As part of his independent ‘Review of the Implementation of the Recommendations of the Advisory Group on Tackling Sectarianism in Scotland’, Dr Duncan Morrow, former Chair of the Advisory Group, gathered evidence from a wide range of sources across Scottish society, including all political parties represented in the Scottish Parliament, and presented a number of constructive findings and recommendations. This highlighted concerns that a culture of denial and a lack of urgency exists in some quarters when it comes to tackling sectarianism.

It is very clear from the review that, while progress has been made, more work remains to be done to eradicate sectarianism and that we all have a responsibility to meet this challenge. I welcome Dr Morrow’s Review and will give full consideration to the findings and recommendations.

I am aware that a number of organisations, such as the Law Society, Stonewall and the Equality Network, have expressed support for the idea of consolidated hate crime legislation. That is why I have commissioned the independent ‘Review of Hate Crime Legislation in Scotland’ to ensure that all communities subjected to hate crime have appropriate regress to law and that our legislation is fit for the 21st century. The review, which began on 30 January 2017, will consider all hate crime legislation, including legislation which supports tackling sectarianism. I look forward to Lord Bracadale presenting his findings in due course.

Personal and Social Education (PSE) is a taught subject which covers aspects of planning for choices and changes; substance misuse; relationships, sexual health and parenthood; in addition to aspects of physical activity, sport and health.

Together, these topics support all children and young people to have positive mental health and wellbeing, including those who are LGBTI.

The Scottish Government prioritised lowering the drink-driving limit in 2014 as evidence showed such a policy could help save lives. Scotland has long standing legislation used by Police Scotland, prosecutors and our courts that makes it an offence to drive while being impaired due to drugs.

We are considering very carefully whether evidence shows that specific drug driving limits should be introduced in Scotland and this consideration will include evaluation of the evidence of the impact of drug driving limits that have been introduced in England and Wales.

Despite attending an increasing number of incidents, the Scottish Ambulance Service is saving the lives of more patients than ever before.

Emergency response times are monitored on an on-going basis and are affected throughout the year by a number of factors including peaks in demand, extreme weather and road closures, as well as turnaround times at hospitals.

The Scottish Ambulance Service continue to work jointly with colleagues in the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Glasgow Royal Infirmary and Royal Alexandra Hospital to improve the flow of patients in and out of these hospitals in order to improve turnaround times.

The Scottish Government realises the importance of tackling all forms of sexual harassment as set out in Equally Safe, Scotland's strategy to prevent and eradicate violence against women and girls. We are currently investing £11.8 million in 2016-2017 to support a range of projects and initiatives, as well as take forward the implementation of Equally Safe.

We are working closely with Zero Tolerance and others through the Capability and Capacity workstream of Equally Safe to consider further steps to support public sector workplaces as employers in this area, and have also provided funding to Zero Tolerance to develop their Policy, Action, Communication and Training (PACT) resource which can be used by employers to support efforts to tackle violence against women in the workplace. As a major public sector employer, the Scottish Government intends to lead by example and review its own policy in this area using the PACT resource. We will be forwarding a draft delivery plan for Equally Safe in the spring outlining further steps in this area.

The Scottish Government takes the issue of violence in schools very seriously and any attack on a teacher is one too many. The Scottish Government is committed to working with our partners to continue to improve relationships and behaviour in schools.

We recognise that any violence towards staff or pupils is unacceptable and we are working with schools and local authorities to actively tackle serious indiscipline and violence.

The latest Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research did not indicate significant issues with violence in schools and showed that the overwhelming majority of staff found pupils well behaved.

Scottish Government are investing significantly in various violence reduction and preventative approaches, such as Mentors in Violence Prevention and No Knives Better Lives. Children and young people across Scotland through schools, stakeholders and local authorities are also involved in the implementation of wider strategies to promote positive relationships and behaviour.

The redevelopment of Queen Street station continues to make progress, some advanced works are already underway and Transport Scotland authorised a further package of enabling works in December 2016 which should commence March 2017.

The remaining works package is reliant on the outcome of the Transport and Works Scotland Order application which remains under active consideration.

The introduction of 7-car services from December 2017 and 8-car services with improved journey times from December 2018 remain on schedule.

I had a very positive meeting with representatives of Land Securities, the owner of Buchanan Galleries, and Glasgow Chamber of Commerce on 26 January 2017 when all parties re-affirmed their commitment to working closely to deliver both the Queen Street station redevelopment and the extension of the Buchanan Galleries.

The Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 requires local authorities to give reasonable preference, or priority, to applicants for social housing who are living under unsatisfactory housing conditions, or who are homeless or threatened with homelessness. The Scottish Government expects victims of domestic abuse to be included in these categories. In practice guidance on social housing allocations that it has issued to social landlords, the Scottish Government has advised that social landlords:

“need to develop an approach to deal sensitively with victims of abuse and to award them with priority to make sure that they can be re-housed quickly to remove themselves from the abuse. This can include dealing with harassment and abuse issues under the homeless legislation, which gives those who are homeless or at risk of homelessness reasonable preference in housing allocations.”

The guidance is available online at:

The Scottish Government is taking a number of actions to help recruit and retain teachers. We are spending £88 million this year to make sure every school has access to the right number of teachers, we are opening up new and innovative routes into teaching, we have increased student teacher intake targets for the fifth year in a row, and we are setting targets to train teachers in the subjects where they are needed most.

We also launched a new teacher recruitment campaign on 8 February 'Teaching Makes People'. This builds on the success of last year’s 'Inspiring Teachers' campaign which helped drive a 19% increase in Professional Graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) applications to Scottish universities compared to the previous year.

We have also gone further than our manifesto commitment by providing £120 million of Pupil Equity Funding for 2017-18. This funding will be available for headteachers to use for the additional resources that they consider will help raise attainment and reduce the poverty related attainment gap. This funding is being allocated directly to headteachers as they and other school leaders are best placed to know the needs of the children and young people in their school.