Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government recognises the impact and distress that doorstep lending and payday loans can have on vulnerable people. The regulation of all firms and individuals offering, promoting or selling financial services is fully reserved to the UK Government with the responsibility for action against poor practice falling to the Financial Conduct Authority. The Scottish Government continues to do all that it can, with the powers available, to limit the proliferation of high street payday lending and promote access to affordable credit including credit unions.

The Fairer Scotland Action Plan includes a range of ambitions and actions to tackle poverty and inequality in Scotland, including promoting access to affordable credit. Many of the policy levers here are of course reserved, and we continue to work with the Treasury, the Financial Conduct Authority, the Money Advice Service and others to make sure their work takes full account of the situation in Scotland.

The Town and Country Planning (Miscellaneous Amendments and Transitional Saving Provision) (Scotland) Order 2016, which was laid in Parliament on 15 December 2016, increases planning controls in relation to new payday lending businesses to help address concerns about the overprovision and clustering of these premises on the high street.

Scotland has a proportionately higher level of credit union membership than England and Wales. According to the Bank of England’s most recent quarterly statistics, there were 99 credit unions in Scotland at the end of June 2016, with acombined membership of almost 388,000. This means approximately 7.2 per cent of the Scottish population are enrolled in a credit union, compared with only 1.5 per cent in England, and 2.6 per cent in Wales.

The Scottish Government is working with credit unions to grow the movement in Scotland by implementing the recommendations from the recent Credit Union Working Group report “Scotland’s Credit Unions: Investing in Our Future”, which was published on 10 February 2016 (http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0049/00493888.pdf). Following a key recommendation from the report, the Scottish Government has announced funding of over £300,000 to support the development of Junior Savers Schemes run by credit unions in partnership with schools across Scotland. The Scottish Government promotes credit unions through Scotland’s Financial Health Service website. This contains information on credit unions in Scotland and can help direct people to the credit union appropriate to them. The website also provides guidance on debt, managing money and other forms of ethical lending.

The Scottish Government welcomes the work of others in this area, including the Carnegie UK Trust which published ‘Gateway to Affordable Credit – The Report of the Affordable Credit Action Group’ in 2016. The report sets out recommendations to help grow not-for-profit alternative finance providers, including credit unions. The Scottish Government is working with the Trust on the implementation of the recommendations from this report.

ScotRail is developing timetables for both the introduction of high speed trains and its Revolution in Rail enhancements which will deliver significant capacity improvements. We are confident that these new timetables and the planned delivery of additional trains would be capable of filling any shortfall in capacity, from December 2018, caused by the potential removal of CrossCountry services.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-04295 on 14 November 2016 for further information relating to Abellio’s commitments to introduce new and refurbished rolling stock.

Since we have no confirmation, as yet, of the service plans for the new CrossCountry franchise we will continue to support the retention of all cross-border operator services and expect to be fully consulted on this matter by the Department For Transport.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

We have contacted ScotRail about the implications of replacing the services that CrossCountry are proposing to cut in the North East of Scotland. ScotRail have confirmed that they would be unable to take on these services in December 2017 due to operational reasons and a lack of rolling stock.

Accordingly, we have made representation to CrossCountry seeking clarification on whether the Department for Transport has cut funding for these services. We also made clear that we would expect CrossCountry to secure and fund an alternate provider for these services should they be in receipt of DfT funding, under the Franchise agreement, to provide these services.

We submitted a formal response to the CrossCountry consultation on 21 December 2016, copied to relevant Regional Transport Partnerships in Scotland, that set out our position on the proposed December 2017 timetable changes. We continue to support the retention of cross-border operator services and expect to be fully consulted on this matter by the Department for Transport.

Our analysis of the proposals identified a number of issues, and we have therefore been unable to support CrossCountry's new timetable proposals. We have asked CrossCountry to provide further information and clarification in respect of funding and provision of services specified in their franchise agreement.

The Scottish Government has, alongside Police Scotland, undertaken a wide-ranging public information campaign to advise people about the new legislation. A dedicated website was launched on 23 March 2016. This is at www.airweapon.scot . The website summarises the legislation, offers a check tool for those unclear about whether they might need a certificate, and has an extensive FAQ section. The 31 October deadline was clearly publicised on the website. To date, the website has had more than 101,000 visits from 73,000 visitors.

We also provided a detailed “toolkit” for main stakeholders informing them of the new legislation and seeking their help in disseminating the information. This was picked up by a number of the main shooting organisations.

A wider public information campaign launched on Monday 16 May under the heading “No Licence – No Air Gun”. This included a country-wide poster campaign and radio advertising. Further targeted media events have taken place over the past six months, including news events in early September to remind people of the “50 days to go” for applications to be with Police Scotland by the 31 October deadline.

People who want to use, possess, purchase or acquire air weapons in Scotland from 31 December 2016 will be required to hold a valid air weapon certificate, unless they are exempt under the provisions of Part 1 of the Air Weapons and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2016.

People who apply for a certificate between 1 November and 31 December 2016 will have their application determined as early as possible in 2017. Until they receive a decision, they should ensure that they are not breaking the law by making alternative arrangements to store their weapons safely. This can be done by placing their air weapon with someone who already holds an air weapon certificate or firearms licence, or by lodging it with a registered firearms dealer.

Similarly, anyone applying for a certificate from 31 December onwards must ensure that they comply fully with the requirements of the new legislation before using, possessing, purchasing or acquiring an air weapon.

Both the Scottish Government and Police Scotland have undertaken extensive media and public information campaigns to advise air weapon owners and users to apply for an air weapon certificate by 31 October 2016. Those applying by that deadline should receive a decision on their application prior to the new law coming into force on 31 December, and may continue to possess their air weapons until they receive that determination.

Anyone applying for a certificate from 1 November 2016 should ensure that they are not breaking the law by making alternative arrangements to store their weapons safely if no determination has been made by 31 December. Alternative arrangements could include placing the air weapon with someone who already holds an air weapon certificate or firearms licence, or lodging it with a registered firearms dealer.

A Scottish Government news release highlighting this advice issued on
19 December. In addition, Police Scotland have placed detailed information on the air weapons licensing page of their website and are contacting as many applicants as possible directly to provide similar advice. People can still surrender unwanted air weapons to the police until 31 December 2016.

Information on average private sector rent levels by Broad Rental Market Area and size of property is published annually by the Scottish Government. The most recent publication ‘Private Sector Rent Statistics Scotland, 2010 to 2016’, released in November 2016, is available at: http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2016/11/3295.

This publication uses data from the Rent Service Scotland market evidence database which is used to determine annual Local Housing Allowance and Local Reference Rents. The data is collected to be representative at each Broad Rental Market Area level only, and therefore is not suitable for analysis by specific urban or rural categories, or by areas with a population of less than 1,000.

Information on the average length of tenure in the private rented sector, as measured by the length of time that an adult has been living at their current address at the point of interview, is available in Table 3.4 of the ‘Scottish Household Survey: Annual Report 2015’ at http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2016/09/7673. This shows that in the year 2015 adults in the private rented sector had been at their address for an average of 2.6 years at the time of being interviewed. Further analysis of this data using the Scottish Government Urban Rural Classification shows that adults in private rented properties in rural areas had been living at their address for an average of 5.4 years. This compares to an average length of 2.2 years for adults living in private rented properties in urban areas. Table 1 provides further details on the percentage of adults in the Private Rented Sector by time period categories, and the estimated number of adults that these percentages relate to.

Table 1: Length of time at current address in the Private Rented Sector, by urban and rural areas (%)

There are approximately 350,000 Private Rented Sector households in Scotland, of which 289,000 are in urban areas and 61,000 are in rural areas. Based on the Scottish Government urban / rural classification, an urban area is defined as a settlement of 3,000 or more people, and a rural area is a settlement of less than 3,000 people.

It is not possible to provide a figure for properties in areas of less than 1,000 people as this is not a standard rural classification used in the survey.

The Scottish Government engages with the UK Farr Institute of Health Informatics Research through the Innovative Healthcare Delivery Programme and the Scottish Informatics and Linkage Collaboration and to utilise the Institute’s infrastructure in Scotland in support of research and analyses using large administrative datasets (“big data”). There are several hundred projects that use the infrastructure. These include several using methods such as machine learning. The Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office is one of the ten funders of the UK-wide Institute.