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Currently there are no territorial NHS Boards consulting on major service change proposals on the future of hospitals.

Any major service change proposals being considered by NHS Boards are subject to at least three months formal public consultation and, ultimately, Ministerial approval; in line with national guidance which is available at:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/planning-people-community-engagement-participation-guidance-updated-2024/ .

There are a number of complexities around UK benefits and student systems and these can impact negatively on each other. With the Scottish Government Paramedic, Nursing and Midwifery Student Bursary, maintenance elements of the Bursary are considered as income for Universal Credit and other means-tested reserved benefits.

If a Universal Credit award is removed due to ‘excess income’ such as the bursary, students would also lose entitlement to Scottish Government benefits such as Scottish Child Payment. This includes the non-means tested bursary, the Spouse or Cohabiting Partner Allowance, the Child Dependent Allowance and the Lone Parents' Grant.

The Scottish Government have introduced a Special Support Loan for 2024-25 academic year and have obtained agreement from the Department for Work and Pensions that this element of student income will be disregarded when assessing Universal Credit entitlement.

The Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice wrote to Viscount Younger of Leckie , Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions, on 17 April 2024 asking for Student Maintenance Loans to also be disregarded as income for the purposes of calculating Universal Credit entitlement, particularly as they are a loan which must be repaid, but no reply has been received to date.

It should also be noted that due to the receipt of the non-repayable Paramedic, Nursing and Midwifery Bursary, students are not eligible for student loans. The Scottish Government has committed to carrying out a review of student finance for paramedic, nursing and midwifery students.

The Scottish Government welcomes the Student Midwives Finance Report, published by the Royal College of Midwives and thanks them for holding the roundtable event in the Scottish Parliament on 30 May 2024.

The event was attended by the Chief Midwifery Officer Justine Craig who heard powerful accounts from the students who clearly articulated their experiences.

A similar event was held by the Royal College of Nursing in September last year and following that the Scottish Government created a short-life working group comprising representatives from the Scottish Government, Student Awards Agency Scotland and higher education institutes to review the placement expenses guidance.

This group recently concluded its review and revised guidance will go live on the 1 of July. Their work will ensure students are refunded as promptly as possible and has provided students with greater flexibility on issues such as claiming advance payments. A national FAQs has also been developed to ensure greater consistency in the application of the guidance by HEIs across the country.

The Scottish Government has also committed to carrying out a review of student financial support more widely.

Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS) manage the reimbursement of clinical placement expenses for student paramedics, nurses and midwives on behalf of the Scottish Government and has a 12 day service level agreement in place. Since the start of the 2024-25 academic year the average turnaround time is 7.2 days and as of 21 June, SAAS were working on claims received on 20 June.

All placement expenses are routed to SAAS via Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) who assess students’ claims in the first instance before sending them to SAAS for reimbursement. The Scottish Government, SAAS and HEIs have met regularly to improve the process of these reimbursements and to create more flexibility within the rules for students. Revised guidance will go live on 1 July 2024 and a key element of these improvements has been to ensure that students are aware that they can claim expenses in advance.

I refer the member to the answer to questions S6W-27104 on 10 May 2024 and S6W-26870 on 25 April 2024. 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 .

Discussions regarding the charter, and terms of the contract were solely between the owner of the vessel, Pentland Ferries, and the operator CalMac Ferries Limited.

Prior to the development of the technical specification for the overall wildfire project, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) set up a User Intelligence Group (UIG) comprising uniformed wildfire subject matter experts, with relevant union and health and safety representation. The UIG was guided by procurement and fleet technical experts. In line with European procurement law the technical specification was put to the European market further to final amendments made to it by the UIG.

The tender returns were evaluated by the UIG and awarded on the technical aspects of the end user specification and support packages. It should be noted that two representative bodies, the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) and the Fire and Rescue Services Association (FRSA) were part of the UIG for the wildfire vehicles. SFRS has been made aware of concerns raised by the FRSA regarding the all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) and has engaged extensively with that group. The FBU, SFRS and wildfire experts do not share the views of the FRSA.

The ATVs are general purpose vehicles and SFRS currently has four in operation. The Service’s newest Angloco models were purchased as part of its wildfire strategy and will be introduced in conjunction with a fleet of other 4x4 vehicles, which arrived earlier this year. The 4x4 vehicles are for transportation of ATVs and once on scene will be used to convey personnel around an incident ground. Firefighter safety is paramount and all new vehicles and equipment will only be rolled out once staff are trained to operate them within safe parameters.

Forestry and Land Scotland reduce impacts on red squirrel by scheduling operations to avoid the breeding season in areas that are thought to hold higher than average densities of red squirrels. Prior to any harvesting operation, a pre-operational survey is carried out to assess the extent of use of the felling coupe by red squirrels, and to locate squirrel dreys.

If red squirrels are identified as being present, various mitigation may be enacted, such as retaining drey trees, avoiding areas with dreys until after the breeding season, and directional felling to slowly usher adults and kits into adjacent stands. During operations machine operators are required to report any dreys felled with kits in them. No such reports have been made in 2024 or 2023 seasons.

It is impossible to know with certainty whether in fact any kits are killed each year , for example if unobserved dreys are felled, which are consequently unreported by machine operators. FLS have therefore calculated a hypothetical maximum assuming worst case scenarios in all assumptions. Based on the current felling and harvesting programme, the potential numbers for a) 2024 and b) 2025, is:

a) 903 (or 1.2% of the estimated population of kits in Scotland)

b) 876 (or 1.17% of the estimated population of kits in Scotland)

This will change as the programme is adjusted and finalised.

Only a small proportion of the theoretical deaths of squirrel kits due to forest operations would be extra mortality, as over 70% of young kits naturally die during their first winter.

The Scottish Government have not entered into, or signed, any agreement with Pentland Ferries.

The charter agreements of the MV Alfred from Pentland Ferries, vessel owner, for use on Clyde and Hebrides Ferry Service contract (CHFS) have all been undertaken by the operator, CalMac Ferries Ltd. The Scottish Government has provided funding to CalMac Ferries Ltd to enable the charter of the MV Alfred and this was confirmed as £15.1m, in the Freedom of Information request published on 8 February 2024: Information relating to Scottish ferries costs and upgrades: EIR release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The Scottish Government has not held discussions with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) regarding maritime safety compliance in respect of the MV Alfred. The MCA are responsible for the inspection and surveying of ships to ensure that they are meeting UK and international safety rules.

The Scottish Government expects the highest shipping safety and crew welfare standards and for these to be applied in the case of all vessels and personnel accessing our ports and coastal areas.