Chamber and committees

Of the 44 public inquiries into renewable energy applications held since January 2020, 4 related to developments located within the Scottish Borders local authority area. Case references WIN-140-5; WIN-140-6; WIN-140-8 and WIN-170-2007 refer and can be viewed here: Scottish Government - Planning and Environmental Appeals Division (DPEA).

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-38137 on 10 June 2025. 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.

Our Income Tax policy supports our progressive approach to tax, which balances the need of supporting households through a challenging economic period, while raising revenue to sustain our investment in public services.

We continue to deliver on our commitment to protect lower income households, ensuring more than half of taxpayers pay less than they would elsewhere in the UK for the remainder of this Parliament.

As part of the Tax Strategy published alongside the Budget, we are providing a period of stability for Income Tax for the lifetime of this Parliament which includes committing to uprating the Starter and Basic rate bands by at least inflation.

Whilst Employment Legislation is reserved, the Scottish Government has continued to use the levers at our disposal to encourage employers to adopt Fair Work practices for all workers including flexible and inclusive and family friendly workplace practices that can help reduce barriers faced by women in the labour market. Scotland has a lower gender pay gap across full and part-time earners compared to the UK and has been so since 2003.

We continue to closely monitor the impacts of our tax policy decisions on taxpayers, businesses, and the economy using a range of evidence such as real time economic data, formal evaluations and engagement with stakeholders, including the business community.

For the majority of current or concluded Scottish Public Inquiries none have overrun their original timeframe since the Inquiries (Scotland) Rules 2007 came into effect. This is because Ministers have not sought to specify in the Terms of Reference a fixed date by which the inquiry must conclude, to ensure that there is no impediment to the ability of the Chair to follow evidence wherever it may lead, and that their independence from government is manifest to all those with an interest in the inquiry.

However, the exception to this would be the concluded Vale of Leven Inquiry. The Terms of Reference included a provision “to report by 30 September 2010 unless otherwise provided by the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing”. The Chair of the Inquiry made an application to the Cabinet Secretary for the deadline for the report to be extended, with the final phase of oral hearing not being completed until June 2012. The Chair confirmed in the inquiry’s report that they “did not consider it possible to report by a specified date” explaining that “until the work of an inquiry is well underway any prediction about a time limit cannot be accurate and may be totally unrealistic”.

The current Scottish COVID-19 Inquiry Terms of Reference provide an example of how an overall expectation in relation to reporting timeframes can be set, whereby they include an expectation of the inquiry “To provide reports to the Scottish Ministers as soon as practicable”. How the Scottish COVID-19 Inquiry fulfils that expectation in practice is, under the legislation, a matter for its independent Chair.

In relation to costs, there is no single record maintained by Scottish Government of cost information relating to current and former inquiries. Costs are determined to a large extent by how each inquiry is run by its independent Chair and, for this reason, the Scottish Government does not set a fixed budget or cost limit for an inquiry. Under section 17 of the Inquiries Act 2005, the Chair is responsible for the procedure and conduct of an inquiry, and has a duty to avoid any unnecessary cost. Publication of information in relation to costs is undertaken independently by inquiries themselves.

The CCC suggests that there will be benefits, and that in aggregate the benefits will outweigh the costs.

We are grateful to the CCC for estimating the capital investment and operational savings of net zero. Their Balanced Pathway requires upfront investment which will generate operating cost savings. The Pathway is expected to generate an average net cost to the Scottish economy of around £750 million per year between 2025 and 2050.

CCC estimates represent costs and savings for the whole economy. We are currently working to further understand where these costs and benefits might fall between different actors within the economy, including households.

We have committed to, in legislation, setting out an estimate of the costs and benefits associated with the policies set out in the upcoming Climate Change Plan.

Funding for the Deal is awarded by both Governments to the Stirling and Clackmannanshire region rather than individual Local Authority areas with investment decisions ultimately made by regional partners. This includes joint projects between the three main Deal partners, Stirling Council, Clackmannanshire Council and University of Stirling.

Neither the initial capital investment location nor the lead delivery partner for a specific Deal project conveys where the economic impact of Government investment is realised at Local Authority level. An indicative investment breakdown based on project location includes:

• £21.55 million within Clackmannanshire;
• £62.08 million within Stirling; and
• £6.56 million pan Stirling and Clackmannanshire.

Creative Scotland publishes information on all successful applications made to its funding programmes on its website. The assessment criteria for all funds are also published and are accessible to applicants and indeed any member of the public. It would not be appropriate for Creative Scotland to publish information on unsuccessful applications due to sensitivities around, for example, an applicant's commercial interests. It is the decision of each individual unsuccessful applicant whether they make the outcome of their application publicly known.

The power to undertake reforms to the wholesale market is reserved to the UK Government.

The Scottish Government has been consistently been clear with successive UK Governments, NESO, Ofgem and industry that reforms must reduce costs for Scottish consumers, ensure our communities feel the benefit of the energy transition, protect investment in our renewables industry and support decarbonisation.

The Scottish Government is clear that the current wholesale electricity market is not fit for the delivery of our net zero ambitions, nor our aims to tackle fuel poverty.

To the extent such systems are addressed under Scottish Building regulations, such provisions were updated as part of the February 2023 publication of Scottish Building Standards Technical Handbooks and supporting documents.

Provisions relating to the control of fixed building services are set out in the 2023 Domestic and Non-domestic Building Services Compliance Guides.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of skills provision to realising the potential of Project Willow, and to securing an industrial future for Grangemouth more widely. We are prioritising skills development through the Grangemouth Just Transition Plan which will be published shortly.

This complements the support the Scottish Government is providing to Grangemouth refinery workers to retrain into in-demand industries, including those associated with Project Willow.