Chamber and committees

The 20% Reduction in Car Km Route Map published on 13 January 2022 for consultation, outlines the approach to meeting this commitment.

The route map lists over 30 interventions we are taking forward across all parts of government to support the reduction in car use.

The Scottish Government has invested over £50m in the ChargePlace Scotland Network that now has over 2,300 publicly available electric vehicle chargepoints, alongside supporting homes and businesses to install almost 20,000 chargepoints. A range of factors will influence chargepoint numbers for the years in question – and this will be determined by both public and private investment.

Our focus is on making sure that the public charging network builds on the benefits of ChargePlace Scotland, which includes maintaining comprehensive coverage across all parts of Scotland. To that end, our recently announced £60m EV Infrastructure Fund will at least double the size of the public charging network over the next four years. This is over and above the commercial investment in chargepoints now taking place across Scotland.

As of 30th June 2022, the number of completed thrombectomies across the three centres are:

West of Scotland: 22

North of Scotland: 41

East of Scotland: 36

The majority of synthetic grass is a mix of polymers that can be recycled but are difficult to separate, which makes them difficult to recycle.

While there are some options for recycling synthetic grass in Scotland, the Scottish Government is not currently involved with projects to recycle plastic grass directly. However, through our Route Map we set out to significantly increase reuse and recycling rates and modernise and improve recycling services.

The Scottish Government has no current plans to ban plastic use in textiles. Microfibre shedding from textiles containing plastic is a complex problem which adds to microplastic pollution in our environment. Fibres are shed at every stage of the product’s lifespan, from manufacture, through use, laundering and end of life.

Considerable research is being undertaken by industry to better understand this problem. We are working with the academic community and others to better understand the effect of these fibres on the environment and consider feasible solutions for reducing their loss during the product’s lifespan.

We take an evidence-based approach on all forms of microplastic pollution, with a ban on microbeads in rinse-off personal care products already in place, and significant ongoing work with the plastics industry to reduce plastic pellet (nurdle) pollution, the second biggest contributor to global microplastic pollution.

We are aware that the wool prices have been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, with limited sheep farmers now reliant on their wool cheque.

We have committed to support active farming and food production with direct payments - which provides certainty to the industry - and we delivered 2021 Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) payments to schedule with over £564 million issued to date. In addition, this year, to support crofters and farmers with the cost of living, the Scottish Government has brought forward the advance payment start date to as early in the year as is practicably possible. The intention is to support businesses, as far as possible, with immediate cash flow challenges.

In addition the 2022 Scottish Upland Sheep Support Scheme (SUSSS) opened for applications on 1 September. The scheme provides additional support to help maintain sheep flocks in farm businesses reliant on poorer quality rough grazing found in Scotland’s Basic Payment Region three. These payments help farmers and crofters maintain the social and environmental benefits that sheep flocks bring to these areas.

In December 2020 the Scottish Government and Skills Development Scotland published the Climate Emergency Skills Action Plan (CESAP) setting out the actions required to ensure Scotland’s workforce are equipped with the skills to support the transition to net zero.

The Scottish Government and its skills agencies will continue to work with the manufacturing sector, including traditional textile manufacturing, to ensure that employers and workers have the skills needed to address the challenges and benefit from the opportunities of a low carbon and circular economy.

In June 2022 we launched our £2m Circular Textiles Fund to improve the circularity of textiles in Scotland through innovation, and implementation, to help tackle the environmental impacts that textiles have.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-10341 on 20 September 2022. 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

Scotland’s wool industry is covered by the British Wool Board which is a Public Non-Financial Corporation who have regional offices in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, it is a cross-border public authority with ministers in all 4 administrations having limited sponsorship functions. British Wool is a farmers’ co-operative who presently represent the interests of around 40,000 producer members, they collect, grade and sell wool on behalf of registered producers aiming to maximise income for producers from the sale of wool.

In addition its established shearers training programme is successfully tackling skills shortages in the UK and reducing reliance on shearers from abroad.

A review of the British Wool Board is presently being undertaken.

The recent Waste Route Map consultation sets out tangible actions the Scottish Government and others must take to accelerate progress on recycling, and the tools we will put in place to enable everyone to play their part.

Additionally we are reviewing the Household Recycling Charter’s Code of Practice. The review will ensure that the Charter and Code of Practice aligns with Scotland’s new deposit return scheme and continue to drive further consistency across Scotland’s recycling services. The Recycling Improvement Fund is also leading to improvements in recycling collection infrastructure. For example, it has enabled Fife Council to become the first local authority in Scotland to sort and separate locally the plastic films it collects for recycling

Through the Recycling Improvement Fund, over £23m has been awarded to 15 local authorities to increase the quantity and quality of recycling, marking the beginning of one of the biggest investments in recycling in Scotland in a generation.