Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government welcomes non-UK citizens from all over the world, not only for their contribution to our economy and society, but for the diversity they bring to our communities. Scotland is stronger for our multi-culturalism and non-UK citizens are an important part of Scotland's future.

The Scottish Government launched the Stay in Scotland campaign in April 2019 to raise awareness of the UK Government's EU Settlement Scheme and encourage EU citizens who have made Scotland home to stay. The Stay in Scotland campaign provides practical information and support.

The EU Settlement Scheme is open to EU, EEA and Swiss citizens and close family members living in the UK. Turkish citizens are not eligible to apply to the scheme and will continue to follow separate immigration routes through the UK Government's transitional agreement if the UK leaves the EU. The UK Government have stated in relation to Turkish citizens that:

"as a transitional agreement, the UK will seek to replicate the effect of the European Communities Association Agreement (ECAA) arrangements for the resident Turkish population. Allowing resident ECAA workers and ECAA business persons and their family members to apply for further leave with similar eligibility requirements as they have now, and apply to settle in the UK."

The Scottish Government therefore currently has no plans to extend the Stay in Scotland campaign to Turkish citizens living in Scotland, as this resource provides information and support for those directly affected by the EU Settlement Scheme. However, we will keep this situation under review.

We want everyone to have a safe, warm place to live and we are committed to ending homelessness in Scotland.

The joint Scottish Government and COSLA Ending Homelessness Together Action Plan, published in November 2018, sets out the steps we are taking to make sure that anyone facing homelessness is supported into a permanent, settled home that meets their needs as quickly as possible.

We have committed £32.5 million from our £50 million Ending Homelessness Together Fund and the health portfolio to support local authorities with the transition to a Rapid Rehousing model including Housing First for those with complex needs.

We will continue to work in partnership with all Local Authorities to ensure that we achieve our shared ambition to end homelessness and rough sleeping in Scotland.

Scotland already has some of the strongest rights in the world for people experiencing homelessness with everybody found to be homeless legally entitled to housing.

It is the role of the Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR) to monitor, assess, report on the performance of the housing activities of local authorities and registered social landlords, including their compliance with homelessness legislation. The SHR also have a range of intervention powers that they can exercise, where it is appropriate to do so.

In addition, the Minister for Local Government, Housing and Planning has met with local authorities where there have been breaches of their legislative duty, to explore the issues faced and identify solutions.

Since 2018, more than £2 million has been provided to NHS Boards and third sector partners for breastfeeding support in order to improve the quality of breastfeeding support and the breastfeeding experiences of mothers. This includes training for peer support programmes and the introduction of the Breastfeeding Friendly Scotland scheme.

In addition our Maternal and Infant Nutrition Framework (2011) outlines the measures that should be taken by all organisations working with families to ensure that every parent is supported to give their baby the very best nutritional start in life and asks NHS Boards to report annually on progress. Since 2011, the Scottish Government has invested more than £18.1m (£2.3m per year) directly to NHS Boards for implementation of the Maternal and Infant Nutrition Framework, of which breastfeeding support is a key component.

The Scottish Government will work closely with NHS National Services Scotland to establish an internationally recognised Centre of Excellence for reducing risks in the healthcare built environment. The detailed workings of this new body, announced on 3rd September 2019 have not been agreed yet, but I will provide further information once it has been established.

The Breastfeeding etc. (Scotland) Act 2005 makes it illegal to stop a mother feeding her child, under the age of 2 years, either by breastfeeding or bottle feeding, in premises where the public has general access (including licensed premises if the child is lawfully permitted to be there).

The Equality Act 2010 gives the same protection for breastfeeding children over the age of 2 years, supporting families for the duration of feeding.

Local authorities already possess Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) powers and a number of authorities have utilised these in recent years to take possession of empty and derelict residential properties in order to bring them back into use or to replace them with modern affordable housing. We are committed to supporting authorities to utilise their existing CPO powers and in the past 2 years have:

• published a new suite of guidance that takes authorities through the CPO process from beginning to end;
• met with around 26 local authorities to discuss the potential use of CPO;
• published a series of case studies on the use of CPO – including for empty homes;
• held a training event with the Empty Homes Partnership on the use of CPO for empty homes; and
• hosted three training and good practice sharing events for local authority staff on the use of CPO more generally, which were attended by over 200 delegates.

In addition, we have empowered communities to address the problems caused by vacant properties. The Part 3A Community Right-to-Buy allows communities to buy buildings and land that are abandoned, neglected or detrimental. This is a compulsory purchase power, and if Ministers approve a community’s application, the owner must sell, whether or not they planned to do so.

Given the pressure for space in the legislative programme, and the potential implications of Brexit on parliamentary time, we do not expect to be in a position to legislate for compulsory sales orders (CSO) in this parliamentary session. Nevertheless we remain committed to introducing a new CSO power for local authorities. We will therefore now bring forward a package of proposals that addresses how authorities can assemble land, tackle problem properties and capture land value uplifts ready for the next administration to consider legislating on these matters.

Eligibility for funded early learning and childcare starts from the term after a child’s third birthday, although local authorities also have the flexibility to provide funded early learning and childcare before the statutory eligibility date, if they choose to do so. The eligibility criteria prioritises those children who stand to benefit the most in the first instance, through statutory eligibility for some 2 year olds.

The eligibility criteria also means that children born in January or February are able to access an additional year of funded early learning and childcare when they are four, if the parent choses to defer the child’s entry to primary school.

Preventing and eradicating all forms of violence against women and girls, including domestic abuse and forced marriage, is a priority for the Scottish Government. We are working collaboratively with COSLA and key partners to implement Equally Safe, our strategy in this area.

We are committed to ensuring that women and children who have experienced domestic abuse have access to support. Through our Equally Safe Fund, we’re investing £5.6m in initiatives which include front line services for women and children, and we are continuing to fund the National Domestic Abuse and Forced Marriage Helpline. As part of the commencement of the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018, which created a “course of conduct” offence for the first time – enabling physical, psychological and controlling behaviour to be prosecuted at once, we have invested in a significant programme of capacity building in partnership with Police Scotland. We have also worked closely with justice partners and third sector services to ensure readiness for implementation of the new offence and the ability to respond effectively to the needs of survivors. We are working closely with key partners through our Forced Marriage Network to identify further work in this area, and have committed to refreshing statutory guidance previously issued under the Forced Marriage (Scotland) Act 2011.