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The independent due diligence on Ferguson Marine’s initial capital investment request concluded that the initial business case would not meet the Commercial Market Operator test, which is a key legal requirement if we are to demonstrate compliance with the subsidy control regime.

The Scottish Government is advised on food safety and standards matters by Food Standards Scotland (FSS). They have advised that in August 2023, they contacted a range of interested parties to seek initial views on the proposed changes at EU level. This included eleven trade associations and honey producers along with the 32 Scottish Local authorities. FSS included a statement in the letter issued stating that stakeholder data would be anonymised, and we are therefore unable to disclose the specific details of the businesses included for data protection reasons. Responses are currently being considered and this will help inform policy thinking ahead of a review of the domestic honey regulations and working with the other departments with food labelling and composition standards responsibilities across the UK.

To help inform these discussions I have commissioned an external modelling and research exercise which will consider a range of factors including current teacher numbers, pupil teacher ratios and the projected decline in the number of school-aged children in Scotland. This work will inform decisions on education workforce planning for future years and is due to conclude by the end of December.

We continue to work with the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers on how we can best progress this commitment.

The latest available information on convictions is for the financial year 2021-22 and is provided in the following table.

People prosecuted for TV Licence evasion, by gender, where main charge, 2017-18 to 2021-22*.

There has been no national formal assessment of contraceptive education however the Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that people across Scotland have timely access to contraception, and to information which allows them to make informed decisions about their own sexual and reproductive health. This is recognised as a priority in our recently published Sexual Health and Blood Borne Virus (SHBBV) Action Plan, and we have allocated multi-year funding to a range of projects in both community and NHS settings that will help to deliver this goal. The projects include developing new information resources, such as a national sexual health microsite on NHS Inform, as well as supporting staff training and development around contraception. Details of these projects were published alongside the SHBBV Action Plan on 28 November 2023.

To measure the effectiveness of the Take Hold Marketing campaign, the paid-for-media marketing campaign will be evaluated.

Pre and post campaign qualitative evaluation is conducted by an independent research company, with a representative sample of the target audience of parents, to measure changes in attitudes and behaviours on seeing and engaging with the campaign. In addition a short survey will be shared with schools to evaluate the use and effectiveness of materials provided to them.

Digital metrics will also be used to gauge the impact of the campaign, including but not limited to, numbers of visits to the NHS Inform vaping pages, visits to Parent Club vaping pages, numbers of click throughs from social media and digital advertising and numbers watching campaign digital videos through to completion.

The Scottish Government’s Long Acting Reversible Contraception (LARC) Short Life Working Group meets quarterly and includes representation from midwifery, including the Royal College of Midwives.

We are working with the Scottish Postpartum Contraception Network (SPCN), which is a multidisciplinary group of healthcare professionals including midwifery, obstetrics, sexual health, pharmacy, public health and clinical researchers. Since 2022, the Scottish Government has funded SPCN’s work on expanding access to postpartum contraception (including LARC) across Scotland. An additional £101,000 (over 3 years) has recently been allocated to SPCN to deliver a project focused on developing training and information resources, and improving equity of access to postpartum LARC.

Neither the Scottish Government nor NHS 24 currently hold that information due to the anonymous nature of NHS inform which doesn’t ask for, or collect, any personal information.

However, working with NHS 24 we are in the process of developing a formal review of NHS inform, recognising it as a national asset that is currently visited over 10 million times per month to ensure that it continues to meet future requirements and continues to support improved choice and access to services.

As part of this review work, we will engage with the public and take an evidence-based approach and commence a robust Equality Impact Assessment to ensure the service is inclusive.

Financial planning to address the significant challenges our public finances face took place in advance of the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Finance's update on the 2023-24 in-year budget changes on 21 November.

The difficult decisions which have had to be taken, have allowed us to help balance the Scottish Government's budget, while still progressing implementation of our mental health and wellbeing strategy from a revised direct budget of £260.3 million.

As set out in the Scottish Public Finance Manual grant payments should not be made in advance of need.

Increasing the availability of long acting reversible contraception (LARC) is identified as a priority in both the Women’s Health Plan (2021) and our recently published Sexual Health and Blood Borne Virus Action Plan. The Scottish Government is committed to working with Health Boards and the Women's Health Champion to improve access to LARC.