. The three other beaches are receiving significant investment from Scottish Water totalling £23M in order to improve bathing water quality.

This bathing water season Scotland has more bathing waters rated as ‘excellent’, ‘good’ or ‘sufficient’ than at any point since tighter bathing water standards first came into force in 2015.