Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government has no agreement in place with any preferred installers or providers of interlinked fire alarms.

Any firm wishing to advertise their products and services as being approved or endorsed by the Scottish Government is required to obtain the formal approval of Scottish Ministers. The Scottish Government has not provided any such approval and as such does not permit any firm to advertise interlinked fire alarms as approved or endorsed by the Scottish Government.

Local authorities have discretionary powers under the Housing (Scotland) Act 2006 to provide assistance to any home owners. Funding for this, and other housing activities, is included in the general capital and revenue grants provided to local authorities, and the allocation to assistance is at the discretion of the local authority.

We have provided £0.5 million additional funding for Care and Repair Scotland to provide help installing alarms for older and disabled homeowners on low incomes. We have also provided £1 million to the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service to provide alarms for owners who are considered most vulnerable to the risk of fire.

We are already delivering 11 benefits, seven of which are new. These include the first major disability benefit, Child Disability Payment, which launched as a pilot on 26 July and will roll out across Scotland on 22 November 2021. The new benefit also marks the start of our complex and large-scale programme of case transfer.

We have ambitious plans for the coming years. Next year we will deliver Adult Disability Payment and extend Scottish Child Payment to all eligible under 16s, subject to DWP cooperation. Last month, we announced further benefit dates including the planned launch of Low Income Winter Heating Assistance in winter 2022 and Pension Age Winter Heating Assistance, provisionally scheduled for winter 2024. We are working with DWP to confirm a launch date for Scottish Carer’s Assistance and will consult this winter on the new benefit.

As we emerge from the worst of the pandemic, with a new Ministerial team in post, we will take the opportunity to review our full timetable with our delivery partners in light of what we have learned during COVID-19, to see where there are options to do things differently and more efficiently.

We have heard evidence of noise and antisocial behaviour issues in rural and island areas relating to short-term lets through: correspondence, consultation responses and meetings with affected residents.

Party mansions have not been formally defined, but the term is commonly used to refer to a large house used to accommodate large numbers of guests, often for stag and hen parties.

We will publish updated versions of all previously published impact assessments, including an islands communities impact assessment, ahead of the Licensing Order coming into force.

Our regulatory proposals will give local authorities powers to strike a balance between the needs and concerns of their local communities, with the wider economic and tourism benefits of short-term lets.

We published a draft Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA) on 25 June 2021 for consultation. The economic and Scottish firms impact of the legislation is discussed at paragraphs 120 to 131 of the BRIA. We are now in the process of updating the BRIA as part of preparing the Licensing Order for laying in November 2021.

We have conducted an Island Communities Impact Assessment which we published in December 2020 and will update to reflect the revised Licensing Order. The ICIA can be found in our December 2020 consultation report: Short-term lets – licensing scheme and planning control areas: consultation analysis - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The Scottish Government publish annual estimates of spend targeted at supporting low income households, with almost £2.5 billion invested to support low income households in 2020-21, including nearly £1 billion specifically targeted to children.

Full detail of this calculation, including the policies and funding streams included, are set out within the Tackling Child Poverty: third year progress report. This can be accessed via the link below:

Tackling child poverty: third year progress report 2020-2021 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

In light of increasing pressure on household budgets, as a result of the rising cost of living and £20 cut to Universal Credit and Working Tax Credits, the Scottish Government have committed a range of further action this year.

This includes investing around £65 million to support around 500,000 low income households through £130 Low Income Pandemic Payments, to be made by the end of October; putting £130 million in the pockets of families through the Scottish Child Payment and Bridging Payments and making additional investment of around £21 million to double the December 2021 Carer’s Allowance Supplement payment for more than 91,000 people.

We are continuing to explore what more we can do to provide the support people need this winter and will announce plans in due course.

As referenced in my response to S6W-03059 on 28 September 2021 Marine Scotland does not collect information from wrasse fishers on the number of individual landings by creek or aquaculture facility. The data that is collected by Marine Scotland is outlined in my previous answer.

I am unable to provide the level of detail you seek, as that may lead to individuals vessels being identified, but between 1 May and 9 October 2021, reports were received by Marine Scotland that the number of individual Wrasse landed totalled 365,826. Please note that these figures are provisional and may be subject to change.

You may be interested to know that once the season has ended and provisional figures have been finalised, Marine Scotland intend to report on data collected relating to Wrasse fishing over the course of this season.

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

It is not possible to determine exactly how many owner occupied homes have alarms of the prescribed type installed as this information is not currently collected as part of the Scottish House Condition Survey.

We consider that, in principle, all houses could meet the standard by the date it comes into force. But, as with existing standards, it is possible that some owners will be unwilling to carry out work to substandard houses, and that others might need more time, for example, due to illness or because of the cost. The legislation allows some flexibility, as it says work should be carried out within such period as is reasonable in all the circumstances.

When the regulations on the new fire alarm standard have come into effect, we will collect more precise data because compliance with the tolerable standard is included in the Survey. This will allow us to monitor progress in bringing Scotland’s homes up to the new standard.