Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is engaged in ongoing discussions with Public Health Scotland and the Scottish Commission for Learning Disabilities (SCLD) on how the Learning Disability Statistics Scotland (LDSS) report can be improved to provide the most precise picture of people with learning disabilities across Scotland. This includes consideration of publication timescales.

We understand the importance of reliable evidence and data about people with learning disabilities and are committed to improving the evidence base through our autism and learning/intellectual disability transformation plan 'Towards Transformation'.

This is a question for the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland. She advises me that that on 13 June 2023, there were 2,025 Registered titles in the Land Register of Scotland where the total footprint of the title exceeds 500 ha. Together, these titles comprise a combined footprint of 2,813,263 ha.

A further 256 draft titles which are currently undergoing registration for the first time look set to also exceed this threshold once registration is complete. The expected combined footprint for these titles will be around 448,361 ha, which may include rights which overlap with already registered titles.

The figures above include outright ownership as well as long-term leases.

A further 616 unregistered areas of land, each with homogenous ownership and an indicative extent over 500 ha, have been linked to a Sasines Search Sheet in the RoS Unlocking Sasines dataset. These unregistered areas comprise an indicative extent of 1,739,070 ha, with no overlapping rights present.

This is a question for the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland. She advises me that that transfers are divided between transfers for the monetary full market value of the property and transfers for discounted/non-monetary/other considerations. Separating transfers due to inheritance would require manual inspection of the deeds for each transaction. Figures are current on 13 June 2023.

A series of improvements have been implemented to NHS inform allowing for more dynamic, mobile-first content structures. These improvements allowed the Digital Mental Health Programme to test a range of content layouts to incorporate more video, imagery and interactive guides within the existing content templates. This work will also have wider benefits including a reduction in costs and time savings as content for NHS inform is maintained and developed.

The Scottish Government is aware of this drug, to date there have been two detections in Scotland that we have been made aware of through the Welsh WEDINOS programme.

Public Health Scotland, through their Rapid Action Drug Alerts and Response (RADAR) programme, are continuing to monitor this situation. Currently xylazine is not routinely screened for in police or post-mortem toxicology throughout the UK, but we will keep this under review and future decisions around adding this to toxicology screening in Scotland would be made by the RADAR pathology and toxicology network.

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD, the UK Government’s drug advisory body) New Psychoactive Substance committee are also monitoring the availability of this substance and are conducting an evidence review which will also inform action in Scotland. Public Health Scotland continue to lead on the ongoing development of RADAR which provides essential and real-time data on drug trends and harms to ensure a quick response to what is happening on the ground, including providing vital public health alerts, such as they issued around nitazenes in January 2023.

Yes. The £2m programme awarded in 2021, managed by Scottish Centre for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) went live with an initial £600,000 “digital pioneers” project funding call in April 2023. More information on the programme can be found here - https://tec.scot/programme-areas/digital-inclusion .

The costs are recorded against all the civil cases relating to the prosecutions arising from the acquisition and administration of Rangers FC. The table below details expenditure from both the concluded and pending actions and includes legal costs and expert evidence instructed by the Crown and excludes the settlements (which are detailed in the following table) and staff costs. Please note that staff costs are not routinely recorded against individual cases as staff frequently work across a number of different workstreams concurrently.

Scottish taxpayers with earnings below £27,850 will pay slightly less Income Tax in 2023-24 than if they lived elsewhere in the UK.

Our draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan sets out that in 2030, Scottish electricity demand that is not met from domestic renewable electricity generation could be met by other sources including energy storage, abated CCGT, or hydrogen. We anticipate that cross border transfers of electricity and interconnection to the wide diversity of technologies across the continent will continue to play a role.

Scotland has long been a net exporter of electricity. In 2022, Scotland exported 20.3 TWh, and imported around 1.5 TerrWatt hour of electricity, meaning that net exports of electricity were approximately 18.7 TerraWatt hours in 2022.

As well as scaling up renewables, we are taking action to our energy demand including our commitment to raise energy efficiency standards – so that all homes achieve at least EPC C by 2033. We are consulting this year on reforms to EPC for both domestic and non-domestic sectors to give more meaningful information on energy use. Over this Parliament, we have budgeted £1.8 billion to support the heat transition – that includes support for householders, businesses and communities.

In The Warren Report, (Jul/Aug 2022) Andrew Warren, chair of the British Energy Efficiency Federation said [QUOTE]: “My advice to Whitehall is simple. Whether you take the high road or you take the low road, you had best be copying Scotland’s initiatives.

The following table below details the settlement costs and expenses paid to litigants from all concluded civil cases relating to the prosecutions arising from the acquisition and administration of Rangers FC, broken down by financial year.