Chamber and committees

A consultation on a draft new air quality strategy, taking into account the conclusions and recommendations of the review, has been published today at https://consult.gov.scot/environmental-quality/cleaner-air-for-scotland-2 . The consultation runs until 22 January 2021.

As I confirmed to Parliament, in the Chamber on 20 August 2020, Transport Scotland has had further engagement with the European Commission on potential options for looking at reducing fares on the Pentland Firth. EC officials have written to Transport Scotland expressing their immediate views and the next step is for Transport Scotland officials to take forward those views which have been provided by the EC officials and then look to identify plausible, compliant options for introducing reduced fares on the Pentland Firth.

As I explained in the Chamber, the work to undertake those next steps has been impacted by deployment of key officials during the Covid-19 pandemic response, but I gave an undertaking to the Member, and repeat that commitment in this response, that as personnel are now in many cases returning to their posts that this work will be picked up as soon as possible.

We are beginning a process of developing a non-statutory statement of policy on food that will incorporate the experience gained in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, ongoing work under the umbrella of the Good Food Nation policy and, more widely, work such as the EU Farm to Fork Strategy and the UK Government’s National Food Strategy. The intention is that this work will be led by the Ministerial Working Group on Food to ensure that the cross cutting approach that is needed to take forward key aspects of national policy is in place. This work is in the initial stages and further details will be available in due course.

Our responses, Addressing the labour market emergency: The Scottish Government’s response to the Report by the Enterprise & Skills Strategic Board sub-group on measures to mitigate the labour market impacts from COVID-19 and Economic Recovery Implementation Plan: The Scottish Government's response to the Advisory Group on Economic Recovery, will be published today at 10:15 on the Scottish Government website.

The published reports can be found at the following links:

Economic Recovery Implementation Plan: The Scottish Government's response to the Advisory Group on Economic Recovery

The Scottish Government’s response to the Report by the Enterprise & Skills Strategic Board sub-group on measures to mitigate the labour market impacts from COVID-19.

During the development of the National Framework for Action ‘Neurological Care and Support in Scotland’ , we commissioned the NHS Information Services Division to investigate how many people in Scotland are living with different neurological conditions. This provided estimated prevalence for some conditions but not all, and we have therefore made a commitment through the Framework to improve the recording of neurological conditions, including ME, in people’s routine health and care records. This will enable more accurate population-level estimates of the prevalence of neurological conditions and ensure they are visible to appropriate services.

We have commissioned Public Health Scotland to carry out a needs assessment that will provide a report on the existing practices and provision, as well as service gaps, for ME/CFS across Scotland.

Expenditure on biodiversity-related activity is not allocated in the manner outlined and thus the information requested is not held centrally.

Biodiversity-related work in Scotland is funded by a range of public, private and third sector sources. These include:

• £209 million has been committed since 2015 through the Agri-Environment Climate Scheme (AECS) under the Scottish Rural Development Programme and extension of the current contracts is likely to ensure a further £6 million is invested next year. This will allow environmentally friendly agricultural practices to continue on around 180,000 hectares. It will also allow over 200 AECS contracts benefitting designated sites to be maintained which is critical for vulnerable priority species.
• AECS Commitments for the 2020 claim year in islands and remote rural areas totalled £11,000,742, just over a quarter of the total for Scotland, comprising £1,874,405 capital and £9,126,337 revenue funding.
• Our 2018 Programme for Government introduced a new Biodiversity Challenge Fund administered by Scottish Natural Heritage with funding from the Scottish Government, which helps enable targeted action for priority habitats and species, to accelerate our efforts to meet international biodiversity commitments. Information on spend will be available at the end of 2020-21, taking into account the impacts of Covid-19 on projects.
• Peatland restoration, which locks up carbon and also benefits biodiversity, is being supported by a commitment to spend £250 million over the next 10 years. Information on expenditure this year will be available at the end of 2020-21, taking into account the impact of Covid-19.
• The Forestry Grant Scheme budget within the SRDP includes £20 million in 2020-2021 for woodland creation and management, which benefits biodiversity.
• The Water Environment Fund provides a further £5 million annually to improve the physical condition of water bodies.
• External sources of funding include EU LIFE, Interreg and the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Since 2012, SNH has leveraged more than £40 million in additional funding for nature and biodiversity projects through these funds and other project partners

The Budget 2020-21 and Level 4 budget information published alongside it provide an overview of how the Scottish Government’s resource and capital budgets are allocated. Significant amounts of the Budget are allocated through the formula basis for funding NHS Boards and local authority services and information about these budgets is also publicly available. Providing a complete picture of all capital and revenue expenditure would require detailed analysis at the level of individual programmes.

The National Islands Plan provides an overview of the programmes that have an impact in island and remote rural areas. The National Islands Plan and The Islands (Scotland) Act 2018 will continue to play an integral role in ensuring that our islands do not fall behind and miss the opportunity to adjust to a new post COVID world. The four principles of the Plan – fairness, integration, environmental protection and inclusiveness – will be central to how we plan to ensure islands are more resilient in the future.

I am very pleased to advise that NHS Highland has now agreed the details of its Healing Process. This has been developed and agreed collaboratively in consultation with representatives of the whistleblowers who first brought this to my attention as well as trade union representatives.

It is recognised that given the current Covid 19 situation it would not be appropriate to launch the process at this time. I do, however, very much welcome that the details of the process itself have been agreed. This means that those affected by the previous culture in the Board may access this Healing Process as soon as practically possible, and the Board have committed to reviewing commencement of the process at the end of May.

The Board is encouraging anyone impacted by bullying and harassment to visit a holding page on an independent website to help them decide whether or not they may wish to access the Healing Process. This includes NHS Highland staff, who have worked or are currently working in Argyll and Bute. I would also encourage staff to do this.

This website will go live shortly and can be accessed at www.healing-process.co.uk

I would like to again take this opportunity to thank the whistleblowers for bringing their concerns to my attention; and for working proactively with the Board to agree on how this may be addressed to allow staff to move forward.

The Scottish Government carefully considered the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee's report, Salmon Farming in Scotland and in early 2019, I provided a comprehensive response identifying a range of actions underway to tackle known challenges, including moving forward the often contentious dialogue between the farmed and wild salmon sectors by establishing the Salmon Interactions Working Group and improving fish health through the development of Scotland’s 10 Year Farmed Fish Health Framework.

I remain committed to delivering improvement to the policy and regulatory framework of Scottish aquaculture, such as the recent tightening of sea lice reporting and intervention thresholds at Scottish fish farms, to ensure the sustainability of this vital sector for Scotland.