Chamber and committees

Abellio ScotRail (at the time), Network Rail and Transport Scotland were all involved in the development work leading to the publication of the Decarbonisation Action Plan ( Rail Services Decarbonisation Action Plan | Transport Scotland ) in July 2020. Battery trains, supported by partial electrification of routes were set out as an option alongside other forms of rail traction.

Transport Scotland and (now) ScotRail Trains Limited are regularly engaged in discussions over planning for the procurement of new zero emission rolling stock.

To inform the setting of sustainable rates for August 2022, COSLA and local authorities commissioned Ipsos Mori to carry out an independent cost collection exercise. This exercise will ensure that all local authorities have access to robust data on the costs of delivering funded ELC in private, third and childminding services.

Local authorities are currently reviewing their outputs from the exercise alongside the updated guidance on setting sustainable rates published on 26 May 2022. The guidance is clear that the findings of the cost collection exercise are only a part of the rate setting process, and local authorities will also consider local ELC market conditions and ongoing consultation with providers.

The COSLA Children and Young People Board has committed to local authorities being as transparent as possible on outputs from the survey, provided the data has the appropriate level of statistical confidence and confidentiality. The Scottish Government will also collect and publish data on rates for 2022-23 in the Autumn.

In early 2020, the Scottish Government asked the Electoral Commission to re-test the referendum question used in 2014. Work on this was paused due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

We have announced our intention to hold an independence referendum on 19 October 2023, and the Lord Advocate has made a reference to the Supreme Court.

We will undertake the necessary preparations for a referendum, including on question testing, at the appropriate time.

The workshop exploring the seven principles and deer management welfare was organised by the John Muir Trust and OneKind and attended by Scottish Government officials alongside colleagues from Forestry and Land Scotland and NatureScot.

As the Scottish Government did not organise the workshop, we do not have any minutes to publish. I understand however that OneKind will shortly publish a blog about the workshop on their website.

At a national level, there are two methods for monitoring of flowering plants: changes in plant distribution and changes in plant abundance.

In relation to the first method, the Botanical Society of the British Isles (BSBI) periodically publishes a complete Atlas of plant distributions, based on 10km square records gathered by volunteers.

Giant hogweed increased its distribution significantly in Scotland between 1930–69 and 1987–99. The increase was greatest in the eastern arable area and less pronounced in the Highlands and south Scotland. BSBI is due to publish its next Atlas in 2023. This will include changes in the distribution of plants between 1987-99 and 2000–2019.

Between 2010 and 2020, giant hogweed was recorded in thirty 10km squares where it had not been previously recorded. Giant hogweed is being controlled in more than half of these locations; the remainder are in locations where there is currently no coordinated control programme in place, and there is already giant hogweed nearby.

In relation to the second method, giant hogweed is not sufficiently abundant in the countryside to be detected by the National Plant Monitoring Scheme. Information on abundance of invasive plants is collected as part of individual control projects and is not collated centrally.

In 2017, ten Fisheries Trusts supplied information to the Rivers and Fisheries Trusts of Scotland (RAFTS) for an evaluation of effectiveness and lessons learned from catchment-scale invasive plant projects. Giant hogweed was the least prevalent and abundant of the invasive plants surveyed. Three Trusts reported it absent and a fourth discovered only one small instance of the plant. In all the other areas infestations averaged greater than 4,000 square metres. In Ayrshire giant hogweed had invaded 188,000 square metres. Giant hogweed is being controlled in all of these river catchments.

Responsibility for invasive non-native plants rests with landowners and occupiers. Under common law, there is an expectation that land owners should take reasonable steps to prevent invasive non-native plants growing on their land from causing a nuisance or injury to others. However, it is not a criminal offence for an owner or occupier to have invasive non-native plants growing on their land.

NatureScot can make species control agreements and orders to require control of invasive non-native species. This discretionary power is aimed primarily at preventing high impact invasive non-native species becoming established in and spreading within Scotland. For species that are already widespread, such as giant hogweed, NatureScot can offer species control agreements to support coordinated control programmes, where inaction on a particular land holding is jeopardising the success of the programme.

In the last ten years NatureScot has written to twenty-two land owners asking them to control giant hogweed, and to date there have not been any cases where a landowner has ignored such a letter or refused to cooperate with a coordinated control programme. In the majority of cases the landowner has allowed access for a third party to control giant hogweed on their land, or has carried out the control work themselves. In some cases NatureScot has allowed landowners more time to secure funds to control extensive areas of giant hogweed.

For example, NatureScot has entered into one species control agreement to control giant hogweed along the railway line north of Dunblane to prevent the plants from seeding onto the banks of the River Allan. This enabled Network Rail to prioritise plant control along this section of line within its annual maintenance programme. Network Rail’s control programme has been successful in reducing the extent of giant hogweed on the site but a small number of plants remained in 2021. The agreement comes to an end in 2022 and NatureScot will consider whether to extend the agreement or make a species control order.

Meetings of the Convention of the Highlands and Islands are open to the public and MSPs are welcome to attend and observe the proceedings.

The next meeting of the Convention of the Highlands and Islands is scheduled to take place on Monday 3 October 2022.

Marine Scotland – Licensing Operations Team requested advice from Marine Scotland Science ("MSS") and NatureScot on the reports provided by Seagreen Wind Energy Limited. MSS and NatureScot advised on the specifics of the noise monitoring carried out in respect of each clearance event with reference to National Physical Laboratory guidance; the mitigation implemented to reduce impacts to marine mammals and lessons learned that could be applied to future campaigns. Due to the small number of unexploded ordnance to be cleared, NatureScot advised that overall impacts from the clearance activity in terms of exposure to noise and behavioural disturbance were lower than predicted and well within the scope of the assessment submitted in support of the licence applications.

The Scottish Government does not hold statistics on the number of people staying in community based bail accommodation. Officials are currently exploring what further data could be practically recorded beyond the current information collated annually on total bail orders by gender and age and bail supervision cases by Local Authority areas.

The Scottish Government is committed to strengthening alternatives to remand and this year, alongside introducing electronic monitoring for bail, increased investment by £3.2m. We are continuing to work with partners to explore improvements, including the potential to further develop community based bail accommodation in the future .