Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government currently has no plans to build a high temperature incineration plant in Scotland.

This information is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

Scottish Forestry is reviewing its approach to assessing Forestry Grant Scheme applications for grey squirrel control. This has been necessary because the Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrel project is no longer able to provide assistance with the assessment of grant applications. This process will be concluded shortly and we hope to be able to continue the processing of grant applications. An evaluation of the effectiveness of the FGS grey squirrel control grant has been undertaken will be shared as part of an overall FGS evaluation report when finalised.

The review of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 is nearing completion and three Findings Reports will be published in December 2024.

A wider review of the Single Point of Contact programme is being led by Healthcare Improvement Scotland and includes a scalability assessment. This commenced in early 2024 and is expected to complete by Spring 2025.

The scalability assessment and an implementation toolkit will be publicly available upon completion of the assessment to support the ongoing programme of work.

Non-domestic rates are administered by local authorities in accordance with the relevant legislation. Under that statutory framework, the award of discretionary reliefs is a matter for individual local authorities. In line with the recommendation from the independent Barclay Review of Non-Domestic Rates to remind councils of the arrangements for reliefs and to provide better public information on reliefs and the legislative framework, the Scottish Government publishes an annual Local Government Finance Circular providing information for each non-domestic rates relief, including discretionary reliefs like Hardship Relief or the discretionary element of Rural Relief.

Work on the review of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 has not yet concluded but is at a final stage. Three Findings Reports will be published in December 2024 which will include details of engagement.

I refer the member to the NHS Scotland Climate Emergency and Sustainability Strategy 2022-2026 which sets out the Scottish Government’s plans to help reduce carbon emissions from clinical waste in NHS Scotland. This publication is available at: .NHS Scotland climate emergency and sustainability strategy: 2022-2026 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

Specifically, the strategy sets out that each Health Board should set appropriate targets for reducing the volume of clinical waste it produces through measures including; greater use of reusable items, improvements to waste segregation and increased recycling of recyclable materials. The Scottish Government will review the need for a national target for clinical waste reduction.

In addition, the strategy requires that Health Board waste management officers ensure that arrangements are in place for the safe treatment and disposal of all waste streams. It is the responsibility of Health Boards to manage the NHS clinical waste contract while NHS National Services Scotland’s National Procurement and Logistics Service manages the NHS’s relationship with the clinical waste contractor.

The Scottish Government supports Health Boards with their net zero commitments and monitors progress towards these targets. This information is published through the Annual NHS Scotland Climate Emergency and Sustainability Report - Annual NHS Scotland Climate Emergency & Sustainability Report 2024 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

A Discussion Paper on the Infrastructure Levy was published in June and comments were invited until 30 September. We are carefully considering the responses received and will use the feedback to inform how to proceed. An update on next steps will be provided shortly.

Given the extremely challenging financial position all Health capital projects not already in construction are paused.

This pause is subject to a cross-Government review of capital projects. All due consideration will be given to which projects can be included within our revised infrastructure plan to ensure it is affordable and deliverable.