Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is not considering any further reintroductions of beavers beyond the populations currently at Knapdale and on Tayside.

Scottish Natural Heritage is leading the development of a suite of Ecosystem Health Indicators to assess the state of ecosystem health across Scotland. In 2014, the then Minister for the Environment agreed the suite of data sets to be used and the work has been taken forward by a working group comprising a number of experts and supported by the Scottish Biodiversity Strategy’s Science Support Group.

The Ecosystem Health Indicators will complement the existing suite of biodiversity indicators and will be made available through Scotland’s Environment Web (SE Web). This will allow several of the Indicators to be fully searchable, for example by allowing users to interrogate the data to view individual features on sites protected for nature and to view information at a landscape scale defined by a number of river sub-basin management areas. Testing of Ecosystem Health Indicators on SE Web will be undertaken during the summer with a view to their inclusion in September 2017.

Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) is currently preparing a paper on a national ecological network for Scotland in the context of the commitment in the 2020 Challenge for Scotland’s Biodiversity to complete the suite of protected areas and improve their connectivity through a national ecological network centred on those sites.

The SNH work is being informed by A Roadmap for Adopting a National Ecological Network for Scotland published by Scottish Environment LINK in May and by recent discussion with Scottish Environment LINK, Scottish Government officials and others. Further engagement with stakeholders on this is planned for the autumn.

Work is continuing on a number of the projects in Scotland’s Biodiversity - A Route Map to 2020 which contribute to ecological connectivity, including: a £2.3 million EcoCo LIFE project for habitat restoration and creation to improve ecological coherence within the Central Scotland Green Network; habitat restoration and species management; conservation management of protected sites; and improvements to green infrastructure. In September, a new indicator on ecological connectivity will be published as part of the new suite of Ecosystem Health Indicators.

The SPCB’s Facilities Manager responsible for the catering services has met with representatives from the SOIL Association to discuss the possibility of the Scottish Parliament achieving the Silver Food for Life Catering mark.  The next step will be to meet with organisations who have achieved the silver standard to understand how they managed to do this within the criteria.  In particular we will be looking at how they were able to introduce additional organic produce into the services without a significant impact on costs. These meetings should take place before September.

We are also aware that the SOIL Association and the Carbon Trust have a catering accreditation called the Green Kitchen Standard. This standard looks for best practice in food provenance and environmental management.  We are currently triple certified by the Carbon Trust in the areas of Water, Energy and Waste.  This new catering standard is therefore of particular interest to us.

The Lord Advocate’s Rules: Review of Decision not to Prosecute, made under section 4 of the Victims and Witnesses (Scotland) Act 2014, give effect to EU Directive 2012/29/EU. This defines a “victim” as follows-

“A victim is defined as someone who has suffered harm, including physical, mental or emotional harm or economic loss directly caused by a criminal offence. This includes family members of a person whose death was directly caused by a criminal offence, and who have suffered harm as a result of that person’s death.

Businesses, companies and other organisations which are victims of a crime are also included under this policy.”

Although there is no legal right to review in such cases, the Crown is committed to robust and effective decision making and to ongoing engagement with stakeholders. In the COPFS response to the Justice Committee’s Report on the Role and Purpose of COPFS, the Crown Agent stated the following:

“As I highlighted in my written evidence to the Committee, COPFS’ whole approach to the prosecution of wildlife crime has changed dramatically since 2008. Since the establishment of the Wildlife and Environmental Crime Unit (WECU) in 2011 all reports of wildlife and environmental crime are handled by a team of dedicated specialist prosecutors. WECU staff are equipped with relevant knowledge and expertise to assess properly the applicable law to the facts and circumstances in each case. WECU prosecutors, and indeed more senior colleagues, have over a number of years met with NGOs involved in wildlife crime investigations to discuss specific concluded cases and areas of significant concern to NGOs. Consistent with my previous indication that we would seek to build stronger relationships, the Lord Advocate has recently offered the RSPB an opportunity to meet with senior COPFS officials to discuss wildlife crime cases involving alleged raptor persecution. We will continue with these efforts in order to ensure appropriate learning for all those involved in the detection, investigation and prosecution of wildlife and environmental crime is identified and implemented.”

The Scottish Government is committed to working with all our cities and regions; urban and rural to unlock investment. This could be individually or collectively and could be through a Deal, one of the SG’s devolved initiatives to stimulate growth and deliver infrastructure investment, or a combination of measures.

The Scottish Government is working with a number of regional partners who have developed economic growth proposals to realise opportunities across Scotland, capitalising upon local knowledge and resources to deliver more equal growth across the country.

Deals whether city, region or rural offer the potential for new collaborative regional partnerships focused on long term strategic approaches to improving economies.

The starting point should be a regional strategic vision for economic development. Each deal is bespoke and can include a package of measures designed to work as a coherent whole. Any deal must however support a long term focus on the priorities required to deliver Scotland's Economic Strategy - inclusive, sustainable economic growth.

My officials are supporting the independent National Council of Rural Advisers on the development of their workplan and stakeholder strategy over the summer. We would expect the Council to seek the views of a wide variety of stakeholders and representatives across rural, coastal and island communities.

The National Council of Rural Advisers has been established to provide advice and recommendations on future rural policy and support to help create a vibrant, sustainable and productive rural economy. Members have been appointed to the Council on the basis of their expertise and knowledge of the rural economy gained from living and working Scotland’s in rural communities.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-10213 on 19 July 2017, on whether the Scottish Government will introduce local or rural growth deals.

We welcome The Scottish Parliament Local Government and Communities Committee inquiry on city region deals. A call for written evidence as part of its scrutiny of city region deals was launched in April 2017. The Committee is considering the written submissions received before agreeing its next steps. The Scottish Government has worked closely with the UK Government and regional partners to ensure robust governance and accountability is built in to city region deals and will consider carefully any issues raised by the Committee and respond appropriately.