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The Office of the Chief Statistician published guidance for public bodies in Scotland on the collection of data on sex and gender in 2021. This guidance recommends that statistics producers should collect data that best serves the needs of users in their specific context, an approach with aligns with the guidance published by the Office for Statistics Regulation in 2024. The Scottish Government guidance provides definitions for terms such as ‘legal sex’ which can be used by users or producers of the data.

The Scottish Government regularly engages with a wide range of stakeholders on energy policy matters, including business and industry, trade unions and communities.

Offshore oil and gas licensing, as well as consenting and the associated fiscal regime, are all matters that are currently reserved to the UK Government.

The Scottish Government is taking the appropriate time to carefully consider the UK Government’s current consultation on Building the North Sea’s Energy Future, and its potential outcomes.

We expect all healthcare professionals to follow best practice and adhere to current guidelines and standards when providing care and support for people with suspected IBD, including the use of faecal calprotectin tests, to help improve diagnosis for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

A national IBD pathway for NHS Scotland was published in January 2025: inflammatory-bowel-disease-ibd-pathway.pdf. This pathway is intended to be used for primary and secondary care health care professionals who are concerned that a patient may have undiagnosed IBD.

This information is not held by Scottish Government.

The University of Glasgow (UoG) is responsible for the monitoring and evaluation of the Childsmile programme. Since 2013, UoG has published annual national headline reports on the Programme, which includes data on a range of Childsmile activity in multiple settings. The reports can be accessed via the Childsmile website: https://www.childsmile.nhs.scot/professionals/resources/research-publications/

Information on the Programme prior to this may be available from individual NHS Health Boards.

The Scottish Budget 2025-26 identified funding of £5 million to help support independent hospices deliver pay parity with Agenda for Change (AfC) levels for 2025-26. Officials continue to work with the chair of the Scottish Hospice Leadership Group and Hospice UK to understand the requirements from each hospice. Officials are also undertaking work to explore the mechanisms for providing this funding, while respecting local commissioning arrangements. Funding will be provided in financial year 2025-26.

To note, it is the responsibility of Integration Joint Boards (IJBs) to commission palliative care services, including independent hospices, to meet the needs of their local populations.

The Public Health Scotland (PHS) scoping exercise of Fracture Liaison Services (FLS) across NHS Boards, and subsequent business case, identified a need for a Scotland-wide FLS audit. Scottish Government acted on these findings and commissioned PHS to implement a national FLS audit.

The audit will create high-quality, standardised data and consistency across NHS Boards in order to identify and evaluate gaps in osteoporosis care, preventable harm to drive improvements, support clinical decision-making and reduce health inequalities.

Whilst there was an initial delay regarding recruitment, this has now been completed and progress now continues at pace. We do not expect the initial set up delays to impact on the overall delivery and outcomes of the FLS audit.

I refer the member to the answers to questions S6W-35534 on 21 March 2025 and S6W-36002 on 1 April 2025

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

CMAL has confirmed that it included two strands of community benefit commitments in its contract with Remontowa. The first provides opportunity for three Scotland-based shipbuilding apprentices per vessel, 21 in total, to attend optimisation and sea trials for training purposes when the vessels are delivered. The second is that Remontowa shipyard will match CMAL’s funding for its Corporate Social Responsibility programme over the course of the build, which supports charity initiatives across local communities in the Clyde and Hebrides region.

The Scottish Law Officers are not members of the Scottish Cabinet. Consistent with long standing practice, the Lord Advocate (or, in their absence, the Solicitor General) attends Cabinet meetings whenever it is required. In practice this means when Cabinet is discussing a matter with a legal aspect, or to represent their own Ministerial interest, in particular as head of the systems of criminal prosecution and investigation of deaths in Scotland.

The following table sets out, for each of the previous 10 years, the number of occasions on which the Scottish Law Officers have attended meetings of the Scottish Cabinet.

The Scottish Government, at present, has no plans to review the eligibility criteria of the Home Energy Scotland Grant and Loan Scheme, which sets out that funding is reserved for primary private residences only.

The Scottish Government is undertaking a wide range of actions to tackle single use plastics and plastic packaging beyond the Environmental Protection (Single Use Plastics Products) (Scotland) Regulations 2021.

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for packaging is being implemented this year on a four nations basis. It will move the full cost of dealing with packaging waste from households away from local taxpayers and councils to the producers, applying the ‘polluter-pays principle. Packaging EPR will also incentivise businesses to reduce excess packaging, to design and use packaging that is easily recyclable, and encourage use of reusable and refillable packaging.

We are also working closely with industry and the other UK governments to introduce a Deposit Return Scheme for single use PET plastic and metal drinks containers in October 2027. The introduction of the scheme will help to reduce litter, increase recycling, and will make a contribution to a more circular economy.

Scotland was the first part of the UK to introduce legislation to prohibit the sale and supply of single-use vapes. From litter on our streets, to the risk of fires in waste facilities, single-use vapes are an increasing issue, with up to 26 million disposable vapes consumed and thrown away in Scotland in 2023. The Environmental Protection (Single-Use Vapes) (Scotland) Regulations will ban these environmentally harmful products in Scotland from 1st June 2025.

The Scottish Government has also consulted on a proposal to introduce a minimum charge on single-use drinks cups to tackle the significant environmental impact of these items. Proposals were developed with input from a diverse advisory group, including business, retail, equalities groups, consumer groups, and local authorities.

Finally, we are working across the four nations to put an end to pollution caused by wet wipes containing plastic, with legislation forthcoming.