Chamber and committees

The Scottish Fiscal Commission publish estimates and forecasts of the number of people receiving payments for Winter Heating Payment. The Scottish Fiscal Commission do not publish estimates and forecasts for the number of people receiving payments by area within Scotland. In their May 2023 publication it was forecast that a total of 403,000 people will receive payments in the financial year 2023-24.

Social Security Scotland publish statistics for the number of historic payments for Winter Heating Payment by Local Authority. Statistics for 2023-24 are not yet available.

Table 1: Number of payments for Winter Heating Payment made in Winter 2022-23 by Local Authority area

Scotland and the EU share a high ambition for nature, and are both putting in place the actions required to meet the targets set out in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework agreed in December 2022. The EU’s provisional agreement on nature restoration seeks to restore 20% of EU’s land and sea.

Scottish Government research shows that an estimated 340,000 single-use period products are incorrectly disposed of every day in Scotland. Sewage treatment facilities will remove a portion of these, however it is known that some will reach the marine environment. Although there is no differential impact specifically caused by period products, plastic pollution in general has a significant, negative impact on the marine environment, and incorrectly disposed of period products are part of that litter problem. In recognition of that, the Scottish Government has actions within the Marine Litter Strategy to tackle the issue of marine litter caused by sanitary items.

Local authorities have statutory responsibility for assessing and evidencing housing need and demand, and setting out through local housing strategies and local development plans the housing requirements for their area. We have committed to delivering 110,000 high quality, energy efficient affordable homes by 2032 and work closely with a wide range of housing partners including local authorities, to ensure the delivery of homes to meet the housing needs of communities across Scotland. The Minister for Housing engages regularly with Homes for Scotland to discuss a wide range of issues and most recently met on 7 November.

The Scottish Stroke Care Audit Standards are outlined in the Scottish Stroke Care Audit. NHS Boards’ performance against these standards are reported on via the Scottish Stroke Improvement Programme Annual Report . Each NHS Board operates in a unique set of circumstances and we expect Boards to identify aspects of their stroke services which do not meet the Scottish Standards and work to improve their standards of care locally.

The Scottish and UK Governments are currently working collaboratively with regional partners to develop proposals with distinct sectoral focus to maximise cluster building, innovation and economic growth.

The proposals – which are in the early stages of development – will link to existing regional economic strategies, recognising the pipeline of skills required for priority sectors, and will include an attractive package of levers aimed at encouraging new businesses to locate in the regions providing opportunities for talent attraction, which will contribute positively to meeting current and future skills requirements.

The Scottish Government has received a number of requests from the UK Covid-19 Inquiry under Rule 9 of the Inquiry Rules Act 2006 and has been asked not to disclose the evidence that has been requested or provided, as have all core participants.

As a result, the Scottish Government is unable to confirm or comment on the details of any Rule 9 requests to individuals.

The Scottish Government remains fully committed in its cooperation with both the UK and Scottish Covid-19 Inquiries in their independent work to explore the handling of the pandemic and to identify the vital lessons we all need to learn.

Where flaring and venting is required as an operational safety feature in onshore industrial activities, the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) act as independent regulators at regulated sites in Scotland. SEPA requires operators to prevent, or where that is not possible, to reduce emissions due to flaring and venting by the use of best available techniques.

Policy in relation to flaring and venting on offshore oil and gas platforms is reserved to the UK Government. The North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) acts as the regulator with the relevant legislation requiring offshore operators to have the correct consents in place for the flaring and venting during production operations. The NSTA has a goal of reaching zero routine flaring by 2030 or sooner.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-23070 on 04 December 2023. 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.

The Al-Mahdi Foundation received £372k of Climate Challenge Fund (CCF) grant funding for 2 projects between 2014-2020 to support awareness raising of climate change issues amongst disadvantaged and ethnic minority communities and to make their community building more energy efficient.

The CCF was delivered by Keep Scotland Beautiful who were responsible for assessing all applications. Grant applications were subject to the relevant due diligence checks. Projects were monitored to ensure they delivered against their objectives and grants were paid out based on incurred expenditure.

National Security is a reserved matter. If there is any evidence of alleged criminality this should be reported to Police Scotland.