Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is proud to be increasing our International Development Fund by 50%, over this parliament, at a time when the UKG has reduced its bilateral programmes for the most vulnerable communities in the world by 53%.

Our first uplift towards that commitment to a £15 million per annum International Development Fund was introduced from April 2022, an additional £1.5 million this financial year, as announced in the Scottish Government Budget.

We have agreed a 1 year extension period with the majority of our cohort of competitively awarded Zambia and Rwanda projects (2017-22), to now take them also to a new finish date of March 2023. We are also discussing with our partner countries additional funding to support their sustainable recovery from COVID, including on areas like vaccine equity.

We are also currently considering our programmes in the light of the findings of our Review into our approach to International Development, working towards new Programmes commencing in 2023. We will provide further details to the Parliament in due course.

In 2022, under the Climate Justice Fund, the Scottish Government will launch programmes to support the three pillars of distributive, procedural and transformative climate justice. These were identified as priorities by the independent evaluation of the Climate Justice Fund, as well as via stakeholder engagement, as central to achieving effective and sustainable climate justice.

We are in the process of finalising the procurement process, with the programmes due to be launched in Summer 2022. Additional details, including eligibility criteria, will be published on ScotGov’s website shortly.

Myself and officials used a low cost carrier to travel from Scotland to Catalonia for the visit.

Travel is an essential part of official Government business and Ministers take their responsibility to travel sustainably very seriously and aim to use more sustainable forms of transport wherever possible.

A carbon emission levy is collected against air travel on a journey by journey basis. The levy aims to compensate for the carbon that our business travel generates. It raises funds that are put into projects that will remove the same amount of carbon from the atmosphere.

The carbon emissions levy is applied to all journeys undertaken by air as follows:

Domestic – £5 per journey

European – £6 per journey

International – £15 per journey

Zero Waste Scotland advises us that the steel research project will include four reports. These are:

• An update to the published carbon assessment comparing the impacts of exporting steel with recycling steel using an Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) located in Scotland;

• A market analysis to estimate the size of the scrap steel market in Scotland;

• An economic analysis that examines the business case for an EAF in Scotland; and

• An assessment of the role of Scottish steel in the energy transition.

The intention is to publish the series of reports at the same time, however Zero Waste Scotland does not yet have a confirmed date for publication.

We expect health and social care employers, including community pharmacies, to follow the guidance on managing staff with symptoms of a respiratory infection, or a positive COVID-19 test.

This specifies that if staff test positive for COVID/19, regardless of whether they have symptoms, they should not attend work for a minimum of 5 full days. If they work with patients or service users in face-to-face settings, they can return to work if they have had 2 consecutive negative LFD test results (taken at least 24 hours apart).’

Zero Waste Scotland advises us that they aim to publish the next update of the Material Flow Accounts by the end of September 2022.

The Scottish Government supports Police Scotland’s international activity which involves reaching out to all parts of the world, including Colombia. This activity supports the prevention of crime at source and ensures the sharing of best practice in policing in order to help the stabilisation of communities beyond our borders. All Police Scotland activity is underpinned by a human rights-based approach which has a strong focus on community engagement. Central to that is an emphasis on de-escalating conflict and ensuring that the right to protest can be freely and peacefully exercised.

The Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 (Licensing of Short-term Lets) Order 2022 requires licensing authorities to consult with such persons as they consider appropriate in preparing and reviewing their temporary exemptions policy statement. This is a discretionary power to exempt premises from the requirement to have a short-term let licence for a specific period.

The Licensing Order also provides licensing authorities with powers to include additional licence conditions. We expect licensing authorities to include additional conditions on the licence documentation provided to the host or operator; and to publish their additional conditions on their website, together with the criteria and circumstances they will use to determine when these apply.

While there is no requirement to consult on additional licence conditions, licensing authorities may choose to do so as they consider appropriate. It is our understanding that a number of licensing authorities are planning to consult, or have already undertaken consultation, about their policies for short-term let licensing.

We do not have similar figures in Scotland because we do not hold data on whether a care home has unionised staff. There are no plans to collect that information, however in May 2021, the Care Inspectorate published a report analysing different factors affecting Covid-19 care home deaths (e.g. care home size, care home provider).

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-08300 on 12 May 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