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The Scottish Government, through its Peatland ACTION partnership, restored 7,468 hectares in 2022-23 financial year. However, since then, in the full completed delivery year of 2023-24, a total of 10,360 hectares have been restored.

The Scottish Government has not made any specific assessments in this regard, the Scottish Funding Council published a report on the impact of the programme of college mergers in Scotland in 2012-13 and 2013-14, available on their website here: https://www.sfc.ac.uk/college_mergers_overarching_report-pdf/?_rt=NXwxfG1lcmdlcnwxNzE2NTQ0NDkw&_rt_nonce=8e88beaf84 .

The Scottish Government and SFC are very conscious of the challenge colleges face. We are working collaboratively as part of the Colleges: Tripartite Alignment Group and the tripartite group provides strategic direction on the pressures and opportunities facing colleges and I take a strong interest in its work as I ensure we do all we can to support colleges. Further detail on the work of this group is available here: Colleges: Tripartite Alignment Group - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

Caring for our peatlands, and reducing peatland emissions, through protection, management and restoration is critical to mitigating and adapting to the linked climate and nature emergencies.

Restoring 250,000 hectares is a combination of restoration through drain blocking and bare peat restoration on upland blanket bogs but also requires interventions on herbivore control as well as other farm management interventions.

Through various on-going reform programmes across government and our commitment to consult on a carbon land tax on the largest estates, we are considering the regulatory and fiscal measures that could further incentivise peatland restoration and create the conditions to keep our peatlands in good condition.

Alongside this, work continues towards implementing a ban on the sale of peat in Scotland and we have established an expert group to develop the guidance and tools needed to inform decisions on windfarm development on peat.

We are also working hard with our delivery partners through the Peatland ACTION partnership to tackle the many barriers to upscaling peatland restoration in this relatively young sector.

We have taken on board lessons from Carer’s Allowance in designing Carer Support Payment to better prevent overpayments. Information on earnings rules and when to report changes are much clearer. We are making better use of the ability to average out carers’ earnings, and using data from HMRC and scheduled reviews for self-employed carers to check and track carers’ earnings. Our systems use automated decision making for the most straightforward applications, allowing more time and resource to focus on complex cases and earnings processes. We pay Carer Support Payment four weekly in arrears as standard, reducing the potential for overpayments by allowing more time for a change of circumstances to be reported and reflected in a carer’s award. As part of the case transfer process, we also have processes in place to check earnings once carer’s awards are in payment to reduce the risk of inheriting existing overpayments. We are continuing to take feedback from carers and stakeholders to consider how we can continue to improve our earnings processes.

As set out in our response to our 2022 public consultation, we are considering options for reform of the earnings threshold as part of longer-term plans for improvements to Carer Support Payment. These include increasing the earnings threshold and introducing a run-on of support to mitigate the earnings ‘cliff edge’, both of which were supported by the majority of respondents to the consultation. Given the range of views on how the earnings rules for Carer Support Payment could work differently from Carer’s Allowance, we are continuing to consider the responses received. We are also considering research, recently published by the DWP in May, on carers’ experiences of claiming and receiving Carer’s Allowance to inform our approach.

My officials at Transport Scotland meet with ScotRail and Scottish Rail Holdings regularly to discuss various matters. ScotRail keeps its services under constant review to ensure they best meet the passenger demand.

Since the publication of the 2009 Strategic Transport Projects Review, the Scottish Government has invested £330 million in delivering journey time improvements and greater connectivity for both passenger and freight services operating on the line between Aberdeen and Inverness. These works were undertaken as part of the Aberdeen – Inverness Rail Improvement Project.

The Scottish Government is working closely with Samaritans Scotland, as one of our key partners driving the delivery of the suicide prevention Creating Hope Together strategy, to better understand help seeking behaviour and increase signposting to local and national support. We recognise that there may be benefits for some mental health patients in accessing Samaritans’ listening services alongside NHS care.

At present, Samaritans provide pre-printed freepost envelopes in prison settings as part of their broader work to support people in prisons. However, while there is no specific scheme to provide pre-marked envelopes within hospitals, any individual can write to them for free by marking an envelope “FREEPOST SAMARITANS LETTERS”.

Samaritans can also be contacted 24/7 by phone for free on 116 123 and by email at Jo@samaritans.org. They aim to respond to all emails within 24 hours.

We will continue to work alongside Samaritans Scotland to support any plans to further promote and expand access to its listening services within the NHS estate.

Equally Safe, Scotland’s strategy for preventing and eradicating violence against women and girls acknowledges the important role specialist and single-sex services play in supporting victim-survivors of violence against women and girls.

There are single sex exceptions in the UK wide Equality Act 2010, and it is the responsibility of service providers to comply with the 2010 Act. The Equality and Human Rights Commission as the body responsible for enforcing the 2010 Act has produced specific guidance to support organisations in their compliance, including a Statutory Code of Practice and a guide for service providers who operate a separate or single-sex service.

Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) uses a live, operational database to manage the processing of reports submitted to Procurators Fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies throughout Scotland. It is designed to meet business needs in the processing of criminal cases, rather than for statistical purposes and the information within it is structured accordingly. Information provided is at date of extract and may therefore be subject to change as data and systems are updated for operational reasons.

From 1 April to 28 May 2024, 170 hate crime charges and 615 charges with one or more hate crime aggravations in terms of the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 have been reported to COPFS for the whole of Scotland. The total, therefore, is 785 charges.

From 1 April to 28 May 2024, 33 hate crime charges and 98 charges with one or more hate crime aggravations in terms of the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 have been reported to COPFS in the Lothian region. For the purposes of this answer, the ‘Lothian region’ been restricted to charges reported to COPFS from the Edinburgh and Livingston Sheriff Court Districts. The total 131 hate crime charges and aggravations for Lothian region represents 16.7% of the total for the whole of Scotland.

The Scottish Government hasn’t carried out analysis to establish reasons for students withdrawing from college, by week of course.

Information on college withdrawals is collected by the Scottish Funding Council. Some data on the reason for withdrawing is included in the technical annex of the College Performance Indicators publication, though this isn’t broken down to week of course. College Performance Indicators 2022-23 - Scottish Funding Council (sfc.ac.uk)