Chamber and committees

SEPA has informed Scottish Government officials they have no plans to conduct any monitoring or investigations at Arecleoch and Glen App wind farms.

As noted in my answer to question S6W-14975 on 2 March, Scottish Power Renewables have advised the Scottish Government that all spills on the sites have been of a minor nature and therefore have not required a notification to be sent to SEPA.

Local planning authorities are responsible for monitoring compliance with any conditions and other environmental commitments, or mitigations as identified as part of the Environment Impact Assessment. All cases are considered under their own granted consent.

The information below has been provided by the Office of the Public Guardian (Scotland) (OPG). Full-year information is not yet available for 2022-23. The average response time for the OPG to process powers of attorney, online via Electronic Power of Attorney Registrations (EPOAR) and by post, in business days (excluding those expedited where special urgency was indicated) is as follows:

a) For 2022-23, core funding for university research was increased to £299 million to maintain and strengthen Scotland’s excellent research base, with levels maintained for 2023-24. This funding is used for a range of purposes, including the provision of state of the art research facilities and lab equipment, and development opportunities for student and early career researchers who are the future of Scottish life sciences.

b) To ensure there are facilities available to support university spinouts the Scottish Government has invested in Research Pools, Innovation Centres and in the Alliance for Research Challenges. The aim is to create a critical mass of excellence, pulling together academic and industry expertise in areas of global importance, including Life Sciences.

In addition, investment through the City Region Deals is supporting a number of bespoke life sciences infrastructure projects including £10 million investment towards BioHub, an Aberdeen City Region Deal project. Located at the University of Aberdeen's Foresthill Health Campus, it will provide the support and physical infrastructure to help attract and retain life sciences spin outs in Scotland. As part of the Tay Cities Region Deal, Scottish Government agreed to provide £25 million towards facilities at the University, including £20.2 million towards an Innovation Hub to host and support spin-out and developing companies, including laboratory infrastructure.

As well as expert advice and help from our enterprise agencies to support business growth, through the Tech Scaler initiative we will provide intensive, structured commercial education to ‘start-up’ businesses in Scotland, to support them in growing and scaling-up to the full extent of their ambitions.

The Scottish Government last met with the Royal Mail Group on 13 March 2023.

The purpose of that meeting was to seek assurance that the on-going industrial action, and Royal Mail’s plans for reform, would not have an unfair impact on those living in Scotland’s communities, especially the more remote and rural ones.

We are broadly supportive of the workforce action because of the threat of reform to the Universal Service Obligation.

The Scottish Government regularly engages with UK Government counterparts at ministerial and official level on many matters concerning the space sector, including the subject of regulation. Most recently I wrote to the UK Space Agency and my counterpart at the former BEIS in February, following a meeting with them in January.

On 16 March 2023, I wrote to the Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority to ask what immediate actions are being taken to reassure government, industry and their customers and investors, that the UK regulator will not inhibit either our global competitiveness as a spacefaring nation nor our spaceports or satellite manufacturers commercial prospects.

The Future Catching Policy (FCP) is being developed to deliver increased selectivity and sustainability across Scotland’s diverse and varied fishing fleet. Once implemented, the FCP will support increased confidence in, and an increased accountability of, Scotland’s fishing fleets. The consultation on the FCP closed last year and analysis of responses is now complete with a full report, and government response, to be published this year.

The rules and regulations that govern the resilience of the GB electricity grid are a matter reserved to the UK Government and the Scottish Government has no responsibility in relation to the operational management of wind farm sites.

At the meeting on 15 February 2023, Scottish Government officials were given reassurances by Scottish Power Renewables that they are taking forward work on alternatives to the use of diesel generators.

Scottish Government officials continue to seek regular updates from Scottish Power Renewables on this work as it progresses.

The Scottish Government is aware that Sir Lewis Ritchie intends to undertake further visits to Skye, Lochlash and South West Ross, within the coming 6 months, to engage with clinical colleagues, members of the local community and NHS Highland officials This will likely include virtual meetings as well as in person visits.

Preparation for outbreaks of infectious disease is an ongoing part of health protection. That work is led by the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care but the breadth of response required to respond to pandemic events is laid out in the 2022 Strategic Framework Update for COVID-19 and the four-harms approach to decision-making used by the Scottish Government for the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Scottish Government regularly engages with the UK Government and the other Devolved Administrations on a range of risks including pandemic preparedness. The Scottish Government works closely with the cross-government Pandemic Disease Capabilities Board to keep Scotland’s readiness up to date.

Evusheld ® was developed and tested before the emergence of the Omicron variant. The RAPID C-19 group and the COVID-19 UK expert panel have considered a full range of evidence, including clinical trial data, in vitro (in the lab) analysis and observational studies, and have advised that there is insufficient evidence available to support procurement and deployment of Evusheld ®. As a result, there is currently no established NHS supply arrangement for Evusheld ® in the UK.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC, as part of Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS)) have agreed to maintain the collaboration that started through RAPID C-19 by collaborating on a single health technology appraisal (STA) of Evusheld ® for the prevention of COVID-19. NICE and the SMC will produce separate guidance and advice documents, but the recommendations will be aligned. Draft guidance was published on 16 February 2023, and does not recommend its use. Final guidance on the STA is expected to be published in June 2023.