Chamber and committees

Ash dieback is impacting rural and urban landscapes and ecosystems. Current evidence indicates that at least 50% – 75% of Scotland’s approximately 11 million mature ash trees could be lost to this disease over the next two decades.

a) Environmental impacts: Ash trees play an important role in Scottish ecosystems, and support many other species such as invertebrates, birds and lichens. Ecosystem continuity is a key concern for the long-term recovery of affected landscapes.

b) Financial impacts: Current estimates suggest that ash dieback could potentially cost Scotland in the range of £4 million - £20 million per annum as the disease progresses.

c) Other impacts: The safety of arboricultural and forestry professionals as well as the public is a central emerging issue, as ash dieback and associated secondary pathogens can lead to tree brittleness, potential branch shedding and root weakness. Priority needs to be given to ash trees showing significant health issues in higher risk locations such as near public roads, paths, railways and utilities infrastructure.

i) Action Scottish Government is taking:

Scottish Forestry convened the Ash Dieback Risk Group in January 2020. The group, which brings together expertise from local authorities and sectors such as forestry, transport, utilities and nature conservation, was formed to provide a forum for sharing experience and coordinating actions, and to help advise the Scottish Government on policy development relating to the management of ash dieback.

ii) Support the Scottish Government has offered to relevant stakeholders, including local authorities, to deal with ash dieback:

Scottish Forestry has worked with The Tree Council to produce a Scottish Toolkit for Ash Dieback Action Plans to help Scottish local authorities, public bodies and other large-scale land owners and managers to prepare their own Ash Dieback Action Plans in response to the inevitable safety and environmental issues that affected trees will create.

The Domestic Abuse (Protection) (Scotland) Act 2021 makes provision in two areas relating to protection for people at risk of domestic abuse.

Part 1 of the Act will provide additional protection for people who are at risk of domestic abuse by providing the police and courts with new powers to remove a suspected perpetrator of domestic abuse from the home of a person at risk through a scheme of domestic abuse protection notices and orders.

An implementation group including Police Scotland, the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and Scottish Women's Aid is continuing to consider how to progress the necessary elements to allow for commencement of Part 1 of the Act.

The group is overseeing the development of training and operating procedures, legal aid issues, court rules and associated processes for courts’ consideration of applications for protective orders; including how input of views of relevant children can be provided to inform the court’s consideration of applications within the short timescales set by the Act, support for people for whose protection an order is made, any guidance that may be needed for those using the legislation and steps needed to monitor and evaluate the use of the legislation once in effect. It is also considering the impact on court programming of the new powers including the likely significant financial costs arising. Within this context the group is giving consideration to the timetable for when this Part of the Act can be commenced.

Part 2 of the Act makes it easier for a local authority or registered social landlord to transfer a tenancy to a victim of domestic abuse. This aspect of the Act is not directly linked to Part 1 of the Act. The steps necessary for implementation are being taken forward and include secondary legislation, changes to court procedures, forms and model tenancy agreements as well as working with stakeholders to develop statutory guidance. Commencement of the provisions and publication of the guidance on the social tenancy provisions is scheduled for the end of 2022.

National Records of Scotland consulted a range of groups and organisations across Scotland to help decide what topics to cover and what questions to ask in Scotland’s Census 2022.

In order to be considered for inclusion topics must meet a significant and clearly-demonstrated user need. More information about the question development process can be found here . The question set was agreed as appropriate by the Scottish Parliament.

Scotland’s Census 2022 has also benefitted from an extensive programme of internal and independent assurance activity, including independent assessment of Statistical standards, through the UK Office of Statistics Regulation. This is to ensure that Census statistics will meet the high quality bar of being “official statistics.” Information on the Statistical Quality Assurance process can be found here .

The aim for the census is to deliver a set of questions and associated guidance that enables all of Scotland’s people to access, understand and complete the census. Whilst every household in Scotland has a legal obligation to complete a census return either online or by paper, we have ensured that people are supported to do so.

The Scottish Government will invest £60 million to renew play parks in Scotland, so children have access to high-quality outdoor play in their own communities. This funding is for public, free-to-access parks and will be distributed to local authorities over the course of this parliamentary term.

The renewal of play parks builds on our commitment to improve outdoor play opportunities for all children and families and to realise our ambition to make Scotland the best place to grow up.

Local authorities have an existing responsibility to maintain play parks that serve their communities and this investment provides a boost in funding to accelerate local plans and improve play experiences for all children in Scotland. We have already committed £10 million since May 2021 with a further £50 million to come in this parliamentary term.

South Lanarkshire Council received £298,000 funding in 2021-22 and will receive £296,000 in 2022-23. We have worked constructively with COSLA on the first two years of funding and will continue that work to agree the allocation of the remainder of the funding.

Over the course of this parliament, we are working to increase overall residential rehabilitation capacity by 50%, which is an increase from 425 beds to 650 beds. We aim to increase the number of publicly funded residential rehabilitation placements by more than 300 per cent so that, by 2026, at least 1,000 people every year are publicly funded for their rehab placement.

In addition to a £13.5 million uplift to Alcohol and Drug Partnerships (ADP), we have provided £18 million so far over the next five years to support the development of several new residential rehab projects through the Residential Rehabilitation Rapid Capacity Programme. We recognise that there are structural differences around funding and availability of residential services in different parts of the country, but we are working to address this by exploring options around regional and national commissioning of residential rehabilitation placements.

While it is the role and responsibility of local ADPs to assess and allocate placements we are committed to increasing transparency and accountability for these services. This is why we have tasked Public Health Scotland with producing a quarterly report on funded placements. The next report will be published April 2022 and will cover the period of October to December 2021.

We recently published a suite of reports on the current pathways into, through and out of residential rehabilitation. We will be working closely with ADPs to aid the development of clear pathways into residential rehabilitation, which will facilitate an increase to publicly funded placements across the country.

Stock keeping arrangements related to Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) are a matter for industry to determine; our Regulations do not mandate a separate Scottish label or barcode for in-scope containers.

Since July 2021 SEPA has advised that the same vehicle that is used for delivery can be used for the backhaul of scheme packaging provided that:

• the haulier is a registered waste carrier ;
• where backhaul is carried out in a vehicle used to transport fresh food, there is sufficient separation and a barrier to prevent contamination of waste materials with organic matter.

This advice was published as part of a series of DRS Frequently Asked Questions on SEPA’s website on 8 March 2022.

The available records of published Road Orders details our understanding of when the following sections of A9 dual carriageways were opened:

(a) May 1979 to May 1997

Work on the Global Affairs Framework is continuing and the Framework will be published in due course.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-05487 on 21 January 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