Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government Office in Paris has operated with 3 members of staff since its establishment in 2018.

Scotland really is a land of food and drink, with so many high quality and delicious products, renowned and sought after at home and internationally. That’s why making the most of the fantastic food and drink produced here in Scotland has always been at the heart of the Scottish Government’s food policies.

We want everyone to have the opportunity to enjoy food and drink produced locally and for producers of all sizes to access the markets on their doorsteps. So today, the Scottish Government is publishing "Local Food for Everyone: Our Journey" – our Local Food Strategy.

This Strategy has been developed following the Local Food for Everyone consultation and outlines how the Scottish Government and partners will ensure the people of Scotland continue to have access to the best produce Scotland has to offer.

I want to thank everyone who has contributed their thoughts, views, ideas and experiences to help inform the development and content of the Strategy.

Link to "Local Food for Everyone: Our Journey" https://www.gov.scot/isbn/9781835217696

The Scottish Government continues to deliver on its commitment to build the case for an independent Scotland in the EU, giving people the information they need to make an informed choice about their future, as set out in the recent Programme for Government. I’m pleased to confirm that on 2 February we are publishing ‘Our Culture in an Independent Scotland’.

This is the tenth paper in the Building a New Scotland series, which focusses on Scotland’s cultural and creative industries, providing detailed proposals on how an independent Scotland would further support Scotland’s creative economy, how an independent Scotland could realise the potential of our culture and creative sectors on the international stage by re-joining the European Union and removing barriers for international performers, how public service broadcasting would be protected with independence, and how Scotland can build on the strength of our screen sector.

I can also confirm that we intend to bring the matters raised in this publication forward for a debate in the Chamber as soon as possible.

The Scottish Government is continuing to prepare further papers in the Building a New Scotland series and these will be published in the coming months.

The Our Culture in an Independent Scotland paper will be available to view on the Scottish Government website from Friday morning at www.gov.scot/newscotland .

To improve Scotland’s ferry, the Scottish Government have committed to investing around £700m in ports and vessels. This includes 6 new major vessels for the Clyde and Hebrides Ferry Service (CHFS) fleet before the end of this Parliament session.

Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited and CalMac Ferries Ltd continue to seek additional tonnage. The current charter of the MV Alfred is an example of this, as a resilience vessel on the CHFS network.

We continue to provide resilience funding to CalMac Ferries Ltd to enable additional works and upgrades to vessels where required. This is on top of the funding included in the annual subsidy to CalMac Ferries Ltd for vessel maintenance.

It is not possible to provide an accurate cost for the USA office launch event, as we no longer hold relevant records dating back to 2001 when the office was established.

Sandeel aid the long-term sustainability and resilience of the marine environment and are an important food source for many species, including marine mammals, seabirds and predatory fish. It is therefore critical that we manage our marine environment in a such a way as to ensure its sustainable use, protecting biodiversity and ensuring healthy functioning ecosystems. I am therefore pleased to announce today that following full consideration of the all the consultation responses, we will be proceeding with prohibiting fishing for sandeel in all Scottish waters.

I would like to thank everyone that responded to the consultation. We received a total of 494 written representations from individuals and organisations including the fishing sector, renewable energy developers and recreational interests covering a range of issues, as well as 9,815 campaign submissions. This emphasises the strong interest from both the public and sectors, for which there was overwhelming support for the option to prohibit fishing for sandeel in Scottish waters with 97% or respondents indicating support.

The Sandeel (Prohibition of fishing) (Scotland) Order 2024 will be laid in Parliament on 5 February 2024 and will come into force on 26 March 2024 ahead of the 2024 fishing season.

As set out in our draft budget the capital funding position is extremely challenging, with a UK Government cut of some 10% in our capital budget over the next five years. That has inevitably led to some difficult decisions on what capital projects will be progressed.

Kincardine and Lochgelly Medical Centres were not included within the Infrastructure Investment Plan 2021-22 to 2025-26, which identified the priority health capital projects for funding within that period. The Scottish Government will bring forward a revised Infrastructure Investment Plan in the spring, alongside the medium-term financial strategy, at which point we would hope that the fiscal outlook will be clearer.

The Scotland House London launch event cost £9,456, which includes hire of venue and equipment.

It is not possible to provide an accurate cost for the China office launch event, as we no longer hold relevant records dating back to 2005 when the office was established.

The Copenhagen office launch reception cost £10,339, which includes venue hire, catering, and entertainment.