Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government has announced £65 million of additional funding support for the culture and events sectors that were impacted by the additional Covid-19 restrictions introduced in December 2021. This is in addition to the £175m of emergency funding provided to the culture, heritage and events since the start of the pandemic.

Eligible events which have previously received support through the Event Industry Support Funds or the Pivotal Event Businesses Fund will receive top-up payments from this funding. Payments have begun to be made and EventScotland is seeking to make these as swiftly as possible.

Creative Scotland’s Freelancers Cancellation Fund closed for applications on 24 January, and the Cancellation fund for Cultural Organisations closed on 2 February. Assessments are ongoing and award payments are already being made. We encourage any organisation that applies to the Creative Scotland Cultural Organisations cancellation fund to use any funding they receive to pay all staff that they employ.

Work is continuing at pace to determine the best way of distributing the remaining funding to support to those event and cultural businesses continuing to experience cancellation or postponements in February and March, or who may have previously not had access to COVID-19 funding support.

The Scottish Government published a review into the preparation and response to Storm Arwen on 27 January 2022. We therefore do not consider there to be any need to commission a separate review from the National Centre for Resilience.

The Scottish Government has previously commissioned research which considered the capital and operational costs associated with zero direct emissions heating (ZDEH) technologies within new homes, which encompassed various types of air source heat pumps and direct electric heating. The report, however, did not specifically consider infrared heating panels. A copy of this research is available here: Costs of zero emissions heating in new buildings (climatexchange.org.uk)

As set out in the Scottish Government’s Heat in Buildings Strategy, we are developing regulations to ensure that new homes, applying for a building warrant from 2024, must use ZDEH systems. We consulted on initial proposals for these regulations during 2020-21, and have published an analysis of the consultation responses, which will inform the final design of the regulations. It is our intention for these regulations to be technology-neutral, to ensure developers have flexibility in achieving compliance. At the introduction of these regulations, a full Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA) will be published – which will set out the costs and benefits of the policy options considered. We will also undertake a range of impact assessments, including a BRIA, on our proposals to regulate heating systems in existing homes (including off-gas grid homes) when we separately introduce the necessary legislation to achieve this.

It is not possible to quantify the number and broad spectrum of specialism across the Justice sector in relation to domestic abuse cases. It is a matter for independent justice partners to provide essential training in domestic abuse matters to ensure and support operational requirements.

Home Energy Scotland (HES) deliver the Home Energy Scotland Loan Schemes on behalf of Scottish Government. Home Energy Scotland does not recommend measures to customers, but instead offers funding for measures recommended on an EPC or renewables report.

A number of zero carbon space and water heating technologies are available for funding through Home Energy Scotland:

Water Heating Systems

Heat Pumps (either air source to water, ground source to water, water source to water or hybrid air source to water)

Biomass boilers or stoves (non-automated, non-pellet stoves or room heaters are not eligible)

All the above measures attract cashback under the HES Renewables Loan Scheme.

As part of Scottish Water’s emergency contingency planning, many of its Water Treatment Works already have permanent standby generators in place to ensure supplies can be maintained in the event of loss of power. During these recent storms, those permanent generators protected the water supply for the majority of the 1.5 million customers being supplied in the areas affected by the storm.

In addition to this, Scottish Water holds a stock of emergency response generators that can be deployed when needed for pumping stations, and it has a framework supplier who provides additional hire generators as required. Due to storage in the water network systems, the water supply is not immediately lost in the event of power loss, hence the reason for the different approaches to Scottish Water’s current generator back up strategy between treatment works and pumping stations. This event, which had more widespread and lengthy power outages than Scottish Water has experienced before, challenged its plans for deployment of portable generators to small pumping stations, affecting a small number of customers. During Storm Arwen Scottish Water also deployed tankers to pump water into its networks and also deployed bottled water to assist customers.

In view of the extended power outage experienced by this storm, Scottish Water will review its emergency generator contingency plans, particularly in relation to pumping stations. This work is underway to determine where improvements to the provision of both permanent and emergency generation capability is needed and establish the right level of investment required to protect customers in the future.

As per the Lord Advocate’s Statement to the Scottish Parliament on 22 September 2021, the scope of the recorded police warning scheme has been extended to include possession only offences of Class A drugs. The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of recorded police warnings issued, nor the number of people that have been referred to drug treatment services in these cases. This information is held by Police Scotland.

The Scottish Government has previously commissioned research which considered the capital and operational costs associated with zero direct emissions heating (ZDEH) technologies within new homes, which encompassed various types of air source heat pumps and direct electric heating. The report, however, did not make a distinction between ducted or ductless heat pumps. A copy of this research is available here: Costs of zero emissions heating in new buildings (climatexchange.org.uk)

As set out in the Scottish Government’s Heat in Buildings Strategy, we are developing regulations to ensure that new homes, applying for a building warrant from 2024, must use ZDEH systems. We consulted on initial proposals for these regulations during 2020-21, and have published an analysis of the consultation responses, which will inform the final design of the regulations. It is our intention for these regulations to be technology-neutral, to ensure developers have flexibility in achieving compliance. At the introduction of these regulations, a full Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA) will be published – which will set out the costs and benefits of the policy options considered. We will also undertake a range of impact assessments, including a BRIA, on our proposals to regulate heating systems in existing homes (including off-gas grid homes) when we separately introduce the necessary legislation to achieve this.

The Scottish Government has previously commissioned research which considered the capital and operational costs associated with zero direct emissions heating (ZDEH) technologies within new homes, which encompassed various types of air source heat pumps and direct electric heating. The report, however, did not make a distinction between ducted or ductless heat pumps. A copy of this research is available here: Costs of zero emissions heating in new buildings (climatexchange.org.uk)

As set out in the Scottish Government’s Heat in Buildings Strategy, we are developing regulations to ensure that new homes, applying for a building warrant from 2024, must use ZDEH systems. We consulted on initial proposals for these regulations during 2020-21, and have published an analysis of the consultation responses, which will inform the final design of the regulations. It is our intention for these regulations to be technology-neutral, to ensure developers have flexibility in achieving compliance. At the introduction of these regulations, a full Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA) will be published – which will set out the costs and benefits of the policy options considered. We will also undertake a range of impact assessments, including a BRIA, on our proposals to regulate heating systems in existing homes (including off-gas grid homes) when we separately introduce the necessary legislation to achieve this.

The current list of prescribed offences where a victim impact statement can be made is set out here - The Victim Statements (Prescribed Offences) (No. 2) (Scotland) Order 2009 (legislation.gov.uk). The Scottish Government has committed to expanding the scope of the Victim Statement Scheme and work is currently ongoing to explore extensions to this list.