Chamber and committees

The current regulations limit the entry of other people into homes for the purpose of the upkeep, maintenance or functioning of the house to where the work is essential for that purpose in level 4. These restrictions have been put in place to limit the transmission of the virus.

The Scottish Government has reviewed the Strategic Framework. As part of this, we have indicated the steps required for the easing of restrictions. As set out in the First Minister’s statement on 16 March, we expect the restrictions on working in other people’s homes to be relaxed on 26 April. The updated Strategic Framework sets out the conditions on easing, including meeting the WHO’s six conditions and all JCVI Priority Groups 1-9 having been offered the vaccine.

The Scottish Government regularly publishes statistics and management information relating to its Covid-19 business grants on its website. The latest publication that includes details of the Strategic Framework Business Fund was published on 10 March 2021.

The Scottish Government regularly publishes statistics and management information relating to its Covid-19 business grants on its website. The latest publication that includes details of the Strategic Framework Business Fund was published on 10 March 2021.

In the 2021-22 Budget, we announced an additional £125 million of funding to help people impacted by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic access employment opportunities.

This includes:

• £70 million for the Young Person’s Guarantee – continuing to provide work, education or training for every 16 to 24-year-old across Scotland
• £35 million for skills and retraining, including for the National Transition Training Fund, which supports people who are unemployed or at risk of redundancy due to COVID-19
• £20 million for No One Left Behind – helping people who are long-term unemployed move towards and into work

This additional £125 million in our latest budget is just one strand of the Scottish Government’s proposed investment of over £1 billion for jobs and skills, including further funding for Skills Development Scotland and Fair Start Scotland. It will allow us to extend the reach of these key initiatives and help meet demand, building on our substantial existing investment in education, employability and skills and supporting a strong economic recovery for Scotland.

We are also focussed on delivering the maximum support for the businesses and the economy as possible and the Find Business Support website contains information on the range of business support available. £460 million was allocated to the Economy, Fair Work & Culture portfolio for strategic framework business support in Stage 2 of the 2021-22 Budget (Scotland) Bill.

We are focused on delivering the maximum support for the economic recovery of our town centres.

Grants of up to £7,500 for retailers and up to £19,500 for hospitality and leisure businesses will be paid in April to help businesses, including town centre businesses, re-open progressively. These one-off re-start grants will replace ongoing Strategic Framework Business Fund payments and will provide more money up front to help with the costs of re-opening.

We have extended 100% Non-Domestic Rates relief for all retail, leisure and hospitality premises for all of 2021-22 – this is more generous than the equivalent rates reliefs available in other UK nations.

To support sustained longer-term renewal for our towns, cities and villages, we are establishing a Place Based Investment Programme backed by £325 million capital investment over 5 years from 2021-22. The Programme aims to link and align all place based funding initiatives and progress our ambitions for community-led regeneration, town centres and 20 minute neighbourhoods. It will build on the additional £34 million economic stimulus for regeneration and towns and other funding provided specifically for town centres, smaller settlements and Business Improvement Districts in the current financial year.

Emissions from energy from waste plants are strictly controlled under the Pollution Prevention and Control regulatory regime. Correctly operated, modern energy from waste facilities should have minimal impact on overall local air quality.

A multi layered and highly precautionary approach is taken to the permitting and operation of Incineration sites, and these facilities receive a continued high level of scrutiny from SEPA throughout their lifetime.

The Pollution Prevention and Control permitting process goes into significant detail on the design and performance of the proposed EfW plant, with modelling studies for air emission and human health reviewed in detail by dedicated specialists within SEPA. The relevant standards were reviewed and considerably tightened last year in alignment with the EU BREF process and these very tight standards must be complied with by December 2023.

Incineration sites are required to have a Continuous Emissions Monitoring system (CEMS) in place, which uses a dedicated separate computer system and has a standby system in place. Manual monitoring of emissions also takes place four times within the first year of Operation (subsequently twice per year) alongside multiple tests during commissioning. SEPA also undertakes its own manual samples of air emissions once per year. Soil samples are also taken at regular intervals on or near to the site to monitor long term effects and in some cases ambient air quality near to the site is also sampled. The results of all of these tests are publicly available through SEPA’s Public Register. No site is permitted to operate above the consented limits with inbuilt safeguards called interlocks forcing the site to shut down `if limits are breached.

All local authorities are required to regularly review air quality in their areas and to submit an annual report to the Scottish Government summarising their air quality work from the previous year. This report should include identification of and assessment plans for any new potential emissions sources.

The ongoing response to the Covid-19 pandemic has been and continues to be the focus of our activity. We have agreed with BMA Scotland that the report and its important recommendations will be released when it has been fully considered.

The guarantee is compliant with EU state aid rules and did not require EU approval.

The Scottish Government recognises the role played by the Commissioner and their role as the guardian of children’s rights in Scotland. The Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body sets the terms of the Commissioner’s appointment, including the allocation of resources. The Commissioner is required to report to Parliament each year on the exercise of his functions.

With regard to the creation of a Commissioner for Older People, the Scottish Government’s position has not changed and is set out in response to S5W-32242 on 22 Oc tober 2020. 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 .

As detailed in the Scottish Government’s response to questions S5W-34614 and S5W-34612 on 1 February 2021 we have provided funding for around 18,000 new and enhanced opportunities to support young people in 2020-21.

We have previously stated, in response to question S5W-33395 on 2 December 2020 that given the uncertainty around the labour market, with the extension of the furlough scheme and the impact of Brexit, we are not setting targets for the Young Person's Guarantee.

The Guarantee is not a standalone programme. We are providing £70 million in 2021/22 to create more opportunities for young people, building on our significant existing investment in Education, Employability and Skills infrastructure. We are in the process of developing a measurement and evaluation framework to understand how the Guarantee is delivering a range of different opportunities to support young people, as set out in response to question S5W-34872 on 1 February 2021 .

As part of this process, we recently published the first Local Authority Labour Market Dashboard and Skills Development Scotland (SDS) published the first monthly Participation Snapshot for 16 and 17 year olds. The Snapshot provides more timely data on the participation rate of young people across Scotland and will provide information on the activities young people are participating in.

This information along with the annual Participation Measure produced by SDS and planned evaluative activity will help us to monitor the number of opportunities as well measure and target opportunities and support for young people.

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