Chamber and committees

Our international work provides us with significant opportunities to collaborate with like-minded partners, to share best practice, to learn from others and to help the Scottish Government develop and deliver effective policy at home. We have built links with international partners to discuss domestic interventions to tackle a wide range of issues, including demographic challenges and the conservation of biodiversity. In June last year, for example, we signed a memorandum of understanding with the Flemish Government to strengthen cooperation in a wide range of policy areas to support future collaboration and exchange best practice.

We will continue to engage with a variety of international partners on a range of policy areas, building on relationships where we already have strong links, such as in Europe and our near neighbourhood.

Since the publication of Scotland’s Arctic policy framework in 2019, the Scottish Government has helped establish Scotland as a valuable contributor to, and host of, Arctic dialogue. Edinburgh will be hosting Arctic Science Summit Week in March 2024 and the Scottish Government will continue to engage with Arctic partners to secure future opportunities for collaboration to enable delivery of the framework.

Our internationally focused work, both in Scotland and overseas, provides us with significant opportunities to collaborate and engage with like-minded partners, to share best practice, to learn from others and to help the Scottish Government develop and deliver effective policy at home. We will continue to build on our existing relationships through our network of offices in Europe, North America and China to seek a better understanding of common challenges and priorities across a variety of policy areas and to attract people to come to live, work, study, visit and do business in Scotland.

The Scottish Government is investing at least £100m more annually in culture and the arts by the financial year 2028-29. Through this increased investment we want to drive up opportunities for participation in creative pursuits, support the production of new works, and ensure that Scotland’s cultural output has platforms at home and abroad.

We are committed to publishing an International Culture Strategy in March 2024. This will set out a number of actions to support the international objectives and ambitions of Scotland’s culture sector.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

SPS does not operate minimum prison officer staffing requirements. SPS has agreed prison officer staffing complements which are tailored to the needs of each establishment and agreed in partnership with the Prison Officers Association (Scotland).

SPS workforce data is produced monthly after the conclusion of the previous month, the most up to date data available is as follows:

On 2 February 2023, SPS had 70.9 prison officer vacancies (a 2.2% vacancy rate) across the prison estate.

On 2 February 2024, SPS had 59 prison officer vacancies (a 1.8% vacancy rate) across the prison estate.

This is an operational matter for ScotRail.

Transport Scotland meets with Scotland’s Railway delivery partners on a regular basis to discuss works to maintain, renew and enhance rail infrastructure across the Scottish rail network including the mainland of the Highland and Islands region. Details of such works are Published in Network Rail’s Scotland Control Period 7 Strategic Business Plan (2024-2029) and Network Rail’s Scotland Enhancements Delivery Plan.

The Scottish Government has not conducted any region specific analysis, however we do not expect a significant increase in traffic numbers in any area.

This is an operational matter for ScotRail, its officials however inform us that they are looking for some short term solutions to improve the temperatures on these trains.