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No consideration has been given to a moratorium on the creation of bus stop bypasses. Local authorities are responsible for management of local roads and paths and the Scottish Government has no authority to make such a mandate.

The Scottish Government has provided funding and technical assistance to local authorities to design and deliver projects through the Spaces for People, Places for Everyone and National Cycle Network programmes that are delivered by Sustrans Scotland, and a small number of these projects contain bus stop bypasses.

The Scottish Government is committed to Keeping the Promise and ensuring that families are supported to stay together when it is safe to do so. While we still have more work to do, it is positive progress that the recent Infant's Born into Care Report confirms that the proportion of children entering care before their first birthday in Scotland has fallen since 2018 - from 122 in every 10,000 to 91 in every 10,000 in 2021.

The Getting It Right For Every Child (GIRFEC) approach ensures that children and families can access support across maternity, health visiting, family nursing and social work services to help them thrive. Where it is deemed that a child requires statutory support for their care, the Local Authority becomes their Corporate Parent and are responsible for working with partners to ensure that the right services are in place to deliver a personalised plan to meet their needs.

Duties relating to secure transport lie principally with the local authority responsible for the child’s placement. Information is not held centrally on these arrangements or the use of handcuffs.

A sub-group of the National Secure Care Group is developing a service specification that can be used consistently by local authorities and sets out the principles and standards wherever secure transport requires to be commissioned. It covers areas such as data gathering and staff training and prohibits the use of mechanical restraints or handcuffs.

The Scottish Government has a contract with GEOAmey to provide secure transport for children convicted on indictment and given a custodial sentence. GEOAmey must ensure that the child being transported, staff and the general public are protected by robust arrangements throughout each journey, including the prevention of escape. Multi-purpose vehicles are used to escort children, rather than the prison vans used to transport adult prisoners. Because of this, handcuffs are used for each journey.

The Scottish Government has not set a 100% gigabit-capable broadband coverage target for Scotland.

Given the reserved nature of telecoms legislation, the UK Government’s Project Gigabit programme has set an 85% UK-wide coverage target to be met by 2025, and aims to achieve ‘nationwide’ coverage by 2030.

The Scottish Government continues to work closely with the UK Government on Project Gigabit activity in Scotland.

A set of impact assessments including an Equalities Impact Assessment, Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment, Fairer Scotland Duty Assessment and Island Communities Impact Assessment were published alongside the original DRS Regulations in 2020. These have been updated to reflect previous amendments and we will shortly publish revisions to these in light of the amendments laid in May.

Scottish Government has regular engagements with local government and other key stakeholders. Local government is represented on our Ministerial Strategic Advisory Group, and our Hospitality Sector Group. They will have a role to play in the governance of the scheme which will look at strategic and operational issues.

Ministers last met on 22 May at the Inter-Ministerial Group on environment, food and rural affairs, with discussions focussing on an exclusion for DRS from the UK Internal Market Act. Officials from the Scottish Government, Welsh Government and Northern Ireland Executive continue to engage regularly.

As with the development of all new trade arrangements, the Scottish Government has sought to engage with the UK Government at Ministerial and official level throughout the negotiations for accession to the CPTPP to ensure that Scottish interests are identified and taken into account.

As part of this process the Scottish Government has raised the issue of increased palm oil production. In my recent letter to the UK Government Minister of State for International Trade, Nigel Huddleston MP, I reiterated our concerns and specifically asked to see the UK’s assessment of the impact of lowering tariffs through accession to CPTPP. I raised the matter again on 1 June when we last met.

All employees of NHS Scotland, including employees of the Scottish Ambulance Service, who have had their C1 licence temporarily revoked due to medical issues would be managed under the Attendance, NHS Scotland Workforce Policy (Once for Scotland).

Each case is considered on an individual basis, according to the nature of the medical issue.

The Scottish Government carried out a consultation on the Future of Gaelic and Scots from August to December 2022 and these responses will help shape any future legislation. The responses have been independently analysed and it is hope that these will be published by the Scottish Government on 7 June.

A decision on the timing of the Bill’s introduction to Parliament will be taken by Cabinet in the context of setting the content of future legislative programmes.