Chamber and committees

Electricity policy, including regulation of Great Britain’s electricity networks, is reserved to the UK Government.

According to the terms of their licence, network companies must treat all customers in the same way and cannot ‘ring-fence’ capacity for one group over another.

The Scottish Government has repeatedly called on Ofgem, the UK Government and the Electricity System Operator to ensure that networks are ready to support our just transition to net zero, including connection of community energy projects. Achieving this will require changes to the existing connection queue management processes to ensure that projects that are ready to connect are able to do so.

The Scottish Government wants to realise as many opportunities as possible for community energy and to maximise the benefits flowing to communities from our energy transition. That is why we continue to invest in CARES, which is currently putting a strong focus on heat decarbonisation while continuing to help communities assess their priorities for net zero activity, which can include potential opportunities for energy generation. Across all projects and technologies, CARES has advised over 900 organisations and offered £60 million in funding to over 680 projects. It has supported the installation of 57.9MW of renewable energy. In Na h-Eileanan an Iar, CARES has supported 44 projects and offered over £2.74 million in funding, which has supported the installation of 13.5MW of renewable energy.

The Scottish Government has commissioned independent research to consider how we create the right policy environment and target support in a way which maximises the contribution of community energy to a just transition. The outputs from this research will be used to inform future policy development and the support provided through CARES.

The Scottish Government’s National Treatment Centres (NTCs) programme will provide protected capacity for planned care for orthopaedic, ophthalmic and diagnostic activity. NTC Fife and NTC Highland have already opened this year with NTC Forth Valley and Golden Jubilee Phase 2 due to open later this year.

The original and actual / projected costs, as well as original and actual/projected opening dates are shown in the following table.

The Scottish Government welcomes the recent Scottish Animal Welfare Commission (SAWC) report on handheld remote-controlled training devices (e-collars).

We are considering all their findings carefully as part of our ongoing commitment to improve and enhance animal welfare.

Our Fuel Poverty (Scotland) Act 2019 came into law in July 2019.

It is the most ambitious fuel poverty legislation in the UK and sets challenging targets that in 2040 (including at local authority level) as far as reasonably possible:

• no more than 5% of households in Scotland are fuel poor,
• no more than 1% of households in Scotland are in extreme fuel poverty,
• the median fuel poverty gap of households in Scotland in fuel poverty is no more than £250 adjusted to take account of changes in the value of money.

This includes interim targets for 2035 and 2030 (which only require to be met at national level).

2035:

• no more than 10% of households in Scotland are in fuel poverty,
• no more than 3% of households in Scotland are in extreme fuel poverty,
• the median fuel poverty gap of households in Scotland in fuel poverty is no more than £300 adjusted to take account of changes in the value of money.

2030:

•  no more than 15% of households in Scotland are in fuel poverty,
• no more than 5% of households in Scotland are in extreme fuel poverty,
• the median fuel poverty gap of households in Scotland in fuel poverty is no more than £350 adjusted to take account of changes in the value of money.

Our Fuel Poverty Strategy published in December 2021 sets out a comprehensive range of actions to address the four drivers of fuel poverty, especially for those at highest risk, and in working towards meeting our statutory targets. These actions have been informed by evidence, including lived experience, and learning from the changing context in response to the global pandemic and climate emergency.

In addition, we are presently consulting on the strategy’s next steps with the Scottish Fuel Poverty Advisory Panel, established under the 2019 Act, and appointed in January 2022, to provide independent advice to Scottish Ministers on fuel poverty and scrutiny of our progress towards delivering 2040 fuel poverty targets.

The Scottish Government will continue to use the powers available to them to tackle fuel poverty, and has called on the UK government to assist in that goal by reforming energy regulation to address the root cause of fuel poverty which is the cost of fuel to households. The Scottish Government can mitigate some of the impacts of this root cause, but urgent action is required in reserved areas to bring the cost of fuel bills down.

The Scottish Government will continue to use the powers available to them to tackle fuel poverty, and has called on the UK government to assist in that goal by reforming energy regulation to address the root cause of fuel poverty which is the cost of fuel to households. The Scottish Government can mitigate some of the impacts of this root cause, but urgent action is required in reserved areas to bring the cost of fuel bills down.

The Scottish Government supports a wide range of research projects which investigate Scotland’s resilience to water scarcity. The Scottish Government’s Rural and Environment Science and Analytical Services Division (RESAS) funds the Centre of Expertise on Water (CREW), the James Hutton Institute and Scotland’s Rural College to conduct both short and long-term research projects.

There are ongoing and future research projects included in the 2022 RESAS funded 5-year strategic research programme, aimed at improving our understanding of seasonal water scarcity in Scotland and how we can change behaviours to build resilience to water scarcity. Many of these projects are at an early stage and the findings have not yet been published.

In addition, the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA), Drinking Water Quality Regulator (DWQR), and Scottish Water carry out their own complementary research into Scotland’s resilience to seasonal water scarcity.

In the following table, data on all restriction of liberty orders imposed since April 2013 is provided, covering two contractual periods of the current electronic monitoring service provider (G4S Monitoring Technologies & Services). The data set out shows “status at order end”, either: completed, revoked or expired.

Compliance with a restriction of liberty order is reported back by the monitoring provider to a court, and the court then determines what actions they wish to take in relation to that order, which may include continuing or revoking that order. A restriction of liberty order can be revoked by the issuing court for a number of reasons including: on appeal, on breach of a concurrent order, because a new offence had been committed or a breach of restriction of the liberty order has occurred. The outcome of a revoked order could include actions such as imposition of a further court order or imposition of custody. A breakdown of reasons for restriction of liberty orders being revoked or outcome of revocation, by issuing court, is not held.

The category of “expired” orders, includes orders where the outcome of any court consideration may not yet be known at the point the order ends. It will also include orders that were not being actively monitored at order end. Active monitoring could cease for reasons including: absence of the monitored person without consent, householder consent to monitor at that address being withdrawn or as the individual is otherwise absent for example they are already in custody or are in hospital.

Section 8 and section 8A of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 (the 1997 Act) make provision for civil non-harassment orders (NHOs).

Since 2018-2019, we have included data in the Civil justice statistics in Scotland on all legal remedies (craves) sought in the courts, including craves for civil NHOs.

In 2021-2022, 12 civil non-harassment orders were sought in the sheriff courts where the NHO was the principal crave in the proceedings and 55 were sought in the sheriff courts as ancillary craves in family proceedings. The available data for 2020-2021 indicates that there were 32 prosecutions and 31 convictions where the main charge related to the breach of a civil NHO.

We have placed the available data about the numbers of civil NHOs granted where the NHO was the principal crave, and the numbers of prosecutions and convictions for breaches of civil NHOs since 2008-2009 in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre under Bib. No. 64214.

The figures for the number of civil NHOs granted and for prosecutions and convictions for breaches of civil non-harassment orders are taken from the statistical information held by the Scottish Government. Figures in this area should be treated with caution as applications for civil non-harassment orders may be an ancillary crave in an initial writ and so may not always appear in the statistics. Section 3.2 of Civil justice statistics in Scotland 2021-22 (www.gov.scot) discusses the statistical approach to ancillary craves. In addition, there is separate provision for non-harassment orders to be issued in criminal proceedings.

As the answer to question S6W-15303 notes, the civil remedy of interdict, which can prohibit or restrain specified behaviour, is also available. In practice, interdicts are much more commonly sought than civil non-harassment orders. In 2021-2022, the most recent year for which we have published statistics , there were around 1300 craves for interdict in family procedure cases initiated in the sheriff courts.

Social Security Scotland routinely releases information on payments issued for Funeral Support Payment as part of quarterly official statistics releases.

Excel tables released as part of these publications include information on the value of payments issued by local authority and financial year.

The latest statistics on Funeral Support Payment were released on 16 May 2023 covering data to 31 March 2023. These statistics can be found at: https://www.socialsecurity.gov.scot/about/statistics/social-security-scotland-statistics-publications .

The information extracted does not provide for the differentiation between a closure of the road in both directions or when the road is only closed in one direction and each incident has been recorded as a ‘road closure.’

The length of closures (in hours / minutes) of the A9 between Inverness and Scrabster due to an accident between 2018 and 2023 (to date), month by month are detailed in the following table: