Chamber and committees

No plans were made for the First Minister, or any other Minister, to attend the 77th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York.

The Minister for Environment and Land Reform represented Scotland at the Under 2 Coalition General Assembly, held during the recent 'Climate Week NYC'. Further details of this engagement will be reported to Parliament shortly.

Overseas visits undertaken by Scottish Ministers help protect and enhance Scotland’s interests, improve global networks, unlock new economic and trading opportunities and create domestic opportunities and benefits for the people of Scotland. For security reasons we do not comment on the future travel plans of the First Minister.

Tree planting in Scotland is supported through the Forestry Grant Scheme, managed by Scottish Forestry.

To be eligible for support, proposals for tree planting must be developed in line with the Woodland Creation Application Guidance published in 2018. Stakeholder and community engagement is an essential part of this development and assessment process. This helps to ensure that planting proposals take community concerns into consideration and select the right trees to be planted in the right places.

Our commitment to enhance the Forestry Grant Scheme in the latest Programme for Government includes measures to improve public engagement over woodland creation.

All tree planting proposals need to follow published guidance, which seeks to avoid large scale planting on better agricultural land and requires assessments to be carried out for projects with planting on better land.

Where projects involve significant planting on agricultural land, the Scottish Government’s Rural Payments and Inspections Division are consulted to help determine whether proposals are acceptable or whether they need to be amended.

Local Authority spatial strategies have been prepared to identify where woodland creation may be appropriate and these strategies follow the Woodland Expansion Advisory Group’s recommendations to direct woodland creation away from better agricultural land. These strategies are considered when making decisions around the suitability of tree planting proposals.

Farming and forestry can co-exist, forestry is not extensively replacing agricultural land across Scotland. Analysis of the Forestry Grant Scheme shows that in the twelve months to the end of August 2022, Scottish Forestry received 331 new applications to plant 9,931 hectares of new woodland, which is equivalent to less than 0.2% of farmland.

As the tax authority with responsibility for the collection and management of Scotland’s devolved taxes, Revenue Scotland publishes monthly and annual data on its website regarding the number of property conveyances and non-residential leases subject to the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT) Additional Dwelling Supplement (ADS) and the associated tax liabilities. These are available at https://revenue.scot/news-publications/publications/statistics .

Local authority level data is published on an annual basis, as part of Revenue Scotland’s Annual Summary of Trends in the Devolved Taxes. The report for‎ 2020-21, which provides data for the period from 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2021, is available at: Annual Summary of Trends in the Devolved Taxes 2020-2021 | Revenue Scotland . The report for 2021-2022 is due to be published in November or December 2022.

In particular, the ‘Data for Figure 19’ tab in the figures and tables file of this publication includes estimates of gross ADS declared due for qualifying conveyances by local authority and year. This tab also includes information on the proportion of ADS revenue which taxpayers did or did not intend to reclaim in each local authority area.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-10787 on 3 October 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 .

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-10787 on 3 October 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 .

As I noted in my answer to S6W-10242, we are considering publication of average apartment rental charges and grant calculations as part of the current review of the Home Owners Support Fund, which is expected to conclude by Spring 2023. If the decision is taken to publish the figures, this will include historical calculations.

At present, and in line with previous UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) recommendations, there is no lung screening programme in Scotland to expand. I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-10989 on 3 October 2022, regarding the UK NSC’s recent recommendation to move towards the implementation of a targeted screening programme for lung cancer in adults aged 55–74 with a history of smoking.

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

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-11067 on 3 October 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 .

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-09651 on 19 July 2022. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .