Chamber and committees

No date has been set for the decarbonisation of the lines between Aberdeen and Edinburgh, and Aberdeen and the electrified network at Dunblane. However, in line with the Rail Decarbonisation Action Plan, these routes are under consideration for future decarbonisation through electrification by Transport Scotland, with plans at an early stage of development.

As set out in the Decarbonisation Action Plan, the order and pace in which decarbonisation is undertaken has always, and continues to, depend on business cases and available budgets.

The Scottish Government is committed to improving the A96.

The current plan is to fully dual the route and as part of this process we are undertaking a transparent, evidence-based review of the programme.

The significant interest in the review’s initial consultation generated 11,000 options to improve the corridor. It is only right that it has taken more time than originally anticipated, in order to properly examine and fully appraise these.

It is expected that the draft outcomes from the Review will be consulted on in the coming months, before a final decision can be reached.

The Scottish Government works closely with the north east Just Transition Participatory Budgeting Fund partners who co-ordinate and deliver the fund. Officials carry out mid and end of year reviews to ensure the effective management of the fund and the principles of a just transition are followed. Partners produced a report on Year 1 and will produce a summary at the end of Year 2.

We will also undertake an evaluation of phase one of the Just Transition Fund in the 2024-25 financial year aiming to commence the next phase in the following financial year.

Of the £75 million committed from the Just Transition Fund so far, 10.3% has been awarded to community groups and 52.2% has been allocated for awards to businesses.

Of the 52.2% committed to businesses, £25 million or 33% is made up of the Just Transition Fund’s allocation to the Scottish National Investment Bank.

As trunk road maintenance costs are held on a whole route basis we are unable to provide figures for the section of the A90 trunk road from Dundee to Aberdeen.

However, please see the following table for details of how much was spent on improving drainage on the whole of the A90 trunk road for the financial years 2019-20 onwards. These works are in addition to regular asset inspections undertaken through the maintenance contracts, which then develop and prioritises programmes of works.

The following amounts have been spent on safety improvements on the A96 between Inverness and Aberdeen in each of the last full three financial years:

Records show there has been no instances of road closures due to lack of adequate drainage on the A90 trunk road from Dundee to Aberdeen from 2019-20 to date.

We monitor the operational carbon caused both directly and indirectly by the polluting heating systems used in the majority of Scotland’s buildings via the Scottish Greenhouse Gas Statistics ( Scottish Greenhouse Gas Statistics 2021 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) , which provides statistics on the level of emissions by source. Estimates of Scotland’s consumption emissions (broadly analogous to upstream scope 3 emissions) are published in Scotland’s Carbon Footprint ( Scotland’s Carbon Footprint 1998 – 2019 – gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . However, it is not possible to isolate heating systems from other similar products using this dataset.

We are continuing to investigate how we can improve whole life emissions reporting in Scotland’s buildings.

Empty Property Relief was devolved to local authorities on 1 April 2023, and it is for individual local authorities to decide how they will tailor any support for unoccupied property, including listed buildings, to best support their local needs.

As indicated in the recommendations of the New Deal for Business Non-Domestic Rates sub-group, the Scottish Government will undertake an initial review of the devolution of Empty Property Relief before the next revaluation in 2026.

The Scottish Government has spent £6.2m on structural maintenance, strategic road safety and climate change adaption improvements on the A96 between Aberdeen and Nairn in the last 12 months. These costs comprise of construction costs only and do not include design, investigation, or environmental costs of these schemes.