Chamber and committees

The £8.7 million has been spent on a programme of design and development works for the scheme with Network Rail, who is taking this project forward on the Scottish Government’s behalf. A breakdown is retained by Network Rail and you may wish to contact Network Rail directly. However, some parts of the requested breakdown may relate to commercially sensitive information which it would be inappropriate to share before a procurement exercise for the works.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6O-03094 on 21 February 2024. Answers to Oral parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at Meeting of the Parliament: 21/02/2024 | Scottish Parliament Website .

It is an offence under Section 14 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 to release any type of pig, including wild boar. It is also an offence to allow them to escape from captivity.

The primary responsibility for controlling feral pig populations in the wild lies with land managers who should work in partnership with local communities.

Further information on feral pigs can be found on the NatureScot website at Managing feral pigs in Scotland | NatureScot .

Funding to support place-based regeneration programmes has been set at £45.8m for 2024-25 of which £23m is required to meet contractual commitments for Regeneration Capital Grant Fund (RCGF) and the Vacant and Derelict Land Investment Programme (VDLIP) projects.

Ministers are considering implications of the budget and options for the distribution of the remaining capital budget allocation. As such, the planned investment panel and subsequent funding decisions on Round 11 Stage 2 of the Regeneration Capital Grant Fund are currently on hold and we will clarify how the regeneration capital budget will be allocated in due course.

Health Boards and Health and Social Care Partnerships are responsible for the delivery of primary medical services in their areas and for any evaluation of the sufficiency of those services.

Transport Scotland's Transport Assessment Guidance (2012) is the current guidance for conducting transport assessments for planning applications. We are currently monitoring the practical implementation and impact of policies contained within National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) and considering whether, and what, amendments to the transport assessment guidance may be required.

The Scottish Government supports new woodland creation on privately owned land through the Forestry Grant Scheme. Planting is recorded against financial years and in 2022-23, that last year for which published data is available, all recorded new woodland creation in Scotland was supported by Forestry Grant Scheme funding. Many of the new woodland creation schemes in 2022-23 benefited from other sources of funding, although no significant new woodland creation took place without Forestry Grant Scheme funding.

Whilst other sources of funding improve the attractiveness of woodland creation to landowners and can reduce the level of public funding required, we would expect very little new woodland creation on private land to be delivered in 2024-25 without receiving some support from the Forestry Grant Scheme.

The Fair Work Working Group (FWWG) continues to explore ways to promote all aspects of fair work across the sector, finding common ground on good fair work practices which will be both meaningful and impactful and will encourage retail businesses to demonstrate their commitment to the Fair Work principles.

New Year's Day trading can be discussed and non-legislative routes explored in relation to the approach on fair work if the FWWG members choose to do so as part of their regular discussions and as they continue to collaborate on the fair work action with the trade unions and industry stakeholders through the Retail Industry Leadership Group.

I would refer the member to the answer given by my colleague the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice to question S6W-23223 on 12 December on the issue of the timing of funding decisions, and reiterate that we have committed, as part of developing an approach to fairer funding for the third sector, to deliver improvements in grant-making arrangements, including providing greater clarity and consistency of practice.

We understand that organisations, including local authorities and third sector organisations, need timely grant decisions and payments in order to reduce financial uncertainty and effectively resource delivery. In line with the commitment given by the First Minister, we are working, within the context of the Scottish Budget process, to issue notifications of funding arrangements as soon as is practicably possible.

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 .

We do not have statistics on how many charge points have been specifically installed on the trunk road network in each of the last three years.

According to a 2023 report commissioned by Transport Scotland there were 182 rapid/ultra-rapid charge points (>50kW) located within 100 metres of the trunk road and motorway network.

According to UK Department for Transport statistics the number of rapid/ultra-rapid chargers in Scotland in each of the last three years was as follows: January 2022 – 707; January 2023 – 947; January 2024 – 1,172. Not all of these are located close to trunk roads.