Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government has not undertaken an assessment of catamaran vessels in the past year. Any such assessments have been undertaken by Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd (CMAL) supported by independent naval architectural consultancy.

As was widely reported at the time, CMAL gave detailed consideration to the opportunity to purchase a catamaran already under construction. This was not pursued primarily due to concerns that the vessel would not meet regulatory requirements for service on the Clyde and Hebrides services, a decision endorsed by the Scottish Government.

Following the opening of the consultation published on 4 July 2022, setting out the measures proposed for the next Land Reform Bill, a programme of six public meetings took place. In addition, an online event was held on Thursday 22 July, which was open to all and which attracted participants from across Scotland.

At each of these events I, and my officials, made presentations setting out what the SG aims to achieve with the next Land Reform Bill. One of our key objectives is to ensure that communities benefit from investment in Scotland's natural capital, whether directly through ownership of land, or through engagement and co-operation with landowners.

Those attending the meetings included individuals, businesses, owners of farms and estates and their land managers and legal representatives, charity and third sector organisations, local authorities, and academic and research organisations/institutions.

One of the five ‘pillars’ of the Community Wealth Building framework is “Land and Property: Growing social, ecological, financial and economic value that local communities gain from land and property assets”. This objective is reflected not only in the measures we put forward in the Bill, but will also be realised through our commitment to double the funding available through the Scottish Land Fund for communities to acquire land and land assets.

This data is not held by Scottish Government or currently available in the format requested.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) collect and report vaccine data for Scotland. Data is not published by vaccine type/manufacturer. However, the COVID-19 Statistical Report (publichealthscotland.scot) , last updated on the 02 November 2022, has data on number of citizens vaccinated by health board.

The total number of Covid Vaccinations delivered up to 7th November 2022, was 14,414,300.

The Scottish Government have been in dialogue with NHS Highland on the matter raised. NHS Highland have confirmed that they will honour the two tier agreement in respect of facilities management colleagues working on behalf of NHS Highland at New Craigs Hospital. This will ensure that these staff are on terms and conditions that are no less favourable than the Agenda for Change equivalent. The Health Board are now working with Robertson Facilities Management and local trade union representatives to ensure a smooth transition.

Updated guidance on the expanded criteria is being finalised and agreed with local government partners and will be published on the Scottish Government website in the coming weeks.

Each local authority was awarded an allocation of funds, to be used in the last financial year, ending 31 March 2022. Where it has not been possible to spend this in full, local authorities can continue to use their allocation in 2022-23 until fully spent.

Existing funding has not been exhausted and there are no plans to provide additional funding at present. However our emergency budget review, published on 2 November 2022, has outlined significant funds to help those most affected by the cost of living crisis. The Scottish Government will continue to do everything within our resources and powers to help those most affected by the cost of living crisis.

Agriculture support is already conditional, the current Basic Payment Scheme requires Farmers, Crofters, etc to meet Cross Compliance and Greening measures, to qualify for that payment. I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-11606 on 10 November 2022 in relation to future conditionality of agricultural support. 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 .

We have approached local authorities seeking data covering quarters one and two of the current financial year, or confirmation that the fund has been used in full and is now closed. This information is currently being quality assured before it is published on the Scottish Government website.

Evidence and data play an important part in efficient policy delivery. Our commitment to continue to improve on our data and evaluation efforts is highlighted as part of the revised evaluation strategy to tackle child poverty. The Scottish Government publish child poverty estimates by detailed ethnic group and since March 2022, time series for ethnicity breakdowns have also been published, including for child poverty estimates by detailed ethnic group. The Scottish Government is happy to support CRER – and any stakeholders – with finding our published data and producing ad-hoc analysis.

Whilst recognising the important role of detailed statistical data, our tackling child poverty delivery plan is clear that an intersectional approach is needed to support priority families. Beyond statistical analysis, our action to tackle child poverty is based on a strong evidence base identifying the main drivers of poverty, as the CRER report acknowledges. To design policies that specifically help minority ethnic families, further evidence has been published to widen our understanding. This includes a detailed focus report on minority ethnic families, a summary update on drivers of poverty for all priority family types which fed into the development of ‘Best Start, Bright Futures’ and detailed understanding of what works to tackle child poverty.

I refer the member to the Parliamentary Statement I made on Tues 8 November 2022, which set out the Scottish Government's pathway for the future of agricultural support including the conditionality of that support. This is in line with our Vision for Scottish Agriculture, published in March 2022, in which we committed to integrate enhanced conditionality of at least half of all funding for farming and crofting by 2025. We are seeking views on that conditionality in the public consultation “Delivering our Vision for Scottish Agriculture”, which closes on 21 Nov 2022.