Chamber and committees

In the December 2020 update to Climate Change Plan we committed to publishing a route map by the end of 2021 to outline how we will meet the 20% reduction by 2030, assuming the Covid-19 pandemic moves to a phase to allow this. The pandemic is still creating significant uncertainty for transport, with future trends and people’s work and lifestyle choices difficult to forecast at this point in time. Subject to this uncertainty, we will publish the route map by the end of this year.

Transport demand derives from other factors – where people live work, learn and access goods and services are all key to their need to travel. Meeting the commitment will involve reducing people’s need to travel with more local access to goods and services, digital connectivity and flexible and remote working approaches. The measures that are therefore required are across sectors – not all the policy levers and answers rest in transport. For example, the commitment is supported by our commitments on 20 minute neighbourhoods – where people can meet their needs within a 20 minute walk, and work and learn in communities close to home (further detail on which will be included in the NPF4 this autumn) – and the Work Local Challenge Programme to support flexible, remote and local working choices. We also recognise the vital role that digital connectivity will play in meeting Scotland’s world-leading climate change ambitions. This is why we made our commitment to extend superfast broadband access to 100% of premises in Scotland, regardless of location.

The Climate Change Plan update covers a range of measures across transport modes which will contribute to the reduction, and we have built upon these in the 2021-22 PfG. It should be remembered, however, that the most direct levers on the attractiveness of buying or running a petrol or diesel car – fuel duty and vehicle excise duty – are reserved to the UK Government.

We recognise the challenges associated with rural and remote communities or areas where there is not an alternative to cars. This will require local and regional solutions as well as national ones and we will continue to work with partners both nationally and locally to identify what works best.

On achievability, the 20% commitment comes within a range of car use reduction scenarios proposed by leading researchers. The recent government-commissioned ‘Decarbonising the Scottish Transport Sector’ report from Element Energy also evidences how the 20% reduction can be encompassed in transport’s contribution to our net-zero pathway. Progress will be tracked by the Climate Change Plan monitoring and evaluation framework, published annually.

Negotiations are a matter for ScotRail and staff representatives through established collective bargaining arrangements. That being said, I have had discussions with Abellio ScotRail and the trade unions, and have encouraged every constructive effort to resolve the situation.

Through the pandemic we have supported rail operators, including ScotRail, with funding of around £1bn, of which over £450m is additional funding, to maintain services and full employment and salaries for rail staff. Any pay rise, including payments for rest day working, would need to be funded by efficiencies agreed by both sides.

The commitment to investing at least £500m over the life of this Parliament to create a Whole Family Wellbeing Fund is significant. This will enable transformational change through the building of universal, holistic support services available in communities across Scotland giving families access to help when and where they need it, and help Scotland keep the Promise.

We will work closely with The Promise Scotland and partners across local government, social justice, health, the third sector, and with children and families to design and deliver the Fund. Further details will be provided in due course.

The amount spent on the Edinburgh Tram Inquiry to date is just over £12 million.

Although not responsible for the site, the Scottish Government has agreed to fund the first phase of work at the Tarbolton landfill site, which will begin to reduce the environmental and amenity impact of the site. As part of this first phase, work to remove giant hogweed from the site was successfully completed in July.

SEPA is currently procuring the bulk of the first phase of work and I am grateful to SEPA for offering to undertake this procurement.

While the Scottish Government is not responsible for the site, we continue to work with our public partners to consider further actions for its longer-term restoration.

The Scottish Government recognises that children whose behaviour has caused harm will also often be the victims of abuse or neglect. The Bairns’ Hoose will be an environment in which this context can be understood and positive interventions can be made to prevent further harmful behaviour.

A key consideration in the development of Bairns’ Hooses which will be taken into account in the development of the policy will be balancing the rights of victims and those of children whose behaviour has caused harm. We recognise the potential tension between the rights of victims and those of children whose behaviour has caused harm and, as such, addressing issues that may arise due to competing interests will be a fundamental consideration as we develop our plans for a national Bairns’ Hoose model.

Our approach is rights-based in line with the United Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), The Promise and Getting it Right for Every Child (GIRFEC) in recognising that all children must receive the right help at the right time.

The Biodiversity Intactness Index is one of several indices devised to assess the current state of nature, with attribution to a range of drivers. The Biodiversity Intactness Index focuses on nature in the past, and the many pressures in the past over which we now have no control. The index is predicated on the history of land use in each country, with the UK having a long history of deforestation and agricultural intensification which resulted in a lower score relative to other countries.

We have committed to introduce a new Environment Bill which will include targets for nature restoration that cover land and sea based on an overarching goal of preventing any further extinctions of wildlife and halting declines by 2030, and making significant progress in restoring Scotland’s natural environment by 2045.

In December 2020, we published our Statement of Intent on biodiversity, which sets out our ambitions for biodiversity and announces our new biodiversity strategy, which will be published in autumn 2022. We will continue to consider the best mix of targets and indicators to measure success as we develop our strategy and response to the global post-2020 biodiversity framework.

Please refer to S6W-00255, answered on 23 August 2021 which provides information on the area of responsibility of the Special Advisers and pay scales.

Special Advisors are contracted to work a minimum of 37 hours per week. For the period 7 May 2021 to 16 September 2021 an average of £13.20 per week was claimed on expenses in total by Special Advisers.

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 Scottish Government works closely with CyberScotland Partners including Police Scotland and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) to help protect the public from cyber threats and supports the publishing of a regular CyberScotland Bulletin which references content from Police Scotland, NCSC, SCVO, Scottish Business Resilience Centre, GetSafeOnline, Take5, Trading Standards Scam Share and Neighbourhood Watch Scotland.

On 19 March 2021, we published Scotland’s Scams Prevention, Awareness & Enforcement Strategy, which will facilitate a more coordinated approach to tackling scams in Scotland. The strategy introduces a new framework for tackling scams, with an emphasis on: disrupting scams at source; building capacity, skills and resilience amongst individuals to avoid the risk that scams pose; streamlining the reporting and advice landscape so that people can access the right support at the right time to meet their needs; and improving coordination and intelligence sharing between frontline advice providers, enforcement bodies and wider advocacy organisations.

We encourage anyone who identifies a suspicious email to forward it to [email protected] and to report any suspicious scam websites using the NCSC Scam Website Reporting Service ( https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/section/about-this-website/report-scam-website ). Any victims of online scams or fraud should report to Police Scotland by calling 101

We recognise the massive role that SMEs and micro businesses play across public procurement in Scotland and regard their success as key to unlocking opportunities for all, through fostering apprenticeships, jobs and economic growth.

£13.3 billion worth of public procurement spend in 2019-20 has been analysed. We know the size of the supplier for £11.7 billion of spend and £5.4 billion (46.2%) of this went to SMEs.

The Small Business Survey Scotland 2019 Small Business Survey Scotland 2019 found that 24 per cent of SME employers in Scotland had actually done business for the public sector in the past 12 months compared to 22 per cent for the UK as a whole Small Business Survey UK 2019 . This survey found that, of those SME employers in Scotland that have worked for the public sector in the past 12 months, the greatest share (55 per cent) reported that local authorities were their main customer. This is higher than the UK as a whole at 44 per cent.

A copy of the table detailing the value of core Scottish Government procurement spend with small to medium sized enterprises for the period 2007-2008 to 2020-2021 within UK local authority areas, based on data contained in the Scottish Procurement Information Hub, has been placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 62701).