Chamber and committees

Police Scotland’s 2019 Estate Strategy outlined plans to replace outdated, underinvested and underused properties with a modern, fit-for-purpose estate. This will help develop modern premises, capable of delivering effective and efficient public services to meet the needs of people and the staff who use them.

For example, co-locations make the best use of the public sector estate and offer the opportunity for increased visibility, closer working and increased collaboration between partners. Police Scotland has over 60 examples of successful co-location, including at Marischal College with Aberdeen City Council.

It should also be noted that, under a single Scottish police service, police operate over three tiers – local, regional and national. This ensures that there is a core complement of officers dedicated to community and response policing. Local Area Commanders can also draw on specialist resources to further support local policing whenever they are needed.

Police Scotland is currently undertaking a national consultation on its estate plans. This forms part of its wider engagement activity to listen to feedback and views about the proposed estate change. I encourage anyone with an interest to engage with this conversation which is available on the Police Scotland National Conversation About Our Estate - Police Scotland - Citizen Space .

Matters concerning the police estate are operational issues for the Chief Constable, who is accountable to the Scottish Police Authority. I also have regular meetings with the Chief Constable, where a range of issues are discussed, including the police estate.

The Scottish Government welcomes the publication of the Sands Listening Project: Learning from the experiences of Black and Asian bereaved parents report as an important addition to the landscape of confidential enquiries, audits and other reports that inform the work already underway to address racialised inequalities in maternity. I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-24319 on 29 January 2024 which outlines this programme of 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 Scottish Government fully supports rail freight and modal shift, thus this is outlined in the 2016 rail freight strategy https://www.transport.gov.scot/media/5362/ts-rail-freight-strategy-a4-aw3.pdf

In 2019 Network Rail, and the industry, developed a comprehensive Industry Growth Plan for Rail Freight and an updated Plan for longer-term growth is being developed.

Our priority for supporting Rail freight remains in facilitating more efficient operation - through investment in capacity, adjustment of passenger services and encouraging and requiring Network Rail to support rail freight. We want rail freight to be competitive without the need for subsidy.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the local economic impact of road closures. The impact of closing a road due to a collision depends on the specific circumstances such as the collision location, the time of day, the duration of the closure and any diversion route.

At a more general level, the Department for Transport has estimated the values assigned to the cost of road casualties and collisions in Great Britain, for use in cost-benefit analysis of the prevention of road casualties and collisions in road schemes. This information is used in the assessment of road schemes in Scotland via Scottish Transport Appraisal Guidance (STAG) and is published in Transport Scotland’s annual Reported Road Casualties publication: https://www.transport.gov.scot/publication/reported-road-casualties-scotland-2022/table-9a-b/

CalMac currently expects that there will be two tankers a week per vessel to operate the service. CalMac will review the fuel requirements once the new vessels are in operation and make any necessary changes to supply requirements.

The tankers will travel by road from the Isle of Grain LNG terminal in Kent to Troon.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-18441 on 15 June 2023. 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 .

I refer the member to the answer to question S6F-02532 on 16 November 2023. Which can be found at Meeting of the Parliament: 16/11/2023 | Scottish Parliament Website

This is an operational matter for ScotRail. The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.