 I remind members of the Covid-related measures that are in place and that face coverings should be worn when moving around the chamber and across the Holyrood campus. The first item of business is general questions. In order to get in as many people as possible, I would be grateful for short and succinct questions and responses to match. At question number one, I call Paul Sweeney. To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reported warnings from residents, business and advocacy groups that the current quality of ferry service represents a real threat to island life. Minister Jenny Gilruth. The Scottish Government takes the views of these groups seriously. The aim is to make communities across Scotland, including island and remote mainland communities, attractive places to live, work, bring up families and to move to, so that Scotland's population profile provides a platform for sustainable and inclusive economic growth and wellbeing. The importance of transport links, including ferry services, is fully recognised as a key factor for island communities to assist in the ability of individual residents to, for example, access services and enjoy fundamental human rights. As part of our commitment to our island and remote communities, the Scottish Government has announced investment of £580 million in ports and vessels to support and improve Scotland's ferry services over the next five years as part of our wider infrastructure investment plan. Paul Sweeney. I thank the minister for that answer. Can the minister at least accept that the failure of the shipbuilding programme for Caledonia McBrain has been a key part in harming the quality of life for islanders and marginalised communities in Scotland? Can she commit to a national shipbuilding strategy and a continuous shipbuilding programme that is centred around the public sector procurement contracts for Seymal in order to build a proper sustainable shipbuilding industry in Scotland that will help lifeline communities in the islands? I thank Mr Sweeney for his supplementary question. I mentioned the investment of £580 million in ports and vessels over the next five years, and we are working constructively with key partners on that. I am meeting this afternoon with CalMac. I am also meeting with islands MSPs and I am meeting with the chair of the community board at CalMac too. We did invest in a resilience fund in 2018-19 to look at ferry services to ensure that there is future reliability and availability of vessels, which recognises a challenge with an ageing fleet. He asked me today to commit to a national shipbuilding plan. I am not going to do that in the chamber, but I am meeting with Mr Sweeney later on on a separate issue that relates to my portfolio responsibilities. I will be more than happy to discuss that in further detail with him at that meeting. As someone who lives on Islay, I have experienced the vagaries of the ferry service, but the quality of island life, in my opinion, is overwhelmingly positive. Yet again, we see Labour casting living on the islands in a negative light, while the Scottish Government is actively taking steps to tackle depopulation throughout the islands. Does the minister therefore share my view that the latest example of Labour rhetoric, which may potentially discourage people who are considering moving to the islands, is entirely partisan and extremely unhelpful in the image that it portrays? We need to make our island attractive places to live in, as Ms Minto has alluded to, and she lives in Islay, so she recognises some of the challenges here more so than I will. However, there have been extended periods of extreme weather recently, which I know has directly impacted on the viability of a number of services. I will be speaking to, as I mentioned to Mr Sweeney, about the issues later today, and of course to Ms Minto and a number of other colleagues who represent island communities. It is absolutely essential that we get those services right for the people who live in our island communities. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the roll-out of the home insulation programmes in the north-east. In the financial year 2223, we will invest £336 million in our heat energy efficiency and fuel poverty programmes. Since 2013, we have allocated £61 million through our area-based schemes to tackle fuel poverty in north-east Scotland. Those projects have benefited more than 18,000 fuel-poor households. Vulnerable families in the north-east will also benefit from the home insulation that is delivered through our warmer homes Scotland service. We continue to provide free and impartial advice through our Home Energy Scotland service, which includes advice about relevant grant and loan schemes to help to meet the cost of improved home insulation. I thank the minister for his response and the information that he has provided. Given the cost of living crisis that we face and the significant role of rising energy bills in that, can he outline how the Scottish Government can maximise insulation and other measures to keep bills as low as possible? What more can and should we all be doing in the longer term to tackle issues in the retrofit supply chain? Those issues have gone into in great depth in the heat and buildings strategy that was published recently, which has to be seen in the new context of the cost of living crisis. The Scottish Government is doing what it can to support people through the current cost of living crisis in the broader sense, including through our winter support fund and other aspects of our social security spending, which go beyond the resources allocated by the UK Government. However, in terms of the longer-term development of a supply chain, we believe that there are some 16,400 jobs that can be created in the zero emission heating agenda and good-quality jobs for Scotland. That will go hand-in-hand with the regulatory approach that we are putting out to ensure that all housing in all tenures achieves a good standard of energy performance, as well as conversion to zero emission heating. In December, I asked what was the best and most cost-effective way to insulate traditional granite homes, such as are found in the north-east in Aberdeen. The minister responded that Aberdeen home owners could install solid wall insulation and suggested loans of up to £10,000 were available. I assume that the minister researched the answer before giving it. Can he give me an indicative ballpark price of installing solid wall insulation to a traditional granite home in Aberdeen and, given the extreme disruption and building work that was required, how long roughly does it take? I am afraid that I do not have that precise data with me at the moment, but I will write to the member and see if we can answer the question in detail. We are doing everything that we can to support NHS Dentistry and we will put patients at the centre of a sustainable public service. We are rapidly moving forward with NHS dental recovery and aim to return to more normal levels of activity as soon as infection prevention and control restrictions allow. I thank the minister for that answer that was not clear what support the Government is providing. Does the minister understand why a third of dentists surveyed by the BDA are still considering leaving the profession, despite what the Government says? Every day, I have constituents being told, for example, that they have to wait months for NHS treatment and get the same treatment in days if they go privately. Does the minister accept that, in the short term, reducing Covid support will exasperate the problem, but in the long term it is clear that the model is broken and we need a comprehensive review of dental services with far greater integration with our NHS? In the short term, we need to focus on recovery, so we need to get more patients seen by more dentists. In the longer term, I do not disagree. I think that there is a need for reform. I would dispute that there has not been good support. I will reiterate, as I did in the chamber yesterday, that we are looking at a 9 per cent increase in the budget for NHS dental services this year. There has been an additional sum of £20 million just this month of increased fees to provide enhanced examinations. We have provided £50 million of support for dentists and £35 million for PPE. We have provided £5 million for ventilation improvements. We have provided £7.5 million for the purchase of new drills. We have also assured the profession that we are not looking at a cliff edge at the end of this year in terms of withdrawing support. What we are looking at is a soft landing where we rejoin the link between financial reward and seeing patients. We need dentists to see more NHS patients. Keitha returning NHS dental services is the recruitment and retention of dental nurses. In Orkney, that is proving exceptionally difficult under the current funding model, with staff even being poached by the public dental service due to the disparity in pain conditions. Will the minister agree to look at this issue specifically? Even whether dental nurses providing NHS dental services can all be brought under the same pension provision? I am certainly willing to look at that. The last thing that we want to do is for displacement to occur, for a problem that is happening in one part of the dental provision to be just shifted to another part. We need the whole of the dental services to recover, and I am more than happy if the member will be willing to write to me with the specifics of that inquiry. I am more than happy to look into it and willing to try and sort it. Question 4, Graham Simpson. The Scottish Government plans to ensure that islanders are not left without food supplies due to the reported lack of resilience of the ferry fleet. The Scottish Government works with CalMac Ferries Ltd to ensure that islanders are not left without food supplies and essential welfare provision is maintained. During periods of disruption, CalMac Ferries Ltd will assess all the options available to maximise available capacity across the network. CalMac will prioritise traffic to ensure food and other lifeline supplies and services are available on the islands. I thank the minister for that answer. EY's project Neptune report into the flawed tripartite structure for procuring and running ferries has been with Transport Scotland for five months now, so will the minister commit to publishing it now and giving a statement to Parliament? I have been more than happy to give that assurance to Mr Simpson and to give a parliamentary statement on it. Our island communities have always had to contend with bad weather, but fortunately they have not also had to contend with a Tory Government. Instead, they have had the benefit of an SNP Government, which has invested more than £2.2 billion in the Clyde and Hebrides and Northern Isles ferry services, bringing new routes, new vessels, upgraded harbour infrastructure and the roll-out of significantly reduced fares through the RET scheme. Does the minister agree that it is disingenuous and likely to cause undue alarm for Mr Simpson to suggest that the food security of Scotland's island communities is in jeopardy? In the event of disruption to supplies having an impact on health or well-being of our island residents, we will work with local resilience partnerships and our established multi-agency response teams to develop solutions, but our ferry operators during very difficult circumstances take every opportunity to exploit those weather windows where they have arisen, with the option of running amended or additional sailings if needed to prioritise supplies and prevent that situation from arising. The period of weather disruption that I mentioned previously, combined with some issues with vessel resilience, brings into sharp focus the essential nature of the lifeline connectivity that our ferry services provide to our island communities, and that is why Scottish ministers have committed to invest £580 million in their ferry infrastructure over the course of the next five years. To ask the Scottish Government what support is there to ensure that more fish caught by Scottish vessels is landed and processed at Scottish ports. The Scottish Government is due to introduce amended economic link provisions in January 2023 to help to ensure that greater landings of quota stocks are landed into Scottish ports. We will also be producing a new seafood trade strategy, which will set out our vision to ensure that Scotland has a thriving, sustainable and diverse Scottish seafood industry that is revitalising coastal communities. Through the Marine Fund Scotland, £6 million has supported Scottish processing facilities to upgrade their premises and improve automation to help to enhance opportunity for Scottish landed catches to have value added in Scotland. I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. The Scottish Government has a strong track record of supporting the fishing industry in Bampshire and Buckingham coast. Most recently, the additional £1.8 million of funding for ports and harbours announced last year which benefited Fraser, Peterhead and McDuff. Scotland is entitled to receive at least £62 million annually in replacement of the European maritime and fisheries fund. Can I therefore ask the cabinet secretary what impact has Brexit had on the funding for the vital projects and infrastructure that support fishing communities like those in my constituency? The impact of Brexit has been significant. That is not only because of the losses and dislocation of markets but also the reduction in quota that has been available for Scottish vessels. The member is absolutely right in what she said, because following EU exit, we also provided clear evidence to the UK Government for a multi-year £62 million per annum allocation for marine funding, which is something that we could have accessed as EU members. Instead, the UK Government has allocated only £14 million a year to Scotland, which fails to recognise the value and importance of Scotland's seas. In addition, it appears that the yearly £5.5 million top-up that was previously provided to Scotland on the basis that the EU maritime and fisheries fund allocation was insufficient is not going to continue. That means that, in real terms, the funding that is available to support the seafood sector and enhance the marine environment and improve biodiversity has received a 28 per cent cut compared to the previous three years. Ultimately, a reduced funding pot means that there is reduced opportunity to realise the benefits for coastal communities, for marine businesses and the marine environment in Scotland, but we will continue to use the limited funding that we have to deliver maximum effect through the marine fund Scotland. Question 6, Brian Whittle. To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to reduce the adverse effects of food waste on climate change. Scottish Government's 2019 Food Waste Reduction Action Plan set a target of 33 per cent reduction in food waste by 2025. Delivery of the plan is on-going and supported by Zero Waste Scotland. I am taking action and yesterday I launched phase 2 of our food waste marketing campaign, highlighting links between food waste and climate change, encouraging people to buy what they need, eat what they buy and recycle food waste that they cannot prevent. A review of the plan will be published this year and will identify additional areas of action that are required to meet that 2025 target. Brian Whittle. I thank the minister for that answer. She will be aware that if food waste was a country, it would be the third largest greenhouse gas emitter behind the China and the USA. In fact, food waste contributes four times the amount of greenhouse gas as does the global aviation industry. What if the minister agrees with me that not enough emphasis has been put on tackling food waste and that we must stop vilifying our food producers? I thank the member for the question. I think that he is absolutely right that we mustn't vilify our food producers that everybody can work together to tackle food waste and that it is an important contributor to climate emissions. To ask the Scottish Government what steps are being taken to ensure access to care and support planning by a specialist team for people with ME and chronic fatigue syndrome, as recommended by NICE. The Scottish Government welcomes the National Institute for Health and Care's excellent guideline on ME and chronic fatigue syndrome, published last October. We have commissioned an independent organisation to engage with the third sector, people with lived experience and clinical stakeholders, to discuss how we move forward in implementing the NICE guideline recommendations in Scotland and on a broader front identifying and practically addressing priorities for service improvement in care for people with ME, CFS. I am looking forward to meeting with ME Action Scotland representatives just next week on 3 March and directly hearing their views on improving the access to care and support for people affected by ME and chronic fatigue syndrome. I thank the minister for that response. The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 in all of its variants has caused significant damage to people and families across Scotland. We know that ME-CFS can be triggered by infection in patients, although susceptibility may have a genetic element to it. Does the minister therefore agree that access to care and specialist support is essential for those who are currently diagnosed and can she advise what work is being undertaken to identify any lasting effects from Covid infections that may lead to the development of any CFS? We are committed to ensuring that everyone living with ME-CFS in Scotland is able to access the best possible care and support and to benefit from healthcare services that are safe and effective and put people right at the centre of their care. Our approach in responding to long Covid is to support NHS boards to develop models of care that will be of benefit to the management of other long-term and complex conditions. Our chief scientist office is supporting nine major research projects through the £2.5 million funding that are expected to contribute significantly to the clinical knowledge and the long-term effects of Covid-19, including to understanding more fully the nature of long Covid and the possible treatments for it. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on how the Distress Brief Intervention programme is supporting people experiencing mental health crises. The award-winning Distress Brief Intervention is a flagship programme that provides personalised, compassionate support to people who present to front-line services in emotional distress and who do not require emergency clinical services. DBI provides practical support, which helps people to understand and manage their distress as such. It forms a core element of the Government's work to improving responses for people experiencing mental health crises. I thank the minister for that answer. The Distress Brief Intervention programme was introduced in part to create a coherent approach in addressing mental health crises. With that in mind, can he tell me what is being done to ensure that access to mental health services is consistent across Scotland, in particular for those living in rural or island communities? I thank Ms Roddick for that question, a very important one. DBI is available nationally through NHS 24. Specifically in the Highlands and Islands region, Inverness is one of the pilot areas for DBI. DBI is now available in Murray and Orkney and is expected to go live in Argyll and Bute and the Western Isles in Spring. More generally, mental wellbeing support can be accessed through an individual's GP, NHS 24 and breathing space, and for anyone who feels they may cause immediate harm to themselves, they can reach out through 999.