Chamber and committees

The crew of the MS Ambition and MS Victoria are paid by the charter company that CTM chartered on the Scottish Government’s behalf. CTM have confirmed that all crew operating on both vessels are at a minimum being paid in line with the National Minimum Wage and are fully compliant with Maritime Labour Convention requirements for seafarer contracts of employment. In addition to wages, as part of the seafarers contract of employment the crew receive accommodation, food and beverage at no charge, flights and other travel related costs to both join and leave the vessel (at end of contract), uniform and medical expenses during service onboard.

Following consultation, the Scottish Government is amending economic link provisions to deliver greater socio-economic benefit to our coastal communities.

Scotland’s fishing quotas are a national asset and deliver sustainable economic benefit beyond those at sea involved in catching.

Each year around £100 million of fish is landed outside Scotland by our fishing vessels. Often for species for which we have ready domestic processing capacity.

We want to ensure that those fortunate enough to be allocated fishing opportunities for Scotland’s key species provide a significant economic return to our nation.

That is why from 1 January 2023, vessels fishing for key Scottish species will have two options for satisfying economic link licence obligations.

1 - land a minimum set percentage into Scotland

or

2 - give back fishing opportunities for us to allocated to others in the Scottish fleet

These proportionate amendments will help ensure that there is a significant socio-economic benefit from Scotland’s fishing opportunities - Including to Scotland’s processing sector and supports industry aspirations voiced by the Scottish Pelagic Processors Association.

For more information please see: Consultation on a proposal to amend the economic link licence condition - Scottish Government - Citizen Space

The National Collections are an important part of Scotland’s culture. As part of setting and reviewing annual budgets for grant in aid, the Scottish Government maintains close contact with National Museums Scotland and the National Galleries of Scotland about their cost and revenue, in order to continue to ensure that their permanent collections remain open to the public free of charge.

A wide range of Scottish Government support is available to Scottish wool producers and manufacturers through the Find Business Support webpage ( https://findbusinesssupport.gov.scot/ ) and our enterprise agencies who work with companies to discuss their specific needs. This includes grants (e.g. Business Innovation and Growth Grants), other funding, advice, help and events.

The £2m Circular Textiles Fund (CTF), administered by Zero Waste Scotland and backed by the Scottish Government assesses projects on the basis of how effectively they will accelerate a circular transition in Scotland. Information on eligibility criteria for applicants to the Circular Textiles Fund is available at: https://www.zerowastescotland.org.uk/content/faqs-circular-textiles-fund .

More broadly, the Scottish Government will consider the quality of land available for grazing when directing support payments to sheep farms.

For example, the Less Favoured Area Support Scheme (LFASS) and the 2022 Scottish Upland Sheep Support Scheme (SUSSS) provides additional support to maintain sheep flocks in farms 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.

As part of our management of funding for bus services, the Scottish Government continually monitors forecasted spend against budget. As a result of the demand led nature of the concessionary travel schemes, we have reduced our forecast for remainder of this financial year due to lower than expected patronage. However, if patronage were now to rise above the forecasted levels, so would our expenditure on the schemes.

The Under 26 Concessionary Fares Review is a separate matter. Scottish Government has carried out analysis on a range of options including the cost of extending free bus travel and on concessionary travel across all modes of public transport to those under the age of 26. This included cost and benefit analysis. The review has concluded and is published on the Transport Scotland website at Under 26 Concessionary Fares Review | Transport Scotland

While recruitment is rightly an operational matter for ScotRail to manage, the Scottish Government is supportive of the ambitious target to increase apprenticeships.

ScotRail Trains Ltd. has confirmed that it is still aiming to have recruited 220 apprentices by 2025.

To help achieve this target, ScotRail is working to embed an ‘apprenticeship first’ approach to recruiting for a number of roles in its organisation, and is undertaking productive discussions with the rail trades unions on this.

As part of the Capital Spending Review, which was published on 31 May 2022, the Scottish Government has allocated Future Transport Fund the following amounts in each year up to 2025-26;

Building upon the good work already undertaken, Atkins WSP Joint Venture will take forward the engineering and environmental assessments to determine the preferred options for the medium and long term solutions, developing the subsequent detailed designs in consultation with stakeholders. They will also assist in completion of the statutory processes including acquisition of land, and in the procurement and construction supervision activities. Given the number of potential solutions and variability of scope and length of each project stage, it is not possible to provide a meaningful breakdown of estimated costs at this stage in the process.

The £25m of Scottish Government investment represents an estimate of the contract value to Atkins WSP Joint Venture to undertake the design, promotion, procurement and construction supervision of both the medium and long-term solutions. Whilst there is no allocation of spend of this estimate to either the medium term or long term solutions, it is anticipated that the vast majority of spend will be on the long-term solution as all of the options require complex civil engineering.

This independent Review was tasked with reviewing our mental health and incapacity legislation in light of developments in international human rights, including the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and to consider where improvements could be made.

The final report will be published on the Review’s website on 30 September; https://mentalhealthlawreview.scot/

The Scottish Government will then carefully consider the recommendations within the report to ascertain how to better fulfil our obligation to promote and protect human rights within mental health settings and to ensure that rights and protections for those that need it most are upheld.