Chamber and committees

The suite of final reports presenting the recommendations of the Second Strategic Transport Projects Review (STPR2) will be published on the Transport Scotland website on Thursday 8 December 2022. This represents a key milestone for strategic transport planning in Scotland. Setting out a 20 year framework for capital investment to drive the change we need to achieve the Scottish Government’s strategic vision and move towards Net Zero – the majority of the 45 recommendations contribute directly towards achieving emissions reduction.

This marks the culmination of over three years’ intensive work.

The evidence gathering and robust objective-led appraisal work feeding in to this review has been informed by stakeholder engagement from the very outset. The public have been provided with several opportunities for involvement, not least the three month statutory consultation on draft versions of the reports during January to April 2022. All responses to this have been carefully considered and used to inform refinement of the final recommendations.

The intention was to publish a Delivery Plan for these recommendations, alongside the final report. However, due to the current huge lack of certainty around available capital budget and fiscal policy over recent months, this has not been possible as yet. As such the Delivery Plan will follow in 2023, which will include more detail on prioritisation and delivery timescales, however, I am pleased to note that work is already underway on 38 of the 45 recommendations.

We recognise the importance of strong port infrastructure to support our offshore renewable ambitions. One of the primary recommendations of the Scottish Offshore Wind Energy Council’s (SOWEC) Strategic Infrastructure Assessment (SIA) for Offshore Wind was the creation of a Scottish Floating Offshore Wind Port Cluster. The SIA made clear that the sector must work collaboratively to help focus activity and investment in Scottish ports.

New ScotWind leaseholders have joined existing Scottish offshore wind developers in signing up to a Collaborative Framework Charter, agreeing to work jointly together to build a pipeline of supply chain work. 24 developers have agreed to work together in the development and delivery of this Collaborative Framework. Through this grouping, i ndustry, enterprise agencies, and Scottish Government are working together to develop a Strategic Investment Model (SIM) which will support the recommendations of the SIA.

The information requested is not held centrally.

The information requested is available as a snapshot at September each year as detailed in the following table.

Since short-term lets as a category have not previously been subject to regulation, there are no official statistics on the size of the sector. However, there are a variety of data sources which can provide indirect evidence of how the sector has evolved in recent years, particularly with the growing prevalence of on-line platforms. This is discussed in Section B of our Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment: Short-term lets: business and regulatory impact assessment - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Our licensing scheme will provide data on the number, type and location of short-term lets in Scotland. Licensing authorities must maintain a public register of applications for short-term lets licences which they are required to share with the Scottish Government on a quarterly basis. The Scottish Government will amalgamate licensing authority data to produce a national report. This national report on short-term let activity in Scotland will close a significant gap in knowledge that currently exists.

I refer the member to S6W-12515 on 8 December 2022 which outlines the national steps taken by the MSN to ensure there is sufficient psychological support for children and young people with cancer. 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

The evaluation of the Scottish Targeted Enhanced Recruitment Scheme for GPs or GP Speciality Training bursary (GPST bursary) was led by Scottish Government Scottish Clinical Leadership Fellows in collaboration with NHS Education for Scotland (NES). The evaluation is expected to be completed by Spring 2023. The evaluation was instructed to inform policy consideration and was not conducted on the basis that it would in future become a publication. Nevertheless, once the evaluation is completed, consideration will be given to the publication of the final evaluation report.

Licensing fees must not be set at a level greater than the amount necessary to recover establishment and running costs. Guidance to licensing authorities on setting licence fees is contained within Chapter 3 of our short-term lets licensing guidance part 2: Supporting documents - Short term lets - licensing scheme part 2: supplementary guidance for licensing authorities, letting agencies and platforms - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Guidance sets out that licensing authorities are expected to have regard to minimising licence fee costs. It also encourages licensing authorities to offer lower fees for home sharing and home letting licences than for secondary letting. However, the exact fee levels are a matter for licensing authorities, and will likely depend on a number of factors such as volume of short-term let activity in their area, approach to physical property inspections and geography.

Licensing authorities must review their fees from time to time to ensure that revenue from fees remains in line with the running costs of the licensing scheme, as required by Paragraph 15(2)(a) of schedule 1 to the 1982 Act, as inserted by the Licensing Order.

The breakdown of the information requested is not held centrally the collation of this information would incur disproportionate costs.

The Scottish Government does not hold data broken down by Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, however, the data is set out below highlighting what percentage of primary schools are signed up to the Daily Mile initiative.