 The first item of business is general questions in order to get in as many people as possible. I'd appreciate short and succinct questions and answers to match. At question number one, I call Katie Clark. Thank you, Presiding Officer. To ask the Scottish Government when it last met with COSLA and Police Scotland to discuss safe access for all women to clinics and hospitals. The Scottish Government convened a working group in December 2021 with members from COSLA, Police Scotland and councils and health boards that are affected by vigils and protests that take place outside abortion clinics. The group is specifically focused on seeking solutions to ensure that women can access abortion services safely without fear of harassment. The working group last met this morning, that was our third meeting. The agenda and minutes from previous meetings can be found on the Scottish Government's website. Katie Clark. Last week, at the end of 40 days of continuous demonstrations, there were 100 anti-abortion protesters outside the Queen Elizabeth hospital maternity unit. Does the minister accept that women and the workforce are being harassed and that urgent action is needed to bring this type of behaviour to an end? Does she accept that we need to know that action is being taken urgently and that steps will be taken to ensure that those kinds of protests cannot continue? Will the Scottish Government have the courage to bring forward Scotland-wide legislation to create buffer zones? Let me put on record that I was very dismayed to hear about the protests at the Queen Elizabeth hospital last weekend. There is absolutely no place in our society for the harassment, abuse or intimidation of women and girls who are accessing healthcare services. The Scottish Government is committed to women being able to access timely abortion without facing judgment. Both our programme for government and our women's health plan included undertakings in this regard, which I hope indicates the importance that we place on this issue. I am working closely and collaboratively and constructively with Gillian Mackay, who has intentions to lodge a member's bill on this issue, and I met her in February. She was again at this meeting this morning of the working group to meet all of the working group members to share her consultation, and we all agreed to work constructively with her on this issue. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the roll-out of the home heating support fund. The home heating support fund is delivered on our behalf by Advice Direct Scotland. It reopened at the end of last year with funding provided from our fuel and security fund. Since then, it has been successfully helping households at risk of severely rationing their energy use or of self-disconnecting entirely. While figures are still being collated, the provisional figures show that more than 7,300 applications for support have been received by 11 April. It will continue to offer household support through the current financial year, thanks to the additional £10 million of funding that we recently announced for the fuel and security fund. As the Tories waste precious energy, running to the defence of their law-breaking Prime Minister and Chancellor, people across Scotland are focused on how to make ends meet, feed their children and keep their homes warm. Does the Minister agree with me that, instead of navel-gazing, the Tories must engage with reality and encourage the Chancellor to cut that on energy bills as a way of helping people with the cost of living crisis? I very strongly agree that action must be taken and that a short-term cut on that on energy fuels amongst a range of other measures would be one way of providing short-term relief for households faced with the huge increase in the price cap that has just come into effect and which we expect to get worse later this year. We have first suggested such a cut in that back in January and my colleagues, Fanars Secretary and the Cabinet Secretary for Networking, both reiterated that request when they wrote to their UK Government counterparts last month. We have put forward a range of other actions to address the cost of living crisis, some of which are set with the UK Government and some of which, as we have discussed, we have already implemented with devolved powers here. We have been pressing for some time for an ending of that on energy saving measures, which would increase the uptake of those products. It is good that the UK Government has finally recognised the merit of that particular measure. We are also continuing to urge them to commit to rebalancing the policy cost element of the energy bills to reduce the premium paid by households reliant on electric heating and to unlock the deployment of low and zero emissions heating. Finally, it is astonishing that they have published an energy security strategy that says absolutely nothing about energy efficiency. I am pleased to say that this Government continues to place a very high priority on that long-term priority. To ask the Scottish Government what to help it will provide to tackle any NHS backlogs in rural areas. Cabinet Secretary, how is the use of it? The ongoing impact of addressing the Covid-19 pandemic has meant that many health services have been suspended or reduced in scope and scale. That has affected almost all aspects of planned care. Many people are waiting longer for the care that they need. I hope that the member and the chamber can be assured that addressing the backlog will continue to meet the ongoing urgent healthcare demands of our top priority. We have published the NHS recovery plan that sets out our plans to address the backlog of care throughout the course of the parliamentary term. I am feasing Galloway specifically. We are working closely with the board on its local recovery plan, which recognises its specific challenges. That includes recruitment across a number of key roles to support increased capacity, the use of the independent sector where appropriate and funding to open short stay and ward beds to accommodate additional activity. Thank you, Cabinet Secretary. The Scottish Government, earlier this month, announced that it purchased a private healthcare hospital, the Carrick Glen, an air that specialises in orthopedics. Given the important role that is played by cottage hospitals at Castle Douglas, Cacubria and Newton-Stewart, who, before the pandemic, provided vital health services to nearly 600 patients, can ask the health secretary whether financial assistance will be made available to either retain or replace crucial local facilities in order to reduce the growing backlog and delay discharge and move palliative care patients closer to home. The question is a very important point indeed. I will say to him that it is for local health boards to make decisions and assessments about the various premises and acute sites that they have within their health board region. If they come forward to the Government with a plan on how, for example, the purchase of those premises might help them to reduce the backlog, then, of course, the Government will look at that favourably. The recruitment of new staff to the health service will play a crucial role in supporting the recovery of our NHS. I therefore ask the cabinet secretary to provide an update on the progress made since the launch of the recruitment drive in October. Can the cabinet secretary outline how measures in national workforce strategy will promote the growth of Scotland's remote and rural workforce in the long term? I am delighted that we were able to announce earlier this week that we have recruited over 1,000 healthcare support staff and they are in the mixture of both acute sites and community. Of course, they are also in urban areas and remote and island communities, which is very positive indeed. We have also recruited almost 200 overseas registered nurses with another 200 or over 200 coming on stream in the next weeks and months ahead. I should say that overseas recruitment is ethical international recruitment, which is, of course, incredibly important to us. We are absolutely committed to developing a sustainable healthcare workforce and, of course, we will develop a remote and rural workforce strategy that we have committed to as well. We are creating, as the member is no doubt aware of, a national centre for remote and rural health and social care. That is due to be operational by spring next year and that centre itself will support recruitment retention, ideal practice and evaluation training, education and research. To ask the Scottish Government when it last met with the department for work and pensions and what was discussed. Cabinet Secretary, Shona Robison. Ministers and officials are in regular contact with the department for work and pensions. Joint Ministerial working group meetings are held twice a year, the most recent one taking place in November last year when adult disability payment, child disability payment and Scottish child payment were discussed. The Minister for Social Security and Local Government holds regular bilateral meetings with Chloe Smith, the UK Government Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work on priorities for the delivery of devolved social security, the most recent of which took place last month and is also a well-established programme of meetings at official level on the delivery of devolved welfare benefits. As the cabinet secretary knows, the Tory cost of living crisis is causing real hardship and their lack of action is staggering. Does she agree with me that the UK Tory Government must review and increase the local housing allowance to help people with spiralling costs, raise all social security payments by at least 6 per cent to protect people from poverty and implement fair and fast compensation as requested by the Waspie women to ensure that 1950s women are not further penalised? The Scottish Government has fully supported the work of the Waspie campaign and has consistently called on the UK Government to take responsibility for the hardship that has caused 2,000 of women negatively impacted on local housing allowance, and local housing allowance rates were last set on 31 March 2020 and have not been elevated since. I wrote to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on 21 January this year urging her to take steps to restore them to a level that will prevent many people in Scotland having to make difficult choices between paying the rent or feeding their families and heating their home. In contrast, we did act urgently in spite of our limited powers by further increasing several forms of devolved social security benefits and assistance from 3.1 per cent to 6 per cent. The DWP's nationwide closures include their office in Aberdeen, which leaves over 60 workers at risk of redundancy. I previously raised the prospect of those highly skilled workers being redeployed to Social Security Scotland in order to assist the roll-out of new devolved benefits. The minister at the time indicated that the Scottish Government could explore the option, but no clear commitment was given. I ask the minister today for a firm commitment. Will the Scottish Government work with the PCS trade union and the DWP to explore redeployment of those workers to Social Security Scotland? I will pick that up and write to the member with more detail, but she will probably be aware that a number of DWP staff have been successful in moving across to Social Security Scotland over the course of Social Security Scotland being up and running. A number of staff have moved across on a recruitment basis, but I am happy to take forward the suggestion that she has made and look at what was said previously, and I will write to her with more detail. To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to receive with its commitment to mitigate any impact of the UK Government benefit cap, is much as possible within the scope of its devolved powers. Cabinet Secretary, Shona Robison, we know that households impacted by the benefit cap lose almost £2,500 per year. Mitigation of the cap will help the families hardest hit by the UK Government's cuts in order to help them to keep their home. We will be investing up to £10 million in 2022-23 to mitigate the benefit cap as far as we can within our powers, and we are working with local authorities to identify existing good practice in benefit cap mitigation and to agree how best to support those affected by the damaging policy, and that additional funding will be rolled out as early as possible this year. I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. The cabinet secretary will be aware that the first conversation that I had with her as a newly elected MSP was about mitigating the benefit cap, and I am delighted that we are doing this. It is beyond belief that the Westminster Government is implementing a policy that denies families with children's basic levels of subsistence and continues to make things even worse with a two-child policy in its abhorrent rape clause. Will the cabinet secretary join me in condemning this approach and agree that it is no part in an independent Scotland that its dignity, fairness and respect at the heart of its approach to social security policy? I wholeheartedly agree with Amiri McNair on that point. I also recognise her long-standing support of the move to mitigate the benefit cap. Indeed, she did raise it just in the early days of her being elected. We have repeatedly called on the UK Government to urgently review the various failings of the universal credit system, such as the two child limit and the rape clause, which is obviously abhorrent and would have no place in an independent Scotland social security system. In contrast, we are committing over £3.9 billion for benefit expenditure in 2022-23, providing support to more than one million people. That is over £360 million above the level of funding to be received from the UK Government through the block grant adjustment, showing the investment that we are making in the people of Scotland in this important area. To ask the Scottish Government how it is progressing with the replacement of unsafe cladding on tall buildings. We will introduce legislation tomorrow to ban the highest-risk cladding and combustible materials in residential and other high-risk buildings above 11 metres. That will apply from 1 June this year. All unsafe cladding being replaced in our assessment and remediation programme will need to meet that standard. A programme of single building assessments, which is free to home owners, is currently under way in 25 buildings. That will determine what, if anything, needs to be done to ensure that those buildings are safe. I expect that some of those assessments are detailed and very complex to be completed in the coming weeks. I thank the cabinet secretary for that response. In January, the UK Government pressurised housing developers to commit to removing dangerous cladding from buildings. Three months later, we have seen no such moves from the Scottish Government. Therefore, I ask what steps the Scottish Government is taking to ensure that developers remove flammable cladding from buildings as a matter of urgency. I am really glad that Alexander Stewart has asked me that question. First, I will say to him that, unfortunately, the building safety pledge in building fund is for England only. Despite assurances that we would work closely together to tackle building safety issues, devolved Administrations have yet to have a seat at the table. We have raised deep concerns with the Welsh Government about that. The change from a fund to now pledge letters means that less consequentials are available for the devolved nations to tackle their own cladding issues. We remain open to all solutions and are currently working with several developers to try an action remediation and to get that done on a voluntary basis. However, it is deeply unhelpful that the UK Government has excluded Wales and Scotland from the developers fund. We are urgently seeking a meeting with Michael Gove to request that the pledge letters cover Wales and Scotland. It is deeply disappointing that, to date, we have not managed to get that meeting arranged. If my colleagues on the left who are heckling from a sedudary position would perhaps refocus their attention on requesting Michael Gove to meet Wales and Scotland, because at the heart of this is a really important issue of unsafe cladding on buildings, and that is something surely that should transcend party politics. If they can be of assistance, that would be most helpful. Question 7, Liam McArthur. Thank you for asking Scottish Government how it is supporting the agricultural and fitting industries with rising fuel costs. It is clear to all of us that Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine and the justified Western sanctions in response has impacts and not least the hugely challenging increases in energy bills that affect households and everyone in the food industry from farmers and processors to the fishing industry. I am acutely aware of the impact that this has across the food supply chain and the particular issues for our fishing industries facing financial hardship as a result. The continued lack of engagement from the UK Government will lead again to consternation for Scottish businesses who are dealing with an already unsettled international environment. On 17 March, I announced that we have convened a food security and supply task force jointly with industry to monitor, identify and respond to those issues, as well as recommend actions that can be taken by business, the Scottish and UK Governments to mitigate against some of those challenges. Further to that, I had also written on 4 April to the minister, George Eustice, requesting an urgent four nation summit on the impact of fuel prices. Yesterday, the Secretary of State finally agreed to this request during a meeting and will now work with DEFRA to ensure that this happens at pace. Liam McArthur. I thank the cabinet secretary while we are all feeling the pinch at the pumps. The exceptional rise in input costs is forcing boats in Orkney either to tie up or to leave the industry entirely. The combination of feed, fuel and fertiliser costs threatens the viability of many farms. Given the importance of food security, as the cabinet secretary recognised, when would she expect the working group to come forward with recommendations and will she give a commitment to implement those recommendations with absolute urgency? Cabinet secretary. Yes, the task force was set up as a short life task force exactly to do that, to look at the short, medium and longer term actions. We had our third meeting yesterday. We will also be having our what's expected to be our last meeting shortly and we will produce a paper with a report with recommendations from that, which of course the Scottish Government will consider carefully. Thank you. That concludes general questions. Before we move on to First Minister's questions, I invite members to join me in welcoming to the gallery the Honourable Jonathan O'Day MP, Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, Parliament of New South Wales.