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The Scottish Government is working closely with local authorities on this work. Guidance for all local authorities supporting displaced people from Ukraine through the Scottish Super Sponsor Scheme and who match through the Homes for Ukraine Scheme has been published: Super Sponsor Scheme and Homes for Ukraine guidance for local authorities .

It is a requirement for all hosts to agree to a home visit by a local authority before a guest is placed with that host, or as soon as a local authority is made aware a person has matched individually.

We welcome the scrutiny into the procurement, award and regrettable delays associated with Hulls 801 and 802. We have engaged fully with both the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee (RECC) inquiry, and with Audit Scotland’s recent review and have endeavoured to provide all requested information. In recent evidence, the Auditor General confirmed that there is no evidence that material has been deliberately destroyed that otherwise should have been retained as part of the formal record, although it is noted that a specific response cannot be located.

The Scottish Government is fully committed to compliance with the requirements of the Public Records (Scotland) Act. The Scottish Government therefore follows procedures that aim to ensure that all employees, contractors, agents, consultants and other trusted third parties who have access to any information held within the Government, are fully aware of and abide by their duties under the Act.

The audit trail here is a matter of public record. Advice was put to the then Cabinet Secretary Keith Brown on 20 August 2015, setting out CMAL’s identification of FMEL as the preferred bidder. Advice was also put to the then Minister for Transport and Islands on 7 October 2015, setting out risk associated with contract award in the absence of a guarantee, and mitigation that would be put in place.

The memos to Ministers mentioned have been in the public domain since 2019 and can be found at the following link: Ferguson Marine: key documents - 2015 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

There was no Ministerial direction in relation to the contract award and Ministers did not direct CMAL to enter into the contract. The contract was awarded by CMAL in its capacity as procuring authority following a robust procurement process.

While CMAL did express concerns about the absence of a refund guarantee, mitigations were agreed that were sufficient to assuage those concerns.

The Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill includes a specific provision which places a duty on the Registrar General to report annually on the number of applications received and the number of applications granted.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-07951 on 20 April 2022. 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.

The Scottish Government has worked at pace to deliver emergency business support to creative businesses, via Creative Scotland, during the Covid-19 pandemic. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Scottish Government has announced £256 million support to the culture, creative, heritage and events sectors.

In March 2021, the Scottish Government launched a £1 million Creative Digital Initiative to help develop the digital capabilities of creative businesses in response to the limitations imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic. The programme has been developed through a partnership of enterprise and development agencies, including Scottish Enterprise and Creative Scotland.

The Scottish Government established a creative industries ‘Future Focus’ working group to enable detailed discussion with Scottish Enterprise, Creative Scotland and other key partner agencies throughout the pandemic to consider key issues facing the creative industries, business resilience and support, and opportunities for partnership working.

The Scottish Government has a Programme for Government commitment to refresh the Creative Industries Policy Statement and will work with CS, SE and other partner agencies to refresh this statement, as well as the Creative Industries Framework Agreement , in order to ensure these documents reflect the priorities of the creative industries and signpost creative businesses to the expertise and business support available to the sector.

Local authorities are obliged by law to offer the minimum of temporary accommodation, advice and assistance to anyone at risk of homelessness. Anyone who is threatened with or experiencing homelessness should contact their local authority in the first instance.

We already have a national strategy to end homelessness and rough sleeping in Scotland, which was updated in October 2020. Our Ending Homelessness Together action plan, backed by funding of £100 million between 2018-26, demonstrates our commitment to end homelessness in Scotland and we publish an annual report to show the progress being made to tackle these issues.

The Scottish Government is committed to bringing forward a Student Accommodation Strategy for Scotland which, in part, will be informed by a review of Purpose Built Student Accommodation, now underway. We will look to develop and incorporate this alongside and within the Rented Sector Strategy. This will include issues such as supply, affordability and wider planning and regulatory issues.

The benefit cap is a UK Government policy that sets a limit on the total annual payment a household can receive from means-tested benefits. The Scottish Government cannot amend this policy but we can provide support to benefit-capped families through the discretionary housing payment system. Our aim is to mitigate the cap as fully as possible within the parameters set by UK legislation on discretionary housing payments.

We are working with local authorities to identify good practice in benefit cap mitigation and agree how to best support those affected. This additional funding will be rolled out as early as possible this year. Estimates show around 4,000 households are capped and we will work with local authorities to identify those.

We do not believe an enhanced kerbside scheme could deliver the level or rate of improvement that we will see through Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS). Packaging recycling rates have stalled, including for glass, and the current producer responsibility system is not driving improvement.

In terms of public awareness, now that the implementation date of 16 August 2023 has been confirmed by the Scottish Parliament, we will work closely with Circularity Scotland Ltd to ensure that there is widespread understanding of DRS before the scheme is implemented.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that police and local authorities continue to have the powers and resources needed to address antisocial behaviour in our communities. This includes investing in prevention and early intervention.

No single approach will tackle all antisocial behaviour and that is why we support a range of activities which includes the use of Antisocial Behaviour Orders (ASBO’s) and Fixed Penalty Notices (FPN’s) alongside diversionary and early intervention activities in appropriate circumstances. We encourage agencies to work in partnership to address the issues being faced by communities and work with them to address these issues, including dealing with those who are persistent offenders.