Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government welcomes the advisory opinion and the clarity that it provides on the specific obligations of State Parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in relation to climate change and ocean acidification.

The relationship between climate change and ocean health is long-established in Scottish legislation and action to tackle the impacts of climate change is at the heart of decision making for the marine environment. Under the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010 Scottish Ministers and public authorities must act in the way best calculated to mitigate, and adapt to, climate change in exercising any function that affects the Scottish marine area. Further, the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 requires that the climate change plan must set out the Scottish Ministers' proposals and policies regarding the consideration of the potential for the capture and long-term storage of carbon, known as blue carbon, when designating marine protected areas.

The Scottish Government’s commitment to ending Scotland’s contribution to global emissions by 2045 at the latest is unwavering. We are already around half-way there and continue to decarbonise faster than the UK average.

In 2024-2025 we are making available £12.113 million for the provision of more social and affordable homes in the Scottish Borders Council area. We will invest almost £600 million in affordable homes across Scotland in 2024-2025 and will continue to work with partners – including in the Scottish Borders – to increase the delivery of more affordable homes, the majority of which will be for social rent, including supporting acquisitions of existing properties.

The Scottish Government continues to provide £16 million per year to ensure that all secondary schools have access to school counselling services.

Local authorities have confirmed that all secondary schools in Scotland have access to counselling services. All school pupils aged 10 and above have access to the service.

It is up to local authorities to decide how to deliver the service in their area to best suit the needs of their children and young people.

School counselling is just one of a range of services that schools and authorities have in place to support the mental health of children and young people.

We recognise the pioneering research and private investment in Web 3.0 technologies across Scotland. Nevertheless, our focus in applying digital technologies for Public Service Reform is based on an understanding of end-to-end services and user needs, rather than committing to use particular technologies.

We invest expert staff time in continuing to advise and support Scottish Enterprise’s work coordinating private sector activity on Web 3.0 technologies, through its Digital Trust Scotland - Blockchain Taskforce. The work of Scottish Enterprise produced a report in May 2023, Blockchain In Scotland Landscape Overview , which demonstrates the comprehensive engagement we have through this Taskforce. Hence, through involvement in the Taskforce, we would expect to have opportunity to provide more support where there are gaps identified that clearly lead to economic impacts.

The Scottish Government’s CivTech Programme enables research, development and commercialisation between the public sector, industry, regulators and academia across a broad range of technologies, including Web 3.0 approaches where they are relevant.

Through open innovation challenges delivered by the CivTech programme a range of innovative start ups and SMEs have worked with Public Sector bodies including Scottish Government Departments, Local Authorities and Non Departmental Public Bodies to develop experimental technologies which use Web 3.0 approaches on a range of issues including,

• tracking of Scope 3 Carbon Emissions,

• Building Standards certification processes,

• helping people access support they are entitled to and

• high integrity approaches to Nature Finance.

The CivTech programme has a strong track record in developing innovative technologies to solving challenges faced by the public sector while creating jobs and opportunities for new innovative businesses.

The Scottish Government has also provided funding support to the Scottish GovTech Cluster, which aims to support collaboration within the technology sector focused on connecting government agencies, businesses, researchers, academia and all other groups and individuals wishing to use technology (including Web 3.0) to improve and transform public services. The Scottish GovTech Cluster are working to attract investment both from within Scotland and from outside the country matching businesses and researchers with funding opportunities and provide support to help them secure investment.

We recognise that one potential private investment channel available for Web 3.0 companies is digital assets - for example cryptographic utility tokens. Our Financial Services/FinTech team are currently addressing related policy questions around Digital Assets in Scots Private Law. We would expect this work give Web 3.0 businesses in Scotland more legal clarity about such funding mechanisms.

The implementation update will be published later in July instead of June. I also refer the member to the answer to question S6W-27717 on 4 June 2024 in relation to the monitoring work. 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 impact assessments for the Housing (Scotland) Bill will be published in tranches. The first of these to be published was the Equality Impact Assessment, published on 21 June 2024 on the Scottish Government website, and the remaining impact assessments including the Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment will be published in the coming weeks.

The development work delivered at Anniesland Station is led by Network Rail. Network Rail advises that painting of the adjacent bridge is not included in the scope for the current station accessibility improvements. Accessibility is a matter reserved to the UK Government.

Scottish Government's CivTech Programme, has invested in diverse technologies that include Web 3.0, and has attracted over 90% of its participants from innovative start ups and SMEs, including participants from the USA, India, Finland, Greece, Italy and Spain, many of whom have gone on to set up Scottish bases. The Scottish Government has also provided funding support to the Scottish GovTech Cluster, which aims to support collaboration within the technology sector focused on connecting government agencies, businesses, researchers, academia and all other groups and individuals wishing to use technology (including Web 3.0) to improve and transform public services. The Scottish GovTech Cluster are working to attract investment both from within Scotland and from outside the country matching businesses and researchers with funding opportunities and provide support to help them secure investment.

We invest expert staff time in continuing to advise and support Scottish Enterprise’s work coordinating private sector activity on Web 3.0 technologies, through its Digital Trust Scotland - Blockchain Taskforce. The work of Scottish Enterprise produced a report in May 2023, Blockchain In Scotland Landscape Overview , which demonstrates the comprehensive engagement we have through this Taskforce. Hence, through involvement in the Taskforce, we would expect to have opportunity to provide more support where there are gaps identified that clearly lead to economic impacts.

We recognise that one potential private investment channel available for Web 3.0 companies is digital assets - for example cryptographic utility tokens. Our Financial Services/FinTech team are currently addressing related policy questions around Digital Assets in Scots Private Law. We would expect this work give Web 3.0 businesses in Scotland more legal clarity about such funding mechanisms.

The Scottish Government engages regularly through the Teacher Workforce Planning process, and recently discussed this with the Scottish Council of Deans of Education. Previously, this has led to the Scottish Government supporting a number of Initial Teacher Education universities to deliver a range of alternative routes into teaching. These included distance learning programmes, programmes aimed at training existing local authority employees to become teachers and a pathway to becoming a STEM teacher in rural areas. These programmes were summarised for the Strategic Board for Teacher Education (SBTE) in 2020 - Alternative%2Broutes%2Binto%2Bteaching%2B-%2BFebruary%2B2020v3.pdf (www.gov.scot) .

We are currently working with SBTE to consider issues around the recruitment and retention of teachers in Scotland in detail. The intention is that this will include consideration of potential alternative routes into teaching.

The Scottish Funding Council published its University Intake Targets for Initial Teacher Education AY 2024-25 (sfc.ac.uk) in April 2024. This contains a clear commitment to work with universities to develop alternative routes into subjects which have traditionally been difficult to recruit to, in response to the changing patterns of student demand for flexible learning routes.

The Scottish School of Primary Care will be evaluating the role the Golden Hello scheme plays in supporting GP retention.