Chamber and committees

The Scottish Governments approach to supporting the integration of refugees, people seeking asylum and other forced migrants within Scotland’s communities is set out in the New Scots Refugee Integration Strategy published in March 2024.

The Scottish Government does not provide direct funding to third sector organisations or local authorities specifically for the purpose of providing travel support for people seeking asylum.

However, people seeking asylum who are aged 60 or over or under 22 years old, or meet the disability eligibility criteria are eligible for concessionary travel in the same way as all other Scottish residents. I would encourage all those eligible to apply.

The 2024-25 Programme for Government set out the Scottish Government’s commitment to strengthening the implementation of human rights and advancing proposals around extended rights protection. This includes continuing to work to develop a new Human Rights Bill that will incorporate international treaties into Scots law.

Lessons from the implementation of the public sector equality duty and associated Scottish regulations will continue to shape development of the Human Rights Bill in the period ahead, including reflections on the alignment of existing and upcoming reporting requirements on listed public bodies and work on guidance, toolkits and wider capability and capacity building. The Scottish Government will do this through regular dialogue with duty bearers, sectoral groups of duty bearers, civil society and through close and regular communication between officials.

The ScotWind leasing round was carefully designed by Crown Estate Scotland with a focus on quality and deliverability of bids, and the long-term goal of securing supply chain investment. We welcome the commitment of developers to invest an average projection of £1.5bn in Scotland per project across the 20 ScotWind projects and we expect developers to honour these commitments.

We recognise that investment, both public and private, is key to unlocking these commitments. That is why we are investing up to £500m over five years to anchor the offshore wind supply chain in Scotland. Our commercial-first approach will stimulate and support private investment in the infrastructure and manufacturing facilities critical to the growth of our offshore wind sector.

Please see the following table for details of annual spend on repairs landslide mitigation infrastructure on the trunk road network for the years 2021-2024 to date:

We are continuing to engage with Vestas around potential investment into Scotland. The former First Minister met with the CEO of Vestas on 3 April 2024. A further meeting between the First Minister and the CEO is due to take place in September 2024.

Officials from the Scottish Government and our agencies also meet with the company regularly.

Please see the following table for details of annual spend on landslide mitigation infrastructure on the trunk road network for the years 2021-2024 to date:

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-29198 on 5 September 2024. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

As this is an operational matter for Scottish Water, and the Scottish Government does not hold the information, I have asked them to respond. Their reply is as follows:

Scottish Water states the annual leakage level in its annual report and accounts, laid before Parliament and published online at https://www.scottishwater.co.uk/about-us/who-we-are/annual-report

No policy development work on this subject was undertaken by these bodies prior to the 2024 General Election. Subsequent to the General Election, the Scottish Government has engaged with the new UK Government and has made clear that GB Energy should deliver clear benefits for the people of Scotland.