Chamber and committees

The health and wellbeing of MSPs, their staff and SPCB staff is a priority for the SPCB. The SPCB promotes a wide range of health and wellbeing resources on its intranet, including those provided by Spectrum Life, the SPCB’s employee wellbeing partner. These resources include cancer awareness and prevention and cancer survivor podcasts as well as information about World Cancer Day. The SPCB is aware of Fight Bladder Cancer’s awareness raising campaign. The SPCB will consider how it might raise awareness of this disease during bladder cancer awareness month in May.

This is a matter for ScotRail as the employer. The Member may wish to contact ScotRail directly.

ScotRail performance metrics, including cancellations are published on Office for Rail and Road website for the year up to April 2024. The Member may wish to contact ScotRail to secure information regarding its current performance. ScotRail performs well as compared to many GB operators and its average performance is consistently higher than the GB network as a whole.

The Scottish Government requires ScotRail and Network Rail in Scotland to co-operate in the management, monitoring and improvement of Scottish train performance. The Office for Rail and Road publishes performance data for Scotland on its website. Delays and cancellations to Scottish rail services can be caused by problems with infrastructure, rolling stock, availability of staff (including through industrial action) and delays introduced to the Scottish rail network by poor performance of cross-border rail services from England.

a) The exact cost of obtaining the information has not been calculated but it is estimated to exceed the cost limit due to the number of cases and other matters that would require to be considered individually by officials.

b) Link to the published SG accounts on the SG website can be found here to show legal costs across multiple financial years. –

– Financial reports and accounts - Government finance - gov.scot

The information as requested is not available.

In 2024, the Commission introduced a system of investigating crofters who appear to be non-resident and in breach of at least one of their duties. The project had positive results and has been well-received throughout the crofting counties. Allied to this, through Crofting Reform, we will look to strengthen residency and land use, creating a faster and more extensive enforcement process that will result in more active crofts and create opportunities for new entrants.

This Government recognises the importance of crofting to the sustainability of our rural and island communities and is committed to continuing to support crofters to live on and work their land.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-32085 on 19 December 2024. 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.

Project Neptune was commissioned in March 2021, culminating in the publication of its findings on 8 September 2022. This was followed up with community engagement, by Angus Campbell, resulting in the publication of the 'Communities Report on Future Management of Ferries' on 10 July 2023. Almost £244,000 has been spent on Project Neptune, excluding internal Transport Scotland resources.

Since publication of the reports, Scottish Ministers have been consistently clear on the need to improve delivery of the Clyde and Hebrides Ferry Services (CHFS), to ensure the requirements of ferry dependent communities are met. No immediate decisions are being made on the subject of reform of the ferries sector, though nothing is off the table. At present, the focus is on the preparation for bringing the six new major vessels into the CalMac fleet and the considerable work involved in putting arrangements in place for the direct award of the new CHFS contract next year.

There has been no change to the scope of the Aberdeen Central Belt Service Improvements Project.

As regards project timelines, in January 2024, Ms McAllan, then Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Just Transition informed the Net Zero, Energy and Transport committee, that the time over which the commitment to deliver journey time improvements and increase capacity, between Aberdeen and the Central Belt, was under review. This remains the position.

The Force Majeure/Exceptional Circumstance (FM/EC) provision is one that has existed for a number of years and if a business has been unable to comply with the rules of a scheme because of FM/EC, they may retain the right to aid in respect of the claim. To qualify, a business must notify the Scottish Government Rural Payments and Inspections Division (SGRPID) in writing of the FM/EC event along with relevant evidence from the date they are in a position to do so.

The FM/EC provision applies on a case by case basis, and decisions are taken on the basis of relevant evidence provided. The way on which the Scottish Government continue to approach cases relies on the approach set out by legislation.

Examples of force majeure or exceptional circumstances are:

1.the death of the farmer

2.the long-term professional incapacity of the farmer

3.a severe natural disaster gravely affecting the holding's agricultural land

4.the accidental destruction of livestock buildings on the holding

5.an epizootic affecting part of or all of the farmer’s livestock (for example, Foot and Mouth Disease)

This is not an exhaustive list and animal health concerns, weather conditions, bull failure or transport issues may also qualify as FM/EC. These are only examples and they are not, by themselves, sufficient to qualify as FM/EC and the applicant would still need to provide evidence in support of these events that demonstrate that calving performance has been impacted by comparison to previous years.

In August 2024, the Scottish Government posted a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Scottish Suckler Beef Support Scheme (Mainland and Islands) to support the industry with information on the new calving interval condition being introduced to the Scottish Suckler Beef Support Scheme (SSBSS) from 2025. The FAQ includes detail of the FM/EC provision in the context of the SSBSS calving interval condition, including the type of evidence that would be required to support a request for it to be applied.