The Scottish Government supports several small bodies that provide Scots language teaching resources for use in schools. Education Scotland and the Open University also make an important contribution to this. In addition, the Scottish Languages Bill, currently making its way through Parliament includes Scots provisions which will strengthen this support. In relation to Scots provisions, the Bill will also require Scottish Ministers to consult with those that have an interest in both the promotion of Scots and in the publication of Scots books and resources. We are confident that these measures will improve the resources available for teaching Scots in the classroom.

I understand and share the Member's frustrations on the Ardrossan Harbour redevelopment, as do my Officials working on the project. The business case work and overall delivery of the project needs to be supported by the financial packages from each of the main funding partners. It is imperative therefore that these and the legal agreements are clearly defined, affordable and ensure value to the public purse.

During recent discussions with funding partners there have been some emerging issues in relation to the funding packages and costs to Government that require further investigation and to be concluded before the business case can be finalised.

Officials are progressing these matters as quickly as possible and will look to provide respective updates when notable progress is made.

The Scottish Government has had ongoing engagement with the wave and tidal energy sectors during the development of the Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan, including a Marine Energy Industry Roundtable event hosted by Scottish Renewables alongside key industry representatives. In addition, we received 346 responses from stakeholders to the consultation questions on marine energy in the draft ESJTP, which are being considered as we produce the final strategy.

I am advised that while it is too early to say how Clyde Metro will impact on the rail network, the Clyde Metro project team, led by Strathclyde Partnership for Transport, has been engaging with ScotRail and Network Rail as part of the early work on the on-going Case for Investment stage. This engagement will continue throughout this key stage, which will define the Clyde Metro network.

The Scottish Government currently has no plans to introduce a HGV overtaking ban on either of the two lane sections of the M8 motorway.

The National Marine Plan 2 (NMP2) aims to support sustainable development of our seas, protect our marine environment, and deliver for Scotland’s communities, in particular those living by, relying on, and visiting Scotland’s seas. The NMP2 will support our blue economy vision, helping to tackle the twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change and realising the opportunities from the transition to net zero.

The NMP2 is already in development and stakeholder engagement has commenced on the plan policies, objectives and supporting assessments. Stakeholder involvement at every stage is essential to ensure that Scotland’s marine planning framework can continue to support sound decision-making to guide the future use of our seas. To maximise opportunities to meaningfully engage with stakeholders in the design of the Plan, the delivery timeline for the NMP2 and the accompanying Statement of Public Participation (SPP) have been updated.

Later in 2024, consultation on a marine Planning Position Statement will take place. This is a new stage of the NMP2’s development and will provide an invaluable and earlier opportunity for meaningful discourse. The Statement will set out the views gathered from stakeholders to date, and the Scottish Government’s commitments and aspirations for the new Plan. This will align the development of NMP2 with the approach taken for the National Planning Framework (NPF4), where consultation on the NPF4 position statement was carried out in 2021 and used to inform the development of the draft NPF4.

The feedback gathered from consultation on the statement and from the ongoing programme of stakeholder engagement will be used to produce a draft plan. The draft NMP2 will then be subject to public consultation in 2025.

These documents and further information are available at:

•  Statutory Statement of Public Participation

ScotRail has been recruiting more staff to minimise reliance on staff working on rest days or overtime. ScotRail now employs 250 more train drivers than it did prior to public sector ownership. In addition, 160 Train Drivers are currently being recruited, the highest number ever, and ScotRail plans to continue its recruitment for Train Drivers in the coming years.

All ScotRail staffing costs including the funding for the planned recruitment are reflected in the current Transport Scotland rail budget for the financial year‎ 2024-2025.

The Scottish Government is committed to developing a voluntary code of practice on dismissing and replacing land-owning land maintenance companies (“the Code”).

Whilst work on the development of the Code continues, other work pressures have impacted the rate of progress.

The Scottish Government has provided consistent support for the marine energy sector for more than a decade, for example through our work with the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), based in Orkney, which is the world’s only fully accredited test and research centre for wave and tidal energy. However, the main levers for enabling the commercialisation of these emerging technologies lie with the UK Government. The UK Government’s Contracts for Difference Allocation Rounds 4 and 5 highlight Scotland’s pioneering role in the tidal stream energy and its potential in our future net zero energy system. We welcome the recently announced £15 million ring-fenced support for tidal steam projects and look forward to working with the UK Government to ensure these technologies are supported through the scheme.

In November 2022 the Ministerial Population Taskforce published the research report ‘Attitudes to Family Formation in Scotland’ to update the evidence base about fertility, family planning, and ideal family size in Scotland.

Building on international engagement with other countries experiencing low birth rates, the Scottish Government is taking forward comparative work about family friendly policies in other European countries, to establish if successful interventions elsewhere could be applicable in Scotland.

The outputs of this work will be considered alongside recent Census data in order to develop next steps which reflect Scottish Ministers’ ambition for Scotland to be the best possible place for all families.