Chamber and committees

As at 1 July 2022 (latest available data), no entries of reverse vending machines had been made to the Valuation Roll, therefore no relief under the Non-Domestic Rates (Reverse Vending Machine Relief) (Scotland) Regulations 2020 has been awarded.

The Valuation Roll is maintained by the independent Scottish Assessors.

Information on applications for rates relief is not held centrally.

Table 1 shows the estimated net income from the large business supplement in 2019-20. Figures for 2019-20 and earlier are available in the answer to S5W-25592, available at: https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers/question?ref=S5W-25592 . Table 1 updates the previously given figure for 2019-20 with more recent data, which was not available at the time of the original answer.

Table 2 shows the estimated gross and net income from the higher property rate since 2020-21. It is not possible for the Scottish Government to robustly estimate the net income in 2022-23, due to the application of a £27,500 cap per ratepayer on retail, hospitality and leisure relief, therefore only the gross figure is given.

Table 1: Net income from the large business supplement

The administration of the non-domestic rates system, including the award of reliefs, is a matter for local authorities. In the Non-domestic rates income - provisional contributable amount returns, provided by local authorities to the Scottish Government at the start of 2022-23, no local authority indicated that they expect to award rates reliefs under the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 in 2022-23.

Scottish Ministers are still considering how the ScotWind revenues should be invested to maximise the benefits for the people of Scotland. As part of these considerations, Scottish Ministers will continue to evaluate whether these revenues should fall within the scope of the existing 9% agreement with Crown Estate Scotland.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-10619 on‎ 26 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

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-10619 on‎ 26 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

We continue to carefully consider the report and recommendations made by the previous Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee as regards regional marine planning and are working to finalise our formal response, which will be published this Autumn.

Official annual restoration totals are only available from 2012-13 when the Scottish Government began funding Peatland ACTION, the national peatland restoration programme delivered by NatureScot. However, data from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology is available prior to this time and around 60,000 hectares of degraded peatland have been put on the road to recovery since 1990.

We are committed to further increasing the annual area of peatland and have committed £250 million to restoring 250,000 hectares of degraded peatlands by 2030.

Scotland is providing a place of safety to more displaced people per head of population than any other part of the UK. The Scottish Government’s priority is to ensure that displaced people from Ukraine are able to stay in appropriate temporary accommodation and get the right support ahead of moving into safe, sustainable longer-term accommodation. We are working in partnership with local government to identifying suitable long term accommodation and boost supply so we can support people whilst they are in Scotland. As part of this we have established the Ukraine Longer Term Resettlement Fund, backed by up to £50 million of funding for councils and Registered Social Landlords to help bring accommodation into use and boost the housing supply for those fleeing conflict in Ukraine.

On 22 September, the Scottish Government published its first summary of the latest Scotland-level data and information on people displaced by the war in Ukraine coming to Scotland through the Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme visa schemes which provides detail on host numbers: Key points - Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme in Scotland: statistics - gov.scot.

Decisions on non-domestic rates, including the poundage and any reliefs, are generally considered in the context of the Scottish Budget in line with other government priorities.