Chamber and committees

The results of this research by Scottish Renewables shows the considerable global reach of renewable energy businesses in Scotland.

The figures reinforce the growing importance of renewable energy businesses, to the Scottish economy and vindicates the Scottish Government’s support for the sector and the increasingly crucial role it plays within our energy mix and the wider economy.

Clearly, it is a significant boost, to the economic benefits of Scotland making an early, sustained transition to a decarbonised model of electricity generation, that as we see great expansion in renewable generation in Scotland, across a range of technologies. This equips us with expertise that helps Scottish businesses to generate significant export earnings in overseas markets. This mirrors Scotland’s success as a knowledge hub in the oil and gas industry.

Domestic abuse and violence against women is a fundamental violation of human rights, and we are investing significant levels of funding as well as bringing forward new legislation to tackle it. it is completely unacceptable, and we believe that a zero tolerance approach to it is the right approach for Scotland to take.

We are investing £24 million over 2015-17 from the Equalities portfolio to support a range of projects and initiatives – this continues to support a range of front line specialist services working with women and children who have experienced domestic abuse. In 2015, we announced an additional dedicated £20 million over 2015-18 from Justice budgets to be invested in a range of measures to tackle all forms of this type of violence.

We are implementing Equally Safe, Scotland’s strategy to tackle all forms of violence against women and girls. This aims to prevent violence from occurring in the first place, build the capability and capacity of mainstream and specialist services to support survivors and those at risk, and strengthen the Justice response to victims and perpetrators. As outlined in the Programme for Government, we will bring forward delivery plans for Equally Safe in 2017. The Violence against Women and Girls Joint Strategic Board, which is co-chaired by the Equalities Secretary, met on 10 November 2016.

The Programme for Government in September announced that we will introduce legislation in this Parliamentary year to create a specific offence of domestic abuse that will cover not just physical abuse but also other forms of psychological abuse and coercive and controlling behaviour that cannot easily be prosecuted using the existing criminal law. Creation of this new offence will bring clarity for victims so they can see explicitly that what their partner or ex-partner has done to them is wrong and can be dealt with under the law. Justice agencies are already showing strong leadership in this area; Police Scotland have established a National Domestic Abuse Taskforce to target the most prolific perpetrators, and the Crown Office have a dedicated National Prosecutor for Domestic Abuse.

It is key that all partner organisations are prepared for any potential severe weather and/or flooding over the winter months. Resilience Partner organisations in the North of Scotland have been preparing for the winter period over the past few months to ensure they are adequately prepared to deal with any potential issues.

During the winter of 2015-16, Resilience Partnerships and Community Resilience Groups across Scotland managed widespread impacts and disruption brought about by Storms Desmond and Frank which resulted in significant flooding and brief periods of power outages. Numerous incidents occurring over multiple geographic areas within a relatively short timescale tested activation and mobilisation of local resources and national assets.

Lessons from these and previous similar events have been incorporated into table top scenarios that delegates from across the resilience community are challenged with during Scottish Government-run Crisis Management courses. Local Resilience Partnerships (LRP) continue to run a number of table top and live play scenarios within their own areas based on severe weather to test on-going preparedness.

Grampian LRP multi-agency Flood Group met during the course of the year to further define responsibilities and escalation arrangements in event of severe weather over the coming winter season. On 24 October 2016, the Flood Group held a table top exercise in Inverurie, attended by all category 1 responders, which considered a range of relevant scenarios in order to ensure effective preparation and timely response to episodes of severe weather.

Following the numerous debriefs carried out to review the winter storms by Resilience Partnerships and Community Resilience Groups, a special Quarterly Lessons Report was published focussing on the lessons and good practice identified specifically in relation to these weather incidents. This report has been shared across Scotland and is being utilised to help develop and encourage preparedness within Resilience partnerships. This is in keeping with the already established National Debriefing and Lesson Protocol we have in place across Scotland which enables us to identify, share and learn lessons from major incidents.

It is crucial that members of the public also understand flood risk and take the necessary actions to protect themselves, their property or their businesses. People should check their flood risk and prepare for flooding by monitoring SEPA’s Floodline website and signing up to get Floodline warnings direct to a mobile phone. The new Flood Re initiative also offers and promotes affordable flooding insurance for households. More information about Flood Re is available at: http://www.floodre.co.uk/. In addition, the Scottish Government’s annual preparedness campaign, Ready Scotland, provides the public with a range of advice and information on preparing for winter weather. Further information is available at www.readyscotland.org.

Our Trade and Investment Strategy, published in March this year, sets out a clear and comprehensive plan for helping more companies export more goods and services to more markets. Alongside this, in October the First Minister announced a four-point plan to boost Scotland's export performance. This includes doubling the number of people working for Scottish Development International (SDI) in Europe from 20 to 40 and the creation of an additional innovation and investment hub in Berlin as well as those in London, Dublin and Brussels. Most recently, we announced grant funding of up to £400,000 to the Scottish Chambers of Commerce, to support new business-led trade missions and forge new trading alliances between Chambers both here and abroad. This will complement the work of SDI and contribute to our shared efforts to increase business exports and internationalisation activity.

The Scottish Government is highly encouraged by this development, which helps to demonstrate that the industry can have a bright future. This is also excellent news for the workers and their families.

Oil and Gas UK have stated that there are up to 20 billion boe (barrel of oil equivalent) still to be extracted in the UKCS and, as a mature basin, recovery of some of this is going to be technically challenging. However, developments like Alder demonstrate that great strides are being made in reducing operating costs and developing the innovative technologies required to maximise economic recovery from the North Sea. Our enterprise agencies also provide a programme of support to businesses who are looking to invest in innovation and R&D to benefit from the significant opportunities still available.

The Scottish Government understands that more than 70% of the Alder field development work was carried out by UK-based businesses, supporting several hundred jobs in the Aberdeen and Invergordon, as well as Leeds and Newcastle.

The Scottish Government recognises that new and innovative technologies will be required to ensure we sustainably maximise the economic recovery of oil & gas from the North Sea.

In February, the First Minister announced £12.5 million through our enterprise agencies to support innovation and business resilience, which included £10 million of SE funding to help firms reduce risks associated with carrying out research & development, with around 70 innovation projects with a total project value of round £16 million having benefitted from £7 million of Scottish Government support, so far.

We have also funded the Oil and Gas Innovation Centre (OGIC), which was established in 2014 and focuses on technology themes where Scotland has competitive advantage, or where Scotland has the ability to develop it e.g. Subsea, Enhanced Oil Recovery and Deepwater and High Pressure Temperature (HPHT) drilling. OGIC has engaged with around 100 companies, to date, and direct financial assistance is available to incentivise investment in R&D and to test the feasibility of new ideas.

In addition, the Scottish Government and the UK Government have committed to investing on a 50:50 basis to support the development of an Oil & Gas Technology Centre (OGTC) through the £250 million Aberdeen City Region Deal. This will be a new, world class centre to support innovation of the oil and gas industry in the North East, the rest of Scotland and across the whole of the UK. The first £4 million of funding for the OGTC was approved on Monday 20th November.

However, it remains the position that the key fiscal levers to support the industry are reserved to the UK Government and we recognise that they must optimised to incentivise continued investment in the basin. The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Constitution has written to the Chancellor of the Exchequer calling for Investment Allowance reforms in the Autumn Statement in order to ensure the full potential of the North Sea is realised.