Chamber and committees

The crew of the MV Arrow, whilst on a time charter with CalMac Ferries Ltd, will be employed by the vessel owner Seatruck Ferries Ltd.

The Scottish Government is committed to a Scottish public inquiry, and will begin to take the necessary steps during our first 100 Days in office to establish such an inquiry. Since the UK inquiry was announced we have been considering how the Scottish inquiry would interact with that. Detailed work will be done on the terms of reference and the timescale, and we are clear that we expect the inquiry to begin its work by the end of this year.

Arran ferry services were not impacted by the fire at Troon rail station. Rail connections between Glasgow and Ardrossan were maintained throughout the period of closure at Troon and temporary bus replacement links were put in place for passengers making journeys to and from the south.

Following repairs undertaken by Network Rail, the Glasgow Central to Ayr services were re-instated on Monday 26th July from platform two, with Northbound services to Glasgow set to call at the station from Friday 30 July when platform one reopens.

In preparation for the temporary move of the Ardrossan-Brodick/Campbeltown ferry services to Troon for a period of up to 21 months; CalMac Ferries Ltd (CFL) will as part of service continuity planning engage with Transport Scotland and ScotRail to take cognisance of integrated travel with other modes for onward travel connections.

Ferrymuir Gait is a ‘private’ road, as defined by the Roads (Scotland ) Act 1984 and serves land owned by Scottish Ministers and infrastructure required for the safe operation and maintenance of the Forth Bridges. Ferrymuir Gait housing development shall not be accessed from this road and shall instead takes access from the local road network, which is the responsibility of the City of Edinburgh Council.

Consequently, and as this is a planning issue, it would be for the City of Edinburgh Council as local Planning authority to consider the access arrangements to the Ferrymuir Gait housing development and resultant impact of road traffic on the environment and the health / quality of life of residents.

The Scottish Government works with the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), NatureScot, fisheries boards and trusts, and other stakeholders to protect the natural environment and wildlife from water shortages.

Our River Basin Management Plans identify areas in Scotland already impacted by abstractions and set out objectives to improve those watercourses. SEPA licences and regulates abstractions to ensure that water use does not exceed the available capacity. At times of water scarcity, SEPA has the powers to temporarily stop abstraction, to protect the environment.

The National Water Scarcity Plan sets out how SEPA and other key stakeholders will prepare and respond to water shortages. SEPA works closely with NatureScot and other environmental organisations to provide advice and information on water scarcity so they can act to protect wildlife.

The Homelessness Statistics team are in the process of collecting, processing and quality assuring data returns from local authorities for the Housing Options (PREVENT1) Statistics in Scotland: 2020-21 publication. As such, we are not yet in a position to confirm a publication date. The statistics will be released as soon as they are considered ready, under the guidance of the Chief Statistician. At this stage we anticipate this will be between October and November.

Once there is more certainty around a publication date this will be pre-announced no later than 4 weeks in advance, in line with the Statistics Code of Practice, on the Scottish Government website: Official statistics: forthcoming publications - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

We have confirmed with Public Health Scotland (PHS) that there is a sentinel surveillance scheme. The symptomatic dataset is a very small sample; consequently, any potential analysis would not be robust. However, we are assured that the ZOE app does include Scottish data; moreover, PHS does not believe that there is any reason to assume Scottish only data would be different.

No meetings have taken place with The National and the Sunday National since the beginning of the current parliamentary session.

The following table provides the information held on the number of closures due to roadworks and incidents on the M8 between junctions 13 and 26 between July 2017 and July 2021. We have been advised by our operating Company that figures for 2016/17 are currently unavailable. However, these are being sourced and will be forwarded to you once received.

Government budgets contribute to alleviating the climate emergency through a range of investments, including spend that reduces greenhouse gas emissions towards net zero, spend that delivers emissions reductions through a fair and just transition, and spend focussed on adapting to the effects of climate change.

The 2021-22 Budget increased low carbon capital investment across government to over £1.9 billion, comprising 36% of overall capital spend. This proportion has risen from 29% in 2018-19, when reporting began. In March, following budget negotiations, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance committed to a further £40 million in capital investment for active travel and energy efficiency initiatives that align with our green recovery and net zero ambitions. These figures that we track on low carbon capital investment, as mentioned above, provide only a partial picture of the wide range of investments across all government spend that contributes towards alleviating the climate emergency.

Some of our key commitments on climate change in this budget include increasing our Heat in Buildings investment by £30 million to £213.4 million; increasing forestry investment by £26.9 million to £121.2 million; committing £40 million for our Agricultural Transformation Fund to assist the sector in reducing greenhouse gas emissions; and committing the first £165 million of our £2 billion Low Carbon Fund, including: £14 million for the Green Jobs Fund, £25 million for bus priority infrastructure and £15 million for zero emissions buses.