Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government fully supports the police, local authorities and the court services to take appropriate and proportionate action to tackle antisocial behaviour. We expect all relevant authorities to use the powers available to them to deal with antisocial behaviour.

On 8 January 2020, Mr Stewart, the then Minister for Local Government, Housing and Planning, emphasised the importance of the safety of visitors, hosts, neighbours and local residents in his statement to the Scottish Parliament. This was the rationale for introducing the policy and that remains the case. It has also always been the intention to give local authorities further powers under the licensing scheme to tackle other issues arising from short-term lets.

Our licensing scheme proposals deliver national consistency on safety standards, and autonomy for local authorities to add further conditions in response to local needs and concerns.

The 2015 Act requires Scottish Ministers to prepare a Trafficking and Exploitation Strategy and this was published in May 2017. The Scottish Government has established governance structures to take forward implementation of this Strategy and discussions include feedback on the operation and application of the 2015 Act.

Annual reports against the Strategy have been published and a review of the Strategy was published in May 2020. The next annual report will be published later this year.

We will explore the possibility of levying a higher poundage on properties where the owner is registered in a tax haven, as well as tackling other known tax avoidance tactics using anti-avoidance powers provided by the Non-Domestic Rates (Scotland) Act 2020.

Our proposed licensing scheme will assist in ensuring that short-term lets are safe and used for lawful purposes. Police Scotland is represented on the Short Term Lets Stakeholder Working Group and has expressed concern about some short-term lets being used for criminal purposes. Residents and community groups have also raised concerns with the Scottish Government.

The Parliament welcomes and facilitates protests all year round and will continue to do so;  it is an important part of the expression of democracy in Scotland.  In taking the decision to apply for designated status, SPCB has carefully considered Police Scotland advice and security assessment, and the experiences of other Parliaments.  The UK Parliament has been designated for many years and the Welsh Senedd since 2018. SOCPA is an existing mechanism for bodies such as Parliament which have a critical role to play in terms of national security. It would only be used in exceptional cases where very disruptive and/or dangerous activities may impede the parliament’s democratic role, the safety of those working or visiting the Parliament and the rights of others to engage with the Parliament in a wide variety of ways. In giving effect to the designation, the SPCB and Police Scotland must still ensure on each occasion that they are used that the powers of enforcement under SOCPA are necessary, have a sound legal basis and are proportionate to the circumstances. This process provides assurance that the designation will have no bearing on the tens of thousands of people who protest in a robust but peaceful way at Holyrood each year.

The Scottish Government is already working with key partners to address existing data and evidence deficits which will allow us to fully understand the complex picture that exists in health inequalities for people from ethnic minority groups. The Scottish Government welcomes this report and will provide an official response once we have carefully considered its recommendations.

The Planning (Scotland) Act 2019 sets out six outcomes to which a future National Planning Framework (NPF) should work towards, including securing positive effects for biodiversity, and we are developing new proposals which deliver positive outcomes for biodiversity from development without the need for overly complex metrics.

We will lay a draft NPF4 in the Scottish Parliament this autumn and will carry out extensive public consultation at the same time. We anticipate producing a final version of NPF4 for approval and adoption around spring 2022.

Our initial estimates are that the increase in employer National Insurance contributions will result in the following costs:

(a) NHS - £67 million

(b) Local Government - £31 million

(c) Other parts of public sector - £53 million

Combined these come to an initial cost estimate of £151 million across the public sector in Scotland.

The High Level Group on Planning Performance aims to improve the performance of the planning system for all types of development. It does not have a workstream which focuses specifically on the processing of windfarm applications. As highlighted in the response to S6W-02645 on 14 September 2021, the resourcing and performance of the planning system remain key priorities, and we recently recommenced work looking at increasing the financial resources available to planning authorities through changes to the planning fees regime.

The latest planning statistics published in July 2021 indicate that timescales for major applications for electricity generation are 10 weeks faster than the Scottish average for all types of major development. With regards to local applications for electricity generation, although timescales are 4 weeks slower than the Scottish average for all non-householder applications, over 52% were determined within the statutory timescale. The average decision time for local electricity generation developments has varied substantially over the last seven years but prior to 2020-21 the overall trend showed a decrease in average decision time.

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