Chamber and committees

From 2 August, travellers who arrive from amber list countries (who have not travelled through a red list country in the previous 10 days) who are residents of and have been fully vaccinated as part of programmes in the UK, US and the EU as well as a number of other European countries, will be exempted from self-isolation.

Those who have been exempted must show an accepted record of vaccination at the point of entering Scotland that they have received a full course of the vaccine and 14 days have passed since the final dose. This also applies to under-18 residents of those countries and travellers taking part in formally approved Covid-19 vaccine clinical trials.

The exemption from amber list countries for fully vaccinated individuals only applies to self-isolation and day 8 tests, and those applicable must still follow the other rules, including taking tests prior to their departure and booking and undertaking a day 2 test if you are over the age of 11.

The Scottish Government continues dialogue with the UK Government, Welsh Government and Northern Ireland Executive with the aim that future changes to policy on fully vaccinated travellers is announced on a four nations basis.

The current ScotWind Leasing Round (the first to be administered by Crown Estate Scotland) is targeting 10GW of further offshore wind capacity, and offers significant inward investment opportunities in Scotland’s domestic supply chain, alongside the creation of new high value, high skilled jobs. Applicants to the Leasing Round are required to submit a Supply Chain Development Statement (SCDS) that sets out the anticipated level and location of supply chain impact, and the provision of jobs throughout the lifetime of the project. Crucially, those who do not comply with the commitments laid out in their SCDS can expect to face consequences ranging from financial penalties to an inability to progress to a seabed lease. The introduction of Supply Chain Development Statements demonstrates that the Scottish Government is serious about holding developers accountable if they do not honour their supply chain commitments and we fully expect developers and Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) to be engaging with the domestic supply chain from the outset to ensure that those commitments come to fruition. We have also been calling for, and welcome, the additional conditionality required by the UK Government for supply chain commitments in future Contracts for Difference (CfD) rounds.

The Scottish Government’s Grassroots Music Venues Stabilisation Fund (GMVSF) provided grassroots live music venues with emergency funds to help address the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and prevent closure. In total, £6.2 million of support was awarded to 85 venues throughout Scotland through two rounds of the GMVSF.

The recipients of the first round of GMVSF funding, awarded in September 2020, can be found here, broken down by (a) venue and (b) amount received: https://www.creativescotland.com/what-we-do/latest-news/archive/2020/09/funds-reach-grassroots-music-venues

The recipients of the second round of GMVSF funding, awarded in February 2021, can be found here, broken down by (a) venue and (b) amount received:

https://www.creativescotland.com/what-we-do/latest-news/archive/2021/02/funds-reach-grassroots-music-venues

As a priority action within our Climate Emergency Skills Action Plan and as a 100 Day Manifesto Commitment, the Green Jobs Workforce Academy will be launched in August 2021. This reflects the Scottish Government’s commitment to ensuring Scotland’s workforce has the skills to support the transition to net zero.

Through the new online resource, individuals will be able to access information and careers advice on green jobs and the skills required to enter into or progress in them, and identify courses and funding available to support their upskilling or retraining.

In 2019-20 and 2020-21, the National Transition Training Fund has already been supporting workers whose employment has been affected by the pandemic upskill and retrain, including for jobs in sectors that will be critical to a just transition.

In designing Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS), we were mindful of the potential for future growth in the proportion of single-use drinks containers sold online. To ensure that our DRS is successful and fair, it is important that online retailers charge the deposit and provide a service to allow it to be redeemed and the container returned.

The Scottish Housing Regulator collects comprehensive data on sheltered housing provided by Local Authorities and other Social Housing Landlords. The latest published data, as at 31 March 2019, broken down by local authority, is available at:

https://www.housingregulator.gov.scot/media/1407/stock-by-provision-and-la-area-2019.xlsx . Data has been collected since 1999 but is not currently published by the Scottish Housing Regulator. This data has been published by Scottish Government from 2001 to 2013 (details below) and data for other years may be available from the Scottish Housing Regulator.

The latest available figures show that as at March 2019, there were 27,691 sheltered self-contained units (15,237 provided by Local Authorities and 12,454 provided by Housing Associations), 3,051 very sheltered self-contained units (769 provided by Local Authorities and 2,282 provided by Housing Associations) and 15,812 medium dependency self-contained units (6,673 provided by Local Authorities and 12,139 provided by Housing Associations).

The Scottish Government also collects information on the number of sheltered homes provided by local authorities. This data is available from 2001 to 2019, but excludes all local authorities which have transferred their stock to Housing Associations.

Latest available Scottish Government annual statistics on the local authority provision of housing for older people, including the provision of sheltered, very sheltered, and medium dependency housing up to 2019, are published at

https://www.gov.scot/publications/housing-statistics-scotland-2019-key-trends-summary/ , with detailed local authority level Excel tables available at https://www.gov.scot/publications/housing-statistics-housing-for-older-people-and-people-with-disabilities/ . These tables include Scottish Housing Regulator data from 2001 to 2013 on sheltered housing provided by Housing Associations.

Sufficient funding was available to carry out the electrification of the routes referred to. The works at Milngavie were not included in Network Rail’s delivery plans for Control Period 6 therefore no funding was previously allocated to carry out these works.

No meetings have taken place with The National and the Sunday National since the beginning of the current parliamentary session.

First-time buyers can access a variety of support to become a home owner, including the Help to Buy Smaller Developers Scheme and the Low Cost Initiative for First-Time Buyers (LIFT). In addition, the first-time buyer relief for Land and Building Transaction Tax means that an estimated 8 out of 10 first-time buyers pay no tax at all.

Despite being closed to new applications, the main Help to Buy scheme and First Home Fund continue to benefit first-time buyers across Scotland with settlements occurring throughout this financial year.

The Covid-19 test kits are home PCR kits provided by NHS Test & Trace. The cost of the kits is set by the UK Government and the process managed through its contract with the travel management company CTM.

Currently, the Scottish Government does not allow use of private test providers for international travellers arriving into Scotland from green and amber list countries.

We are having on-going discussions with the UK government on using private test providers and exploring ways to allow private testing for travellers coming to Scotland provided we are confident in the flow of data into contact tracing services and that all positive test results are analysed to identify any variants of concern.