Chamber and committees

The legal function of a grazing committee is to maintain the common grazing for the benefit of the crofters who share in it, and to manage the interests of those crofters.

The management and control of common grazing land, where there are many inter-acting rights, including those of crofters, landowners and grazings committees, requires safeguarding. The purpose of legislation is to ensure that these rights are kept in balance and that everyone’s rights are protected.

We will consult on the Bill proposals in due course and will consider all views as part of Bill development.

Scottish Government fund the Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme (SMASS) which already undertakes investigations into the cause of death of marine animals (e.g. dolphins, whales, porpoises, seals, turtles and basking sharks) stranded around the Scottish coastline. Samples and data are collected at the strandings location and carcases are collected for further investigation via necropsy following a risk-based approach.

The Scottish Marine Animal Strandings Scheme (SMASS) at the University of Glasgow, is funded by the Scottish Government to provide a coordinated approach to the surveillance of marine species (e.g. cetaceans, seal and basking sharks) strandings around the Scottish coast with the aim of investigating major causes of death.

A mass stranding event is described as incidents involving two or more cetaceans (porpoise, dolphins and whales). Since 1 January 2021, the SMASS programme have reported 14 mass stranding incidents, where cause of death has been attributed to live stranding. This includes the recent stranding of 54 long-finned pilot whales on the Isle of Lewis. In all cases, a selection of the animals underwent post mortem examination to assist the investigation into potential factors surrounding the cause of death.

All annual reports are published at https://strandings.org/publications .

The response to the mass stranding event of 54 pilot whales at Tolsta, Isle of Lewis last month was led by the Scottish Government-funded Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme (SMASS) at the University of Glasgow. Examinations and samples were undertaken on all stranded animals, and full post-mortem examinations were completed on a subset of animals.

Investigations are ongoing, with the aim of understanding potential factors that could have contributed to the animals’ death. The results will be published in due course.

The spending on RET is not recorded separately. Since the start of new Clyde & Hebrides Ferry Service contract in 2016, Transport Scotland pays CalMac Ferries Limited, as the operator, a monthly grant payment which covers costs to operate the network as a whole. This is not broken down by individual routes. Previous evaluations have suggested that RET fares save users around £25m per year compared to pre-RET fares.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information. It is statutory responsibility of local authorities to manage and maintain their school estate.

Scotland is committed to reaching net zero and to ensuring the journey is fair and just for everyone.

The draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan lays out over 150 actions, as well as consulting on further actions, to help maximise a just transition to net zero for our economy, communities, business and workers

Decarbonising industry is critical to our climate goals and the infrastructure and expertise at Grangemouth will play a key role. That is why we have committed to delivering a dedicated Just Transition Plan for the Grangemouth industrial area.

We will work closely with industry, unions, the workforce and the community to make sure they have a say in the plan for Grangemouth’s future.

Providing the support that people need to move towards, into and to sustain work is a key aspect of building a fairer and more equal society. I am pleased to confirm that from 1 April 2024, following the end of referrals to Fair Start Scotland in March 2024, employability support for disabled people and those at risk of long-term unemployment will be provided through No One Left Behind.

Learning and evaluation must continue to underpin our ambitions and I welcome today’s publication of the Implementation Evaluation of No One Left Behind and the Young Person’s Guarantee, which offers valuable insight on how we continue to build upon the strengths of local delivery and good practice.

The work of the fiscal transparency programme, including the development on an online fiscal portal is a key part of the Fiscal Openness and Transparency commitment in Scotland's third Open Government National Action Plan Scotland's Open Government action plan: 2021 to 2025 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

Progress towards milestones in each commitment is regularly reported to the Open Government Steering Group in Scotland. These progress reports are published on the Scottish Government website: Commitment overview - Open Government action plan 2021 to 2025 - commitment 1: fiscal openness and transparency - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Highlighting action taken by the fiscal transparency programme to develop an online fiscal portal, in January 2023 a prototype portal was delivered, using existing data on infrastructure investment spending. This early pilot work has enabled the team to test the concept and understand better what it will take to develop it further. The programme team is now moving to the next phase of its work, with aim of delivering an internal product providing access to data on budget allocations, infrastructure spending and procurement data by the end of 2023. Following on from this it is the intention to turn the internal product into a public facing service, subject resource availability.

I am aware there is considerable interest in and support for this work from a range of users of Government data - including internally within Scottish Government, the wider public sector, Parliament, research and civil society organisations. It is the aim to follow the money through all aspects of the government’s systems and processes but it will take many years to deliver on this ambition. Following my predecessor's update on the progress of the portal (in correspondence to Convener of the Finance and Public Administration Committee on 20 March) on 10 May, officials presented a demonstration of the prototype portal for the Scottish Parliament's Finance and Public Administration Committee and Public Audit Committee clerks, the Scottish Parliament's Information Centre, Audit Scotland, the Fraser of Allander Institute, the Open Government Partnership, Equalities and Human Rights Budget Advisory Group, and the Scottish Human Rights Commission.

I have been pleased to see this engagement with stakeholders, from the initial Discovery project, through the co-creation and oversight of the fiscal openness and transparency commitment in Scotland’s third Open Government National Action Plan, to the recent engagement on the online portal development. The team will continue its stakeholder engagement through the next stages in the development of the online fiscal portal, which, where appropriate, will include opportunities to become involved in user testing.