Chamber and committees

Both Scottish Ministers and the planning authority have a duty to ensure, whenever appropriate, that in granting permission for any development adequate provision is made for the preservation or planting of trees. In addition, a planning authority or the Scottish Ministers may make a Tree Preservation Order (TPO) if it appears to them to be expedient to do so and where relevant statutory tests are met.

The general principle under which the planning system operates in Scotland is that decisions should be taken at the most local administrative level unless there are compelling reasons for taking them at a higher level.

In line with this approach, Scottish Ministers will only use their powers with regards to tree preservation orders (TPOs) in exceptional circumstances where national issues of importance are raised. As such, we have no record of any TPOs made by Scottish Ministers since 2011.

More detail about tree preservation orders is available in Circular 1/2011: Tree Preservation Orders at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2011/01/28152314/0 .

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-12234 on 5 December 2022. All Answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

Licensing fees must not be set at a level greater than the amount necessary to recover establishment and running costs. Guidance to licensing authorities on setting licence fees is contained within Chapter 3 of our short-term lets licensing guidance part 2: Supporting documents - Short term lets - licensing scheme part 2: supplementary guidance for licensing authorities, letting agencies and platforms - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Guidance sets out that licensing authorities are expected to have regard to minimising licence fee costs. It also encourages licensing authorities to offer lower fees for home sharing and home letting licences than for secondary letting. However, the exact fee levels are a matter for licensing authorities, and will likely depend on a number of factors such as volume of short-term let activity in their area, approach to physical property inspections and geography.

Licensing authorities must review their fees from time to time to ensure that revenue from fees remains in line with the running costs of the licensing scheme, as required by Paragraph 15(2)(a) of schedule 1 to the 1982 Act, as inserted by the Licensing Order.

The breakdown of the information requested is not held centrally the collation of this information would incur disproportionate costs.

The Scottish Government does not hold data broken down by Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation, however, the data is set out below highlighting what percentage of primary schools are signed up to the Daily Mile initiative.

Subject to all costs being settled, we expect to issue the release on Scottish Government's attendance and expenses incurred at COP27 by the end of January 2023.

Recommendation 75 of the Deer Working Group report was that “the Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee of the Scottish Parliament should consider holding a short inquiry into the use of section 7 Control Agreements under the Deer (Scotland) Act 1996 in the Caenlochan area.” Given the nature of that recommendation, and as we outlined in our response to the report, this is a matter for the Scottish Parliament.

Ben Macpherson MSP, then Minister for Rural Affairs and the Natural Environment wrote to the convener of the Environment Climate Change and Land Reform (ECCLR) committee on 24 March 2021 to bring this recommendation to their attention and offer the support of Ministers and officials in taking it forward.

The suite of final reports presenting the recommendations of the Second Strategic Transport Projects Review (STPR2) will be published on the Transport Scotland website on Thursday 8 December 2022. This represents a key milestone for strategic transport planning in Scotland. Setting out a 20 year framework for capital investment to drive the change we need to achieve the Scottish Government’s strategic vision and move towards Net Zero – the majority of the 45 recommendations contribute directly towards achieving emissions reduction.

This marks the culmination of over three years’ intensive work.

The evidence gathering and robust objective-led appraisal work feeding in to this review has been informed by stakeholder engagement from the very outset. The public have been provided with several opportunities for involvement, not least the three month statutory consultation on draft versions of the reports during January to April 2022. All responses to this have been carefully considered and used to inform refinement of the final recommendations.

The intention was to publish a Delivery Plan for these recommendations, alongside the final report. However, due to the current huge lack of certainty around available capital budget and fiscal policy over recent months, this has not been possible as yet. As such the Delivery Plan will follow in 2023, which will include more detail on prioritisation and delivery timescales, however, I am pleased to note that work is already underway on 38 of the 45 recommendations.

As stated in answer to PQ S6W-10006, the next Climate Change Plan, a draft of which will be published next year, will include costs of delivering emissions reductions to meet the statutory targets between 2024 and 2040. The Scottish Government has published the updated Climate Change Plan for the period up to 2032 but has not yet set out a pathway for the other years to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045 and hence does not yet have a basis for a cost assessment of achieving that goal. That will be covered as part of subsequent Climate Change Plans.

On 28 October 2022, Ferguson Marine wrote to the Net Zero, Energy & Transport Committee to inform them of a technical design issue with the Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) system on MV Glen Sannox.

In the letter Ferguson Marine set out their proposed approach to rectify this issue with the caveat that this will require agreement from Scottish Government, CMAL and CalMac. When an agreement is reached Ferguson Marine will update Parliament.