Chamber and committees

As the answer of 20 June set out, the Scottish Government is committed to promoting positive outcomes for workers and their rights. The Scottish Government engages regularly with the UK Government at a variety of levels in order to advocate for these outcomes, and to raise concerns where we see workers’ rights being threatened. For example, I wrote to the Secretary of State for Business and Trade recently to raise concerns that elements of the UK Government’s proposed approach to retained EU legislation could undermine workers’ rights. Scottish Government ministers have also repeatedly raised objections to the Strikes (Minimum Services Level) Bill.

While labour market enforcement is a reserved matter, the Scottish Government will not hesitate to raise concerns with the UK Government where necessary.

The Mossmorran industrial complex plays an important role in the local economy for Fife, and I am keen to see that role, and the many well-paid jobs and skills preserved through a just transition to net-zero.

Given the novel nature of industrial just transition planning, it is appropriate that it is tested, evaluated and improvements considered, before applying it to other areas. We will conduct an evaluation of the Grangemouth Industrial Cluster Just Transition Plan once complete, considering what learnings could be adopted in future work.

Just Transition is a key aspect of the Scottish Government’s approach to net-zero, and accordingly, focused work on key major industrial sites will put the participation of – and meaningful engagement with – operators, workers and community at its core.

Industry has a lot to gain from the process of Just Transition, as such, we welcome innovation and commitment, by industry, in this area.

Once again, I welcome Mr Ruskell’s work and the recently commissioned report exploring Just Transition options for Mossmorran.

Scotland remains at the forefront of the global journey to reach net zero emissions and a climate resilient future. We are committed to a just transition to net-zero by 2045 and within this, decarbonisation of industry is ‘mission critical’.

It is clear that we cannot maintain the status quo if we want to reap the benefits that the transition to net zero holds.

The next Climate Change Plan will extend Scotland’s emissions reduction planning pathway to 2040 and include estimates of the costs and benefits of the policies to achieve this.

However, many of the key levers to bring about large-scale industrial emissions reductions are reserved to UK Government. For example, we remain bitterly disappointed that there is still no timetabled solution for when UK Government will confirm Track-2 of the Cluster Sequencing Programme, which adds further delay and impacts progress against our climate change commitments.

Ensuring a Just Transition to net-zero is equally important. As you will be aware, the Scottish Government is in the process of developing a Just Transition Plan for the Grangemouth Industrial Cluster and following its completion, we remain committed to evaluating that approach to understand what ways Just Transition planning can be adopted for other sites.

The pharmaceuticals sector plays a crucial role in the growth and development of the life sciences sector and as a result is a key contributor to the growth and development of the Scottish economy.

The manufacturing of pharmaceuticals sector is an important source of entrepreneurial activity, supporting GVA and employment throughout Scotland. The pharmaceuticals sector is a key driver of innovation and productivity in the economy with a GVA per head of employment of £200,700 in 2020, more than 3 times the Scottish average.

Scotland’s National Innovation Strategy was published on 6 June 2023 and it identifies a number of key areas where Scotland has a competitive advantage and a strong research and business base. Health & Life Sciences is one of these areas and one of four broad innovation themes on which future activity will focus. The Scottish Government is fully committed to supporting the further growth and scaling of one of the biggest life sciences clusters in Europe and the pharmaceutical industry will play a crucial part in the sector’s development of world leading excellence, bringing in investment and creating jobs and opportunities across the country.

The Reaching 100% (R100) programme is ensuring that all homes and businesses can access superfast broadband. This commitment is being delivered through three strands of activity – the £600 million R100 contracts (North, Central and South), our R100 Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme (SBVS) and commercial coverage.

The R100 Central contract, which includes Fife, is currently expected to complete build by the end of March 2024. The contract has so far delivered 407 Fibre To The Cabinet connections in Fife, with all remaining connections expected to be full fibre, capable of delivering gigabit download speeds.

For those properties beyond the reach of the R100 contracts or commercial coverage plans, the R100 Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme – offering vouchers worth up to £5,000 – remains available to help secure a superfast broadband connection.

However, as the R100 SBVS is a demand-led scheme, it is not possible to provide dates by which people might be connected.

Likewise, for properties within the plans of commercial broadband suppliers, we do not hold data on when those connections will be delivered.

Circularity Scotland Limited is a private not for profit company set up by industry. As an independent private company, it is not required to report to the Scottish Government. Therefore the Scottish Government does not hold any information on expenditure incurred by Circularity Scotland during the financial year 2022-2023. Circularity Scotland is currently in administration. More information on this can be found at: Interpath Administrators appointed to Circularity Scotland Ltd (interpathadvisory.com) .

The Reaching 100% (R100) programme is ensuring that all homes and businesses can access superfast broadband. This is being delivered through three strands of activity – the £600 million R100 contracts (North, Central and South), our R100 Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme (R100 SBVS) and commercial coverage.

Both the R100 North and Central contracts will deliver connections across Perth and Kinross - with final connections due to be delivered through the contracts by March 2028. The R100 contracts are now solely delivering full fibre, gigabit capable connectivity, over 30 times faster than our superfast commitment.

For those properties beyond the reach of the R100 contracts or commercial coverage plans, the R100 Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme – offering vouchers worth up to £5,000 – remains available to help secure a superfast broadband connection.

However, as the R100 SBVS is a demand-led scheme, it is not possible to provide dates by which people might be connected.

Likewise, for properties within the plans of commercial broadband suppliers, we do not hold data on when those connections will be delivered.

We welcome the start of Hainan’s direct service between Edinburgh Airport and Beijing which we have promoted through our social media channels in China, with over 500,000 impressions to date. We wish Edinburgh Airport and Hainan every success with this service. The Scottish Government’s engagement with China continues to support political, economic, cultural, education, and social relationships with the people of China in keeping with the values of Scotland.

As part of the 2023-24 budget we have provided SCTS with £4.7m in additional capital funding, on top of their £8m baseline capital allocation. The additional £4.7m was identified within the Justice portfolio budget to support a number of priority SCTS capital projects, including towards the costs in 2023-24 of the replacement of the Office of the Public Guardian IT system, as part of wider modernisation and improvement in the work of the OPG. Work on the new OPG IT system is progressing as planned.

Circularity Scotland Limited is a private not for profit company set up by industry. As an independent private company, it is not required to report to the Scottish Government. Therefore the Scottish Government does not hold any information on day-to-day expenditure incurred by Circularity Scotland in May and April 2023.