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We have not had any direct discussions with Local Authorities to date regarding the potential banning of disposable vapes.

However, a stakeholder roundtable was held on 6 September 2023 by the Ministers for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity and for Public Health and Women's Health to discuss the findings of the Zero Waste Scotland report on the environmental impacts of single use vapes, which will include representation from local government.

The Scottish Government does not routinely gather or centrally hold information on the total number and value of contracts awarded by public corporations to consulting companies. As public corporations have a degree of independence from central government information of this nature will be held more locally and can be attained by approaching the bodies directly.

As set out in the Programme for Government 2023-24, the Scottish Government has committed £3,03m in 2023-26 to progressing the National Centre for Remote and Rural Health and Care, which is expected to launch in October 2023.

The available information is published on a monthly basis, as experimental statistics, by Public Health Scotland: Primary Care in-hours General Practice activity visualisation - as at 30 June 2023

This exploratory work aims to illustrate the type of activity information captured within General Practice clinical systems. Not all activity is currently recorded on the clinical systems and therefore the activity reported here does not represent all the work happening within a general practice setting. Work is ongoing to enhance this data. This collaborative effort between ourselves, the profession, National Services Scotland and Public Health Scotland, is a significant step on our journey to improving access to General Practice data.

The available information is published on a monthly basis, as experimental statistics, by Public Health Scotland: Primary Care in-hours General Practice activity visualisation - as at 30 June 2023

This exploratory work aims to illustrate the type of activity information captured within General Practice clinical systems. Not all activity is currently recorded on the clinical systems and therefore the activity reported here does not represent all the work happening within a general practice setting. Work is ongoing to enhance this data. This collaborative effort between ourselves, the profession, National Services Scotland and Public Health Scotland, is a significant step on our journey to improving access to General Practice data.

If a person believes someone has not obeyed a court order for child contact or residence, they can make the court aware of this and ask it either to vary the order or to have the person in question ordered to appear before the court. It would then be for the court to decide whether any failure to obey the order amounted to contempt of court. Individuals may be eligible for financial assistance to raise a court action through the Scottish Legal Aid Board .The Board is responsible for the administration of the legal aid system, independent of Scottish Ministers. The Scottish Government is not involved in the decision making process to grant or refuse legal assistance and it cannot intervene in or comment on legal aid decisions.

Section 22 of the Children (Scotland) Act 2020 will, when commenced, place a duty on the court to investigate the reasons behind a failure to obey a court order for contact or residence.

There are no current regulations specifically aimed at the conduct of religious bodies, however, a number of areas of regulation may apply to religious bodies.

The Scottish Government is currently running a collection of four public consultations on different aspects of regulation of the funeral sector in Scotland. This may be of interest to religious bodies.

The collection of four consultations cover regulations on the following topics: alkaline hydrolysis (‘water cremation’), burial, inspection of burial authorities, cremation authorities and funeral directors and licensing for funeral directors.

The consultations are all available on the Scottish Government’s consultation hub, Citizen Space and will be live from 25 August – 17 November 2023.

Some religious bodies are registered charities in Scotland, and charity trustee duties are set out in the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005. The Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice has committed to work with the third sector and partners to develop the scope for a wider review of charity regulation. Charity trustee duties may be considered as part of this scoping work.

The Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Act 2014 and the Civil partnership (Scotland) Act 2020 contain provisions on qualifying requirements for religious and belief bodies to meet before they can solemnise marriage (or register a

civil partnership). These provisions are not in force. The Scottish Government has committed to carrying out a full public consultation before making any regulations to introduce qualifying requirements. This consultation has not been a priority given other workload pressures.

There are no additional or separately identifiable costs associated with the production and publication of Devolution since the Brexit Referendum paper.

The work to prepare the paper was carried out by officials as part of their normal duties. The Scottish Government does not have a centrally held record of the number of staff involved with this work because, in line with usual practice, details of individual tasks carried out by civil servants, including the number of hours spent on them, are not routinely recorded as there is no business need to do so.

The document was published directly on to the Scottish Government website (see Devolution since the Brexit Referendum - gov.scot ( www.gov.scot) ) as part of a standard central publishing function. It is not possible to provide information on the costs incurred to create and publish the document because in line with usual practice, details of costs to create and publish individual documents in-house published on the website are not routinely recorded as there is no business need to do so.

The Scottish Government does not routinely gather or centrally hold information on the total number and value of contracts awarded by executive agencies to consulting companies. As executive agencies have a degree of independence from central government information of this nature will be held more locally and can be attained by approaching the bodies directly.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of biodiversity and nature restoration, and the urgent need for action at home and abroad to tackle the twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change. This is why our Global Affairs Framework makes clear that Scotland will play its full role, engaging with international networks on biodiversity protection and nature restoration to make positive contributions and cooperate with others.

Our biodiversity strategy sets out our vision to be nature-positive, halting biodiversity loss by 2030 and reversing declines by 2045. Achieving these goals will require significant efforts and – as part of these – we will continue to implement our international obligations, engage with international partners to cooperate and share best practice, and actively participate in multilateral fora where possible.