Chamber and committees

The governance body of a Green Freeport, which will need to be approved by the Scottish and UK Governments, will be required to maintain a record of all businesses operating, or applying to operate, within the tax site. That record must be kept up-to-date, contain information about the beneficial owner of the business, and be readily accessible to law enforcement agencies, including HMRC and the National Crime Agency. Law enforcement will use this information to carry out checks on the businesses and their beneficial owners before businesses are authorised to operate within the tax site.

The Green Freeport governance body will need to maintain a record of all the businesses operating, or applying to operate, within the tax site. That record must be kept up-to-date, contain information about the beneficial owner of the business, and be readily accessible to law enforcement agencies, including HMRC and the National Crime Agency.

We are discussing the issue of publication of information by the Green Freeport governance bodies with the UK Government.

The applicant prospectus states that Green Freeport operators must adhere to the OECD Code of Conduct for Clean Free Trade Zones – and the specific anti-illicit trade and security measures therein. In addition they must meet the current obligations set out in the UK’s Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017. Furthermore, operators of Green Freeports will be responsible for the security of the customs site. As part of this, they will be required to be authorised as a customs site operator and meet requirements set out by HMRC.

The Green Freeport governance body will be required to actively manage security risks across physical, personnel, and cyber domains, and to work with the Scottish Government, HMRC, Border Force, the National Crime Agency, Home Office and other relevant agencies and government departments to conduct an annual audit of the security measures in place and any breaches.

As part of the application process, applicants will be asked to set out what steps they will take to ensure that the customs sites and tax sites in their proposed Green Freeport will be secure against illicit activity, including organised criminal activity, money laundering, smuggling and people trafficking. Applicants that do not show adequate consideration of steps to prevent illicit activity will not be considered for Green Freeport status.

Scottish Government officials were last in contact with Harland & Wolff, who lease the former BiFab yards of Methil and Arnish in January 2022.

The Education (Additional Support for Learning) Act 2004 (as amended) requires education authorities to identify, provide for and to review the additional support needs of their pupils. We support local authorities through the provision of statutory guidance to inform policy and practice, including guidance to the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004.

Education Scotland works in partnership with the Scottish Government, ELC, schools and local authorities to improve the outcomes and educational experiences for all learners, including those who require additional support through a range of activities. These include:

• Support and challenge from Education Scotland Inclusion Wellbeing and Equality Officers through the national and regional focus.
• Information, guidance, professional learning and reflective opportunities which include a focus on additional support needs and inclusion.
• The HM Inspection model of education which provides support and challenge to promote improvement for all learners through the fulfilment of statutory duties, inclusion and equality.

In addition, we published our joint response to the independently chaired review of implementation of additional support for learning in October 2020. Angela Morgan’s report sets a clear direction in how we can continue to build on progress in this area. The joint action plan sets out the measures we will take to implement her recommendations.

We published an updated action and progress report on 1 November 202. The action plan and governance arrangements for this work are available from: Additional support for learning action plan: progress report - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

An updated action plan will be published in Spring 2022.

This information is published in tables 6.10, 7.5 and 8.6 of the Pupil Census Supplementary Statistics. The 2021 statistics will be published on 15th March 2022. Statistics for previous years are available at the following link: Pupil census: supplementary statistics - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

Eligibility for Warmer Homes Scotland (WHS) does not operate on an “application” basis, but on proxies which are used as an indication of the likelihood of the household living in or being at risk of fuel poverty.

Eligible callers to Home Energy Scotland, looking for advice or help are referred to WHS. Both the householder and the property must meet the qualifying criteria to receive assistance from Warmer Homes Scotland.

A total of 1,467 referrals to WHS during the period 1 November 2021 and 28 February 2022 were made from those who were 60 years and above.

Monitoring information for other winter support schemes will become available at the end of the current financial year and we intend to publish that information once available.

The precise number of problematic spaces will be dependent on a range of factors over time, such as weather and occupancy levels, and many of the problematic spaces will already have been addressed. The Scottish Government has agreed formal reporting requirements regarding the number of remaining problematic spaces with local authorities. This information will be used to update the Education, Children and Young People’s Committee in due course, subject to receipt of local authority returns.

The information requested can be found in the publication Poverty and Income Inequality in Scotland 2017-20 . This is available online at Poverty and Income Inequality in Scotland 2017-20 (data.gov.scot).

The Scottish Government does not hold separate data on the percentage rise in the cost of living for older people who are in relative or absolute poverty. The information below provides an indication.

Inflation, as measured by the Consumer Prices Index rose by 5.5% in the 12 months to January 2022. This has been the highest yearly increase since the 1990s.

Figures from the ONS suggest that retired and non-retired households have experienced similar levels of inflation rates since April 2021, and so have high- and low-income households. However, rises in costs are being driven by different things - including different exposure to transport costs (affecting non-retired people more heavily) and housing and household services (affecting retired people more). Separate figure are not available for Scotland

With regard to water charges, the water and sewerage charges for households will rise by 4.2% on 1 April 2022 – this means the average household charge in Scotland will be £391 in 2022-23. Water charges are linked to council tax bands and discounts which apply to council tax also apply to water charges (such as student exemption or the single occupant discount). From 1 April 2021 the water charges reduction scheme discount – available to customers in receipt of full Council Tax Reduction – has increased to 35%, up from 25%. Over the next year (2022-23), households in receipt of the full council tax reduction discount will actually pay less than they did in 2020-21.

A key driver of price increases is energy prices, which have increased significantly over the year and continue to increase due to the crisis in Ukraine. Low-income households are particularly exposed to increases in the price of energy as they spend a larger proportion of the household income on fuel and housing costs. The Institute for Fiscal Studies suggest that by April lowest-income households will be facing inflation rates of almost 7%, higher than the average rate of 6%. The Resolution Foundation estimate that later this year the poorest third of households will be spending at least 10% of their household income on energy bills alone, compared to around 7% now.