Chamber and committees

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.

This is a matter for Scottish Rail Holdings (SRH), who oversees the delivery of Caledonian Sleeper services on behalf of Scottish Ministers. The Member may wish to contact SRH directly. Since coming into public ownership in June 2023, Caledonian Sleepers right time arrivals have improved to over 88%. This is well above the GB average.

Legislation surrounding the use of e-bikes and e-Scooters is a reserved matter for the UK Government.

For an e-bike to be legal for use in the UK, they must be electrically assisted pedal cycles and the electric motor should not be able to propel the bike when it’s travelling more than 15.5mph. This ensures speeds similar to that of other bicycles.

In Scotland, it is illegal to ride an e-scooter on a public road, pavement, cycle paths, shared paths or any public place. It is lawful to use e-scooters on private land with the landowners permission. The previous UK Government had intended to bring forward legislation to fully legalise e-scooters in 2022, however this was paused due to a change of Prime Minister and a Cabinet reshuffle.

As such, electric scooters are covered by the same UK-wide laws and regulations that apply to all motor vehicles. It is every road and path users responsibility to respect others and the Highway Code outlines both rules and guidance for everyone.

As transactions with a value of under £40,000 are not liable to make an LBTT return, this information is not held.

The Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (Scotland) Act 2013 provides that land transactions with a chargeable consideration of less than £40,000 are not notifiable and that no tax return is therefore required. As such, this information is not available.

While specialty training is required to qualify as a consultant on GP, not all doctors complete or immediately proceed to specialty training following Foundation training for a variety of reasons. General Medical Council data shows that on a UK-wide basis taking time away from formal training after completing Foundation has been increasing and is now the norm.

(a) The following table shows how many Foundation doctors moved straight from Scottish Foundation training programmes into a specialty training programme in Scotland (in the same calendar year).

The Just Transition Fund has allocated £75 million to date, supporting projects and communities across the North East and Moray to create jobs, support innovation, and secure the highly skilled workforce of the future.

In line with our Green Industrial Strategy, we are continuing to support Scotland’s energy transition. The draft 2025-26 Scottish Budget includes an allocation of £25m to support the development of hydrogen and carbon capture technologies, as well as initiatives to support Scotland’s businesses and industries to decarbonise and innovative projects such as the Energy Transition Zone in Aberdeen.

The judgements and issues in the Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan are informed and influenced by recent developments in UK Government energy policy and by court decisions.

This is a rapidly changing landscape and we are taking time to reflect on those developments before drawing any conclusions and publishing a final strategy.

This investment is year two of our five-year commitment to invest up to £500m over five years, which is expected to leverage additional private investment of £1.5 billion in the infrastructure and manufacturing facilities critical to growing the offshore wind sector. This is based on the assessment of current pipeline of potential projects, conducted with public sector delivery partners, which estimates a multiplier effect of an average of three times the original public investment.