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As the Rural and Islands Housing Fund is part of the Affordable Housing Supply Programme, the Scottish Government will consider any additional costs associated with improved quality standards for homes delivered through the Rural and Islands Housing Fund and those additional costs will be accounted for in the affordable housing investment benchmarks which determine how a project is appraised.

The Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 is reserved legislation so any changes made to the classification of substances (such as nitrous oxide) will affect the whole of the UK. We await the outcome of the UK Government’s consultation into the exemptions which will apply for the legitimate uses of nitrous oxide in medical, industry and food production sectors.

Upon the implementation of the classification of nitrous oxide as a Class C drug, Police Scotland will work with colleagues in UK policing to make sure the law is applied in the same way across the UK.

In response to the recommendations from ‘Impact of Scotland’s Developing Young Workforce Strategy on Employer Engagement’ we are working with partners, including the employer led DYW network, to develop a delivery plan. The plan will build on the progress that we are making in supporting a record number of school leavers into an initial positive destination. We will provide further information during summer 2023.

In May 2018 a group of civil servants visited Norway to learn more about the country’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS). Total costs for this trip were £862.33.

The learning acquired on this trip helped to inform the early work undertaken to develop Scotland’s DRS.

There are currently no plans for a dedicated booking system for the referral of patients to the network of National Treatment Centres (NTCs).

Through on-going engagement with NHS Boards, the Scottish Government’s Planned Care Team actively monitor speciality-by-speciality throughput across NHS Scotland, including patients being seen at the NTCs. NTCs are key in the NHS Scotland approach to tackling the backlog of planned care, and activity going through the centres will be focussed initially to support treatment of the longest waiting patients.

NTC-Highland has been commissioned to support Orthopaedic activity for NHS Grampian, which will provide capacity to treat 434 patients from NHS Grampian who are waiting for Hip and Knee Replacement Surgery.

In line with the national clinical pathway approved for NTCs, NHS Grampian is responsible for providing a list of appropriate patients who have been pre-operatively assessed and NTC-Highland will oversee the booking of patients into both consenting clinics and for surgery. NHS Grampian’s Orthopaedic patients will be referred to NTC-Highland in batches of approximately 50 patients per month. The first batch was referred at the beginning of April for operating from the week commencing 15 May.

Numbers of patients waiting for Orthopaedic and Ophthalmic treatment can be found online on Public Health Scotland's website.

NTC–Highland treated its first patient on 17th April 2023.

Under the terms of the Clyde and Hebrides Ferry Service (CHFS) contract CalMac do not report on a target for reliability of services. However, CalMac do report on both Contractual Reliability and Contractual Punctuality.

The breakdown of CalMac scheduled sailings defined as (a) on time, (b) Level 1 Lateness and (c) Level 2 Lateness for each month since March 2022 are provided in the following table.

As we have previously set out, there was no freeze on apprenticeships. In line with standard practice, Skills Development Scotland (SDS) reviewed changing demand for Modern Apprenticeship starts in-year and between December 2022 and February 2023 reallocated starts to providers as appropriate within their budget. During this period, and as part of their contract management process, SDS remained in close contact with training providers. Providers with any questions were also advised to contact SDS.

Apprenticeships are a vital resource for employers to invest in their workforce and for people to develop their skills. Investing in skills across people’s lifetimes is critical to our future productivity and success, underlining our commitment to a skilled workforce set out within the National Strategy for Economic Transformation.

Our priority is for high quality apprenticeships that provide sustainable jobs and careers, supporting our transition to net zero.

Skills Development Scotland (SDS) have issued contract awards to support up to 25,500 new Modern Apprenticeship starts in 2023-24. This builds upon the 25,000 Modern Apprenticeship starts which Ministers asked SDS to deliver in 2022-23. SDS previously issued contracts in March for over 39,000 Modern Apprentices in training for 2023/24, supporting businesses and individuals across Scotland.

In terms of Graduate Apprenticeships (GA), the Scottish Funding Council published its indicative University Funding Allocations on 13 April 2023 and it is expected that 1,378 GA places will be delivered in 2023-24. This maintains comparable levels of GA starts of that in 2022-23.

I have engaged with a number of stakeholders across the energy sector. On 13 April 2023, I visited the Hydrogen Refuelling site in Aberdeen, met Aberdeen City Council officials and technical experts, attended an Aberdeen Hydrogen Hub stakeholder meeting, and then a Scottish Cluster Roundtable Discussion.

I met with the CEO of NECCUS, on 26 April 2023 and attended the Energy Institute North East Highlands and Islands Dinner on 27 April 2023. On 2 May 2023, I visited Advice Direct Scotland, launching their Fuel Insecurity Fund. On 4 May 2023, I opened Scottish Renewables’ new office in Glasgow and on the 11 May 2023, I attended the All-Energy conference at SEC, Glasgow.