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The Scottish Government is committed to publishing the rail services decarbonisation action plan for Scotland’s railways, this will include its assessment on the use of battery and hydrogen technology powered trains as well as electrification to meet the 2035 traction decarbonisation target. Other infrastructure works may also be required to fully capture the benefits and these will be assessed on each line of route based on current and forecast capacity.

Network Rail is currently developing a Business Case to support the recommendations of the Far North Line review group. Abellio ScotRail has also been involved in discussions to assess the deliverability and affordability of the options for potential implementation during the next eight to ten years.

Early work had, prior to the Covid-19 disruption, started on developing and trialling enhancements to the Radio Electronic Token Block signalling on the line and this will re-commence as soon as it is safe to do so.

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing the rail services decarbonisation action plan for Scotland’s railways, this will include its assessment on the use of battery and hydrogen technology powered trains as well as electrification to meet the 2035 traction decarbonisation target.

Guidance on PPE for health and social care workers was last updated on 2 April 2020, having been agreed by the four UK Chief Medical Officers and Chief Nursing Officers following a review of the existing guidance against the latest evidence and World Health Organization (WHO) advice on the safest way to protect health and social care staff.

Current guidance outlines what type of PPE frontline health and social care workers should be wearing in different settings and scenarios. It recommends the safest level of PPE to protect health and social care workers and it specifies the type of PPE that should be worn in the various healthcare and social care settings where patients or residents could be cared for.

The guidance clearly explains the PPE required for different common clinical and care scenarios including primary care, outpatient and community care.

Given the recognised sustained community transmission of COVID-19, the guidance includes detailed advice around risk assessing use of PPE, including aprons, gowns, fluid-resistant surgical masks and eye protection in a range of different clinical and care scenarios, including community settings, such as care homes. The guidance also asks that organisations themselves undertake risk assessments to ensure that they provide the correct PPE for the safety of their staff.

A joint statement, published on 9 April 2020 by the Scottish Government, COSLA and the Trade Unions emphasised that social care staff can wear a face mask if they consider doing so necessary.

The Scottish Government recognises that current lockdown measures can have a particular adverse impact on residents with dementia in care homes, for example in the areas of restricted professional and family visiting and social distancing within care homes, and because of some residents’ limited cognitive ability to understand restrictions because of their stage of dementia.

The national clinical and practice guidance for care homes which was first published on 13 March and updated on 26 and 15 May recognises these impacts and recommends that, if necessary, it may be helpful to have a case discussion in whatever format appropriate to discuss an individual’s unique circumstances and identify ways to mitigate the impact of such measures. Strategies for promoting the wellbeing of residents during this pandemic are contained with the guidance along with advice on therapeutic interventions to help avoid and alleviate increased stress and distress for residents with dementia resulting from COVID restrictions including reduced family visiting.

While visiting is restricted to essential visitors, it may be permitted in some situations based on individual resident need, for a person receiving end-of-life care, to support someone with a mental health issue such as dementia, a learning disability or autism where not being present would cause the resident to be distressed. The guidance sets out steps that should be taken where families or friends are permitted to visit their loved one, and it refers to guiding principles produced by the Royal College of Physicians Edinburgh, the Scottish Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, Marie Curie and Scottish Care on visiting at end of life. It is expected that care homes use sensitivity in balancing the risks to individuals with the need to show compassion.

To support NHS National Procurement during the Covid pandemic, a working group has been established under direct Ministerial control. The priority focus of the group is to identify quickly those offers that can supply the largest volumes at the correct quality specifications, and only the best qualified suppliers are passed through to National Procurement specialists for decision.

The Government has received over 2000 pieces of correspondence containing offers to supply NHS Scotland in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. Many suppliers offered to supply more than one type of product and suppliers often submitted multiple offers.

Removing duplicate offers the total number of offers received by 30 April 2020 was 1,347: (a) 186 relating primarily to ventilators, (b) 670 relating primarily to personal protective equipment and (c) 491 other offers.

Supplier offers recorded in the Scottish Government database are not categorised by the terms “accepted” or “rejected”. At 30 April 2020, 413 offers had been closed or placed on hold and the remaining cases were in progress.

The Scottish Government is working closely with COSLA and all local authorities to deliver the business grant schemes. This includes the development of monitoring arrangements to record the numbers of applications received and payments made. We will ensure this information is in the public domain and updated weekly.

The Covid Corporate Finance Facility (CCFF) was introduced by the UK Government to provide financial assistance to support large businesses experiencing disruption as a result of Covid-19. This scheme is delivered by the Bank of England on behalf of the UK Government and is open to all businesses across the UK which meet the eligibility criteria.

On 2 April the UK Government announced the Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CLBILS) in response to concerns from a number of quarters, including the Scottish Government, about the level of financial support available for larger businesses which do not qualify for either the CCFF or the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme. CLBILS provides loans of up to £25 million for businesses with an annual turnover of between £45m - £500m and is also available to all business across the UK.

The Scottish Government will continue to engage with the business community to ensure that companies of all sizes receive the financial assistance that they require through the Covid-19 pandemic. The Scottish Government is taking steps to identify any gaps in business support and will work with partners to try to remedy them.

The Scottish Government’s priority is responding to the current global and national crisis. We expect our response to the coronavirus outbreak will be sustained over an extended period. For that reason, careful consideration of a date for introduction of the Continuity Bill will take place as part of the wider work being carried out to prioritise essential non-coronavirus related legislation in the government's legislative programme. As part of this consideration, we will assess the impact on future domestic arrangements for environmental principles and governance.

A decision by the UK Government to take sensible steps to negotiate an extension to the implementation period would, of course, have an important bearing on those considerations.