Chamber and committees

Zoopla published a report titled “ Rents for new lets rise 10.3% over the last year ” on 03 October 2023, covering changes in average rents for new tenancies over the latest year to September 2023. This report is based on newly advertised rental data and does not include trends in rents for existing tenancies, and does not therefore cover trends in rents for the whole private rented sector in Scotland.

This report states that the average monthly advertised rent for 1 to 4 bedroom properties on the open market in Scotland in September 2023, was £750, 36% cheaper than the average rent across the UK as a whole of £1,164, and lower than the average rent figures across each of the UK countries and regions of England except for Northern Ireland (£744) and the North East of England (£649).

The report also states that these rents in Scotland increased by 12.8% in the last year to September 2023, similar to the corresponding increases in some other regions in England and Wales, with increases of 10% and above in the West Midlands (10.1%), Wales (10.2%), the North West (11.3%) and London (11.5%).

The Scottish Government considers that there are a wide range of factors contributing to high increases in private rents in Scotland and across the UK. The Programme for Government confirms the intention to introduce a Housing Bill to deliver a New Deal for Tenants, including the introduction of long-term rent controls for the private rented sector to address large increases in rents both during and between tenancies in Scotland.

The Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022 provides stability of rents for the majority of existing tenants in the private rented sector in Scotland. Since 1 April 2023, rents for tenancies subject to the rent cap can increase by up to 3%, or landlords can apply to Rent Service Scotland for approval of an increase of up to 6% in specific circumstances. Our emergency legislation has led the way at a time when rents have been rising across the UK, stabilising rents to help tenants to stay in their homes. Anywhere else in the UK, private tenants have faced a double impact of unfettered rent rises both during and between tenancies.

This emergency legislation is time-bound and temporary, and the ongoing necessity is regularly reviewed and reported on. The First Report , Statement of Reasons for the Act’s extension from March 2023, Statement of Reasons for the Act’s second extension from September 2023 and the latest Report covering the period 1 June to 30 September 2023 are available on the Scottish Government website.

The Scottish Government is aware the School Meals Coalition Global Summit took place in Paris on 18 and 19 October 2023, but as non-members did not attend.

We continue to work with COSLA and local authority partners to develop delivery plans. This includes consideration of funding, monitoring and reporting. At present local authorities are responsible for the management of their own digital assets and will have their own local processes in place to handle any repair or replacement.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring we have a comprehensive and high quality free school meal programme and we regularly work with other nations to ensure good practice is shared.

We have no plans at this stage to join the School Meals Coalition. For over a decade, Scotland has been actively involved with International School Meals Day which provides us with the opportunity to promote school meal uptake in Scotland and to showcase Scotland's model of school food provision and food education on the international stage.

To date 63 countries are engaged with International School Meals Day, each sharing their knowledge and experience of supporting children and young people to access balanced and nutritious school lunches to support their healthy growth and development.

The Scottish Government is advised on food safety and standards matters by Food Standards Scotland (FSS). They have advised that a formal post implementation review of the Honey (Scotland) Regulations 2015 has been delayed due to the need to prioritise EU exit related food law work, and more recently matters relating to the Retained EU (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023.

A post-implementation review is due to be undertaken as part of consideration of proposed EU changes to labelling requirements for blended honey. FSS has contacted honey producers in Scotland to ask for initial views on these proposals, and are working closely with policy officials on a UK basis to consider next steps.

In the meantime, FSS continues to monitor the effectiveness and suitability of the Honey (Scotland) Regulations 2015 through communication with stakeholders, including Local Authorities, businesses and consumers.

Membership of the expert group, remit/terms of reference and minutes of expert group meetings group will be published on the Building and Fire Safety Ministerial Working Group website once they have been agreed. A detailed programme of work is currently under development to establish a timeframe for reporting and will be agreed at the first meeting of the group on 28 November 2023.

Work is ongoing to finalise the guidance to promote the use of automatic fire suppression systems for historic building conversions to hotels in the non-domestic technical handbook and is expected to be published in November 2023.

I wrote to the Local Government Housing and Planning Committee on 27 October 2023 to set out the scope of the implementation update on short-term let licensing. In this letter I have committed to provide an update to Parliament in early 2024. A copy of this letter is available on the Scottish Parliament website at:

https://www.parliament.scot/-/media/files/committees/local-gov/correspondence/2023/shorttermlets27oct.pdf

It is not within Healthcare Improvement Scotland’s legal remit to assess decisions made nationally. Healthcare Improvement Scotland’s Community Engagement arm supports, ensures and monitors NHS Boards and Integration Authorities activity in relation to patient focus and public involvement in health services.

When decisions are made by the Scottish Government on NHS services, they are scrutinised through the Parliamentary process, the Health and Social Care Committee and Audit Scotland.

The Scottish Government’s Participation Framework provides information / guidance on relevant commitments to public participation that Scottish Government must adhere to. The Participation Framework supports Scottish Government to take decisions about how to open up opportunities for participation in ways that best suit the needs policy areas, the types of contribution being sought, and the characteristics and needs of the people being engaged with.

The Best Start emphasises parents as key partners in caring for their baby and aims to keep mothers and babies, and families together as much as possible in the crucial early weeks, with services designed around them.

The new model of care aims to minimise the separation of families, and to support parents with babies in neonatal care. We have a number of measures already in place to support families:

• Providing accommodation for parents to stay on or near neonatal units;
• Roll out of the Young Patients Family Fund (formerly the Neonatal Expenses Fund) to support families with the costs of travel, accommodation and food whilst their baby is in neonatal care;
• and
• Repatriating babies to their local neonatal units as soon as clinically possible.

Under the new model of care mothers in suspected extreme pre-term labour are transferred before they give birth (in-utero) to maternity units in the hospitals that have neonatal intensive care units. Experience from the Early Implementer Boards indicates that this will happen in the vast majority of cases. On occasion when it is not possible to transfer mothers before they give birth, the baby will be stabilised and transferred to a NICU by the specialist neonatal transport service ScotSTAR, and the mother will be transferred to the maternity unit in the same hospital as her baby.