Chamber and committees

Of the £2 million previously committed at COP26, £1.7 million has been delivered through grants. £1 million was grant funded to the Climate Justice Resilience Fund (CJRF). Created in 2016, CJRF is one of the first major funding initiatives framed explicitly around climate justice, and one of few philanthropic players that works internationally on climate resilience. They have been selected as they have extensive experience of delivering rapid, community-based finance to address climate justice.

Through the Scottish Government’s partnership with the CJRF, five project in the Global South have been grant funded grants to date; £233k to Young Power in Social Action (YPSA), £228k to Helvetas Bangladesh, £205k to Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC), £182k to Churches Action in Relief and Development (CARD) and £136k to the Loss and Damage Youth Coalition Youth Grantmaking Council (LDYGC).

Furthermore, £500k of the initial £2 million has been granted to The Scottish Catholic International Fund to directly support communities in our partner country, Malawi, facing losses and damage resulting from recent tropical storms. With participation and co-design at the heart of their programming, SCIAF and partners have built long-term relationships through the delivery of the SG funded Climate Challenge Programme Malawi with communities who are now experiencing severe loss and damages. SCIAF’s experience and existing relations will ensure Scottish Government funding has an immediate and much needed impact in Malawian communities.

Alongside grant funded projects on the ground, the Scottish Government identified a gap in global knowledge and understanding through extensive stakeholder engagement and as such, allocated part of the £2 million funding to further research on loss and damage. £75k has been awarded to the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) to investigate operationalising finance for Loss and Damage. A further £150k has been granted to the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) in Bangladesh for further research on loss and damage.

The following table shows the number of communities which have registered an interest in acquiring land, and the number of communities which have acquired land, under the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 (the Act) only, each year since 2003. Communities may receive funding from a variety of sources, including the Scottish Land Fund (SLF). The Scottish Government has funded the SLF since 2012.

The table also shows the amount of funding granted by the SLF each year to communities who acquired land under the Act. Note that not all communities which acquired land under the Act may have received funding from the SLF, and communities which acquired land through other means may have received SLF funding.

The Scottish Government undertakes monitoring and evaluation of all funded programmes once they are live. Monitoring and evaluation is used to assess progress against agreed targets so can only be done once a project has started and there is progress to assess.

For the £1.7 million worth of funded projects, and in line with standard Scottish Government grant-management practice, we hold monthly update conversations and formally assess progress on a quarterly basis based on formal progress reports. Project specific monitoring and evaluation plans are developed based on each individual grant’s objectives to determine indicators that will accurately measure progress.

Our programmes seek to empower communities to identify the priorities to be addressed through climate justice support and to build resilience to the local material and social impacts of climate change that they have identified. Fundamental in achieving that resilience is through our future programmes mainstreaming communities participation in programme implementation, monitoring and evaluation. This means communities, including the most marginalised within communities, participate in determining and monitoring the metrics and baselines by which a programme is deemed a success.

Our future programmes seek to mainstream communities participation in programme implementation, monitoring and evaluation. Our upcoming £24m Climate Just Communities programme will ensure that communities, including the most marginalised within communities, participate in determining and monitoring the metrics and baselines by which a programme is deemed a success.

The Scottish Government is monitoring with Creative Scotland the position of cultural organisations in the current crisis. The Creative Scotland board meets on 19 December to consider the option of using its UK National Lottery reserves to help maintain standstill funding for Regularly Funded Organisations through 2023-24.

This would include support for Eden Court which receives £500,000 per year. Creative Scotland will also offer ongoing flexibility in the use of existing Regular Funding, whilst also exploring support for organisations and the sector to innovate and explore new ways of working.

The Scottish Government recognises that this is an incredibly worrying time for the culture sector as a whole and is in regular dialogue with the sector. We are holding a series of roundtables including one planned for Inverness in January 2023.

The latest estimates from the Farm Business Survey suggest that in the accounting year 2020-21, the average Farm Business Income (FBI) for businesses in the survey was £39,347. This represented an increase of 20 per cent (£6,517) in real terms from 2016-17, when the average income was £32,830. FBI includes income from grants and subsidies; when these are excluded farms are, on average, not profitable. Figures for other years are shown in the following table.

This one off funding was allocated to organisations to help manage visitors in 2022 as we continue to recover from the Covid-19 Pandemic and manage increased domestic visitors to Scotland’s countryside. It has supported the following:

The Scottish Government remains committed to reforming crofting law. A decision on the timing of a Bill will be taken by Cabinet in the context of setting the content of future legislative programmes in the normal way.

The Crofting Bill Group was reinstated in May 2022, to consider crofting legislation, including those issues raised by the Crofting Bill Group in 2016-2018. Five meetings have taken place between June and November 2022. The Crofting Bill Group discussions will resume in early 2023.

The Scottish Government will continue to encourage creative industry tax reliefs, delivered by the UK Government, which includes the Video Games Tax Relief.

The Scottish Government is disappointed that the UK Government will be reducing the rates of Corporation Tax Relief for the culture sector, in particular the Theatre Tax Relief and Orchestra Tax Relief from 1 April 2023. We support calls for the higher rate of tax support to be extended, given the ongoing impact of the Cost Crisis which is hampering the Culture sector’s recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Angus Robertson, raised this issue when meeting with DCMS Secretary of State Michelle Donelan on Tuesday 13 th December.

Funding allocations for ventilation upgrades and maintenance will be at the discretion of each individual local authority or public body, on the basis of local needs and priorities whilst also fulfilling any statutory obligations where applicable.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-12739 on 13 December 2022. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

All of the 16 new R100 subsea cables connecting 15 Scottish islands - Colonsay, Iona, Lismore, Eigg, Eday, Flotta, Hoy, Rousay, Sanday, Shapinsay, Stronsay, Fair Isle, Unst, Whalsey and Yell – were laid during Summer 2022.

Planned post-laying activity is now continuing with work to establish terrestrial connections on those islands underway.