Oil and gas production has generated around £330 billion in tax revenues for the UK exchequer over the last six decades, and the Office for Budget Responsibility estimate that the North Sea will generate further revenues of ‎£5.5 billion over the period 2017-18 to 2022-23. In 2016 oil and gas production in Scottish adjacent waters accounted for 82% of total UK hydrocarbon production.

Following a challenging number of years there are increasingly positive signs emerging from the oil and gas industry, including the strong response to the OGA’s 30th licensing round with 123 licenses awarded to 61 companies, which will provide a much needed boost to exploration and is also expected to unlock 320 million barrels of “stranded” oil in undeveloped discoveries. It is crucial that the revenues generated from such developments are reinvested into Scotland and the North East in particular.

It is clear that the UK Government has failed to properly re-invest the proceeds from the North Sea to provide a long-term benefit to future generations or to allow adequate support to protect against downturns in the industry, and the Scottish Government continues to make representations to the UK Government to ensure that they provide immediate support to the sector to encourage greater activity and protect the highly skilled workforce and innovative supply chain.

The Scottish Government will continue to do everything within its powers to support the industry and its workforce, with efforts led by the Oil and Gas Industry Leadership Group which I Co-chair, while calling on the UK Government to ensure a fiscal and regulatory regime which encourages on-going investment to support jobs and export led growth.

Bullying of any kind is entirely unacceptable and must be addressed swiftly and effectively whenever it arises in schools.

To support schools and local authorities in November 2017 the Scottish Government published ‘ Respect for All – The National Approach to Anti-Bullying for Scotland’s Children and Young People’ .

Respect for All provides an overarching framework and context for all anti-bullying work that is undertaken in Scotland. It reflects Getting it Right for Every Child and promotes an approach of working with children and young people to help change their behaviour.

Additionally, on 28 May, a Short Life Working Group established by the Scottish Government, published supplementary guidance for schools and local authorities on Recording and Monitoring of Bullying Incidents in Schools. The guidance will complement the introduction of a national approach to recording incidents of bullying in schools using the SEEMiS schools management system.

The Scottish Government also fully funded respect me, Scotland’s anti-bullying service, since its inception and in 2018-19 will continue to provide over £298,000. Respect me provide direct support to local authorities, youth groups and all those working with children and young people to build confidence and capacity to address all types of bullying effectively.

We are investing £750m through the Attainment Scotland Fund over the course of this Parliament to tackle the poverty related attainment gap. This year alone we will invest £179m – up £9m from last year – including over £120m in Pupil Equity Funding and £50m for the Challenge Authorities and Schools Programmes.

This is a long term commitment and there is evidence that the investment is starting to make a real impact and we are confident that this will continue. For example, in West Dunbartonshire (one of 9 Challenge Authorities) inspectors found significant progress in the attainment of young people living in SIMD areas 1 and 2, while the recently published interim evaluation report of the Attainment Scotland Fund found that 97% of headteachers expect to see further improvements in closing the attainment gap as a consequence of Attainment Scotland Fund initiatives. This investment will continue to be evaluated in line with the published Attainment Scotland Fund (years 3 and 4): evaluation strategy.

Currently different groups face different constraints with regards to access to finance. We know that the ability to access finance has been highlighted by a quarter of women business owners as a key challenge to them starting their own business, and evidence has shown that women on average start their businesses with a third less capital than that of their male counterparts. The Bank will consider how it could play a role in addressing challenges like this. The Bank will play a clear role in promoting diversity and inclusiveness and the Government is clear that the Bank should have inclusivity and diversity at the heart of all it does.

Decisions taken by private businesses to charge organisations for advertising are a matter for them and their customers rather than being something within Scottish Government control.

Whilst not a search engine, Mygov does provide links to support for mental health issues, including NHS Inform and the Scottish Association for Mental Health, on the following page:- https://www.mygov.scot/financial-support-mental-illness/

Suicide prevention is a top priority for this government. In our engagement process which ended on April 30, we acknowledged the importance of promoting suicide prevention through multiple approaches. One of the proposed aims in the draft suicide prevention action plan is developing the use of social media and online resources. A good example of an existing online resource for suicide prevention is the local Choose Life North East Suicide Prevention App.

Scottish Government is aware that organisations such as “Google for Non-profits” can offer UK charities access to discounted or free products.

In partnership with key stakeholders including COSLA, Universities Scotland, Colleges Scotland and the National Union of Students, we have developed a set of guiding principles to underpin delivery of our commitment to provide access to free sanitary products in schools, colleges and universities. These have been shared widely across the education sector via the key stakeholders.

The principles include protecting students’ dignity; giving them choice about the products they want to use; and ensuring sanitary products are easily accessible to meet individual needs. The principles also require that education establishments undertake awareness raising and education to both promote the provision and to change cultural norms.

Our pilot in Aberdeen has allowed us to gain insight into the issue of lack of access to sanitary products and test different approaches to providing free sanitary products to those who need them most. This project has helped over 1,000 people in Aberdeen and parts of Aberdeenshire access products they couldn’t afford.

We expect to publish the report on the Scottish Government website by the end of May.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting the success of female-led enterprises, which cut across many sectors and have a diversity of needs. Work to address these needs is currently being taken forward through the Women in Enterprise Action Group, which I chair. The question of treating women's enterprise as a growth sector can and will be considered as part of the Action Group's Work.