Chamber and committees

Currently, there has been no discussion with the UK and Danish Governments on the newly announced Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance. However, Scottish Ministers expect to meet with the Danish Government ahead of COP26 to discuss climate change and other areas of mutual interest.

In line with the Scottish Government’s evidence based approach to policy development, we have committed to undertaking a programme of work and analysis to better understand Scotland’s energy requirements as we transition to net zero and how this aligns with our climate change targets.

On 13 September, we announced £300,000 of support for the 16th conference of youth—COY16—the UN’s official youth event for COP26. For the first time, five young people from Scotland will join participants from around the world and will help to shape the conference’s statement. We also support the Young Scot-led Scottish youth climate programme, which enables Scottish children and young people to host a climate youth summit ahead of COP26 to design the legacy that they want from the conference and to act as local champions across the country.

The recruitment and retention of teachers is a matter for local authorities.

However, I am determined that teachers have strong job opportunities. We have provided significant additional funds for the recruitment of additional teachers and I have committed to increasing teachers numbers by 3,500 during the course of this parliamentary term.

We have provided £240 million of additional investment to local authorities to support the recruitment of additional education staff to support education recovery. We have also allocated £145.5 million annually to the local government settlement which will support councils to employ additional staff on permanent contracts.

Currently the ChargePlace Scotland (CPS) access card only enables CPS members to use electric vehicle charging stations on the CPS network, but developing interoperability is a key priority for the Scottish Government. Officials are actively exploring how access to other networks for CPS members can be enabled with the ChargePlace Scotland network operator, SWARCO, and are in discussions with other UK charge point network operators.

In 2021 to 2022, over £215 million of targeted funding was allocated to the Attainment Scotland Fund, which will be invested to help close the poverty related attainment gap. This is at least 5.1% of total allocated funding for Education and Skills of £4,207.7m within 2021 to 2022.

We are currently considering the appropriateness of such agreements, similar to those developed south of the Border, for Scotland. Initial discussions have been held with trade union colleagues and we are keen to explore constructively how they might be involved in any such future arrangement.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-02859 on
‎ 24 September 2021. 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

Transport Scotland have ongoing engagement with Peel Ports regarding Ardrossan Harbour re-development and on 12 July 2021 wrote to Peel Ports Group regarding the potential commercial terms of the project. Officials are currently considering the response received from Peel.

I can confirm that we remain committed to a solution at Ardrossan that can be delivered in a cost effective way reflecting the needs of all of the partners involved.

We continue to engage with Peel Ports; and remain committed to finding a solution at Ardrossan that delivers value for money and provides facilities that best meets the needs of ferry users and vessel operations.

As at Scottish Budget 2020-21, 4% of Scotland’s GDP was planned to be spent on infrastructure, which is on a par to the percentage of UK GDP allocated to capital expenditure by the UK Government at Budget 2020.