Chamber and committees

NatureScot, as custodians of the castle are in the process of negotiating a private sale and the castle estate is under offer. Private sale comes on the back of previous attempts to secure a sustainable future via other routes, including Community Asset Transfer under the provisions of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015. NatureScot are actively engaged with the Isle of Rum Community Trust (IRCT), as part of sale process.

The 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships has been a policy-led event from inception. While successful delivery of the 13 world championships in August 2023 is a key focus, an overarching aim is to use the event as a catalyst for positive change and encourage more people to participate in cycling.

We are working closely with Cycling World Championships Limited and other partners to ensure that the 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships supports increased cycling participation in Scotland. We have created a Policy Advisory Group, to help drive forward the wider policy ambitions of the 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships, bringing together Cycling World Championships partners to assist with join up across policy areas, and to consider initiatives and approaches. There are six policy pillars. These are: Participation; Sport; Transport; Industry; Tourism; and Events. Getting more people on bikes is fundamental to success in all of these areas.

More specifically, through ‘Inspired By’ projects the Scottish Government aims to use the Championships as a catalyst for change and leave lasting benefits, increasing cycling participation. These projects include delivering accessible, inclusive and inspiring facilities through the £8 million Cycling Facilities Fund and engaging in every Local Authority area through the £1 million Community Cycling Fund will provide opportunities and inspiration to cycle.

The Championships is also working with Scottish Cycling and Cycling Scotland to increase cycling participation levels, develop sporting excellence through their talent and performance programmes and target a more diverse audience through programmes such as Scottish Cycling’s ‘Lets Ride, Breeze‘, aimed specifically at women and young people, and Cycling Scotland’s ‘Pedal’ events –supporting people new and returning to cycling, including families.

There are also opportunities for communities to get more directly involved with the event itself, for example through the volunteering programme. This will provide positive, high quality and meaningful volunteering opportunities. The programme is open for applications until 31 October with more details available at: Volunteer with us | 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships (cyclingworldchamps.com) .

Furthermore the promotional strategy for the championships is to appeal to a broad and diverse audience, not just those that are existing fans of cycling or cyclists. Diverse imagery will be used, and not just in a sporting context, to promote a variety of different uses of the bike and reinforce the message that cycling is for all.

The Scottish Government will continue to engage with stakeholders to amplify and accelerate opportunities linked to the Championships, including with a view to increasing participation in cycling.

In August 2023 Scotland will host the first ever Cycling World Championships, which is predicted to welcome 2,600 elite cyclists, including para-athletes, from 120 countries, and up to 1 million spectators. The Scottish Government aims to spread the benefits from major events across Scotland. The Championships will take place across a number of locations in Scotland. The road races will pass through many communities, bringing opportunities to experience the excitement of the Championships to a wide audience in Scotland.

We are working closely with Cycling World Championships Limited and other partners to ensure communities across Scotland benefit from the 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships.

A key aspect of delivering local community benefits is the ‘Inspired By’ projects, where the aim is to use the Championships as a catalyst for change and leave lasting benefits. The most notable ‘Inspired By’ project to date is the £8m Cycling Facilities Fund, which aims to provide accessible, inclusive and inspiring facilities and so increase participation in cycling, which can have physical health, metal health and environmental benefits. sportscotland has made 23 awards already across Scotland, with further awards to follow.

Another Inspired By project is the Community Cycling Fund which was announced on 19 May 2022, providing at least £1 million of support. The Fund is a joint initiative between the 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships, EventScotland and sportscotland. The fund has been developed with the aim of creating a national celebration of cycling across all of Scotland’s 32 local authority areas in the build up to the Championships, and to create lasting benefit post-event.

There are also opportunities for communities to get more directly involved with the event itself, for example through the volunteering programme. This will provide positive, high quality and meaningful volunteering opportunities. The aim is that the programme will engage new audiences into the joy of volunteering, be accessible and inclusive and increase community engagement with the championships. The programme is open for applications until 31 October with more details available at: Volunteer with us | 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships (cyclingworldchamps.com).

The Scottish Government will continue to engage with stakeholders to amplify and accelerate activity linked to the Championships, including with a view to delivering further community benefits.

To enhance the support available for low income families with school age children, the Scottish Government will double the final Bridging Payment due to be paid in December 2022. This will increase the payment from £130 to £260 for every eligible child.

This increase is anticipated to reach in the region of 145,000 children, backed by additional investment of almost £19 million. As a result, Bridging Payments are expected to put around £169 million in the pockets of low income families across 2021 and 2022.

This is in addition to the expansion and further increase in the value of the Scottish Child Payment, which will become available for eligible children under the age of 16 as of 14 November and will be worth £25 per child, per week.

The Scottish Government will continue to assess all opportunities to redirect additional resources to those most in need through the Emergency Budget Review.

The Scottish Government vision is for Scotland to be a leading Fair Work Nation by 2025, where fair work drives success, wellbeing and prosperity for individuals, businesses, organisations and society. This includes tackling the drivers of workplace inequality for women and ensuring they are supported to enter and progress in all of Scotland’s workplaces.

Through our Fair Work First policy we are leveraging employers’ commitment to fair work by applying Fair Work criteria to public sector grants, other funding and contracts where it’s relevant and proportionate to do so. Through this we are asking employers to adopt fair work practices such as enabling workers to have an effective voice, tackling gender pay gaps and offering flexible working from day one of employment which can especially benefit women experiencing menstrual or menopausal issues while at work.

Scottish Government has committed, through the Women’s Health Plan, to develop a menopause and menstrual health workplace policy, as an example of best practice, starting with NHS Scotland, and promote this across the public, private and third sector.

Our Women Returners funding has helped over 1,500 women since 2018 with their transition back into the workplace offering training, skills and peer support at a time and pace that best suits their needs. 11 projects are receiving funding in 2022-23 to support women including the Return with Resilience project that supports women aged 50 or over who’re experiencing menopause symptoms return to the workplace. Women are able to access employability skills, peer support and access to a variety of skills sessions such as ‘managing menopause’ and mental health coaching to build confidence and resilience.

We are still modelling potential structures based on updated scheme membership data and plan to engage with the Scheme Advisory Board on these shortly. The previous proposals we consulted on put forward broadly similar rates for lower earners to those in the contribution structure implemented in England and Wales.

When developing the structure, protecting lower earners from large increases in contribution rates is a key driver but has to be balanced against the legal imperative to begin to reduce the very highest rates and flatten the contribution structure. The biggest challenge in comparing against the rates in England and Wales is that there is a bigger yield shortfall to recover in the Scottish scheme, principally due to workforce demographics.

The Scottish Government is deeply concerned by, and fundamentally opposed to, the UK Government’s plans to potentially dismantle laws protecting nature as outlined in their Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill. As drafted, the Bill will undermine the Scottish Government’s ability to protect Scotland’s natural environment because unless existing legal protections set out in retained EU law are preserved, they will be removed from the statute book at the end of 2023. In addition it is unacceptable for the UK Government to give itself powers to act in areas of devolved competence. Devolution must be respected.

The Scottish Government will do everything within the powers available to us to prevent such dismantling of laws protecting nature and to protect devolution. We remain fully committed to protecting nature in Scotland and maintaining or enhancing environmental standards. The Scottish Government shall achieve alignment with improvements to EU environmental standards, wherever this is possible and within our interests, including where appropriate through specific powers within the UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Continuity) (Scotland) Act 2021.

Minutes and notes of meetings are not routinely published and are available upon request from Transport Scotland.

We intend to publish our Strategy for Seafood today. The strategy underlines the importance of the seafood sector and sets out how we are supporting industry to contribute to achieving our Blue Economy aspirations.

Scotland’s world renowned seafood sector is a vital part of our economy that particularly supports our coastal and island communities. Our marine environment contributes significantly to our commitment to being a Good Food Nation and to the ambition of the Local Food Strategy, with locally sourced seafood forming part of a healthy sustainable diet. The fishing, aquaculture and processing communities also have an important role to play in helping us achieve Scotland’s net zero targets and in implementing a range of measures articulated in the Bute House Agreement to improve existing ecosystems, encourage sustainability and protect our marine natural capital assets.

The strategy draws together and provides cohesion to the many existing initiatives which deliver for the seafood sector, and makes some recommendations which we will continue to explore as we transition towards net zero and delivery of the Blue Economy outcomes.

We look forward to taking this important work forward with the sector.

The publication of the strategy is consistent with our Programme for Government commitment to publish a strategy for seafood in 2022 and the document will be available to view on the Scottish Government website from today.

The Scottish Government welcomes continued engagement with health service unions in developing appropriate proposals on pension issues. We are currently modelling member contribution rate structures for the NHS Pension Scheme (Scotland) and will shortly be consulting with the NHS Pension Scheme Advisory Board before holding a public consultation on proposals towards the end of this year.