Chamber and committees

The £70 million recycling fund, announced in our Programme for Government 2020-21, will be delivered over five years beginning in 2021-22.

Zero Waste Scotland is progressing the development of a route map to reducing waste and achieving our 2025 waste targets. Further details, including a timeline for consultation and publication, will be provided in due course.

As outlined in the Food Waste Reduction Action Plan a public review of progress towards the 33% target will take place during 2021, providing updated estimates of total food waste in Scotland and the commercial & industrial and household proportions. Scotland does not currently collect waste data at the granular level necessary to report annually or by supply chain sector.

The developing actions and infrastructure described in the response to question S5W-32200 on 30 October 2020, together with improvement in measurement methodologies will support an enhanced capacity for food waste and surplus measurement and reporting going forward.

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 .

Just under 250 audits were conducted by Zero Waste Scotland by March 2020 through the Food and Drink Advice and Support Service. Between 2016 and 2019 the service resulted in food waste reductions of 2,500 tonnes of food waste per annum (a carbon saving of 8,700 tonnes of CO ₂ e), and cost savings of £2 million, from the 200 audits during this period. Impact assessment work for 19-20 is not yet available and will increase this figure further; the service is also extending coverage to larger business which will increase savings potential.

ai) and aii) The Scottish Government announced on 22 March that Scotland would be placed under lockdown. Although the Scottish Government did not have any direct contact with productions actively filming in Scotland at this time, any production filming in Scotland would have needed to halt, as all non-essential workplaces were required to shut. We do not have a list of productions affected. On 14 July guidance on the safe re-opening of film and TV production during the coronavirus pandemic in Scotland was published, enabling the resumption of production activity.

Further information on this guidance is available online at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-on-film-and-high-end-tv-production/ .

The Scottish Government has not otherwise intervened to halt any productions.

bi) and bii)The information requested on behalf of Scottish Government agencies and other public bodies is not held centrally.

The production company was able to make use of the quarantine exemption provided by the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (International Travel) (Scotland) Regulations 2020. Under this exemptions, crew members were able to travel from their accommodation to a production base during the 14-day quarantine period.

a) The Scottish Government did not intervene in the production of Bell Bottom to halt filming work.

b/c)The information requested about Scottish Government agencies and other public bodies is not held centrally.

I last met with a range of hospitality and tourism representatives on 07 October.

I meet regularly with the industry, often through representative bodies such as the Scottish Tourism Alliance, UK Hospitality and others and a wide range of issues are discussed such as funding support, marketing, test and protect, visitor management, business rates, VAT and other issues.

Scottish Government officials also have weekly contact with the same bodies and others through meetings, phone calls and emails and through strategic groups including the Scottish Tourism Emergency Response Group and the Scottish Tourism Recovery Taskforce.

There has been some initial consultation with stakeholders regarding food waste and food surplus reporting within the recent consultation on proposals for legislation in the circular economy bill. It was put forward that there should be a power to enable Scottish Ministers to require mandatory public reporting of unwanted surplus stock and waste of certain materials by Scottish businesses. The full independent analysis of these consultation responses is available on the Scottish Government website .

We remain committed to consulting on the Scottish Government’s proposals for reducing food waste, as set out in the Food Waste Reduction Action Plan, in due course.

The following table provides a projection to the end of 2024. The projection for the year 2025 is currently under review. The projection was based on waste and emissions statistics up to 2017, assumes that key waste and recycling targets are met, and that biodegradable municipal waste being sent to landfill is banned in 2025. The carbon dioxide equivalent emissions are reported using the 100 year global warming potential for methane of 28 as provided in the International Panel on Climate Change 5 th Assessment Report. https://archive.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chapter08_FINAL.pdf (p. 731)

Projected methane emissions from biodegradable waste landfilled in Scotland

Factors such as background sound that may lead to raised voices or cause people to lean-in close to others to be heard are a risk factor in the transmission of coronavirus. This is recognised by a wide body of publicly available scientific evidence in relation to the role of aerosols in the transmission of viruses. The current position of no background sound, including low level music and audio from television, is a measured and cautious approach to reduce risk. It is being kept under review and government has engaged with industry experts to consider how guidance can be developed to allow low level background sound to be managed safely when transmission rates are back to a manageable level.