Chamber and committees

Whilst the UK Government (UKG) are the principle contract owners and managers of the Managed Quarantine Service (MQS) and its suppliers; the Scottish Government acts as officiate of these contracts with the service providers.

The Scottish Government has close working relationships with the services providers, including the hotel teams directly in Scotland. This enables issues to be raised locally, solutions agreed quickly and, where practical, special measures for guests being put in place at short notice.

Travellers who feel their needs are not being adequately met by the hotel; or where they wish to offer feedback on their experience; such as the things mentioned, food quality and noise disturbance; are encouraged to get in touch with the Scottish Government. We do all that we can in liaising with the hotel to ensure that the traveller’s needs are met and that their stay is as comfortable as possible. This can include liaising with Corporate Travel Management directly on behalf of the traveller and signposting the traveller to the range of health care support resources and services that are available through NHS Scotland, including out of hours services.

As set out in our Programme for Government in 2020, we are working with local authorities, the deposit return scheme administrator and potential investors to explore options that will unlock reprocessing investments and to ensure that we manage more of our own waste within Scotland. This has included an assessment of volumes of materials, including plastics, collected for recycling.

Ministers are pleased that following successful berthing trials the MV Arrow has been chartered.

This means more services between Stornoway and Ullapool, as we look to help Lewis and Harris. It will bring additional capacity to this key route during the busy summer period, by allowing CalMac to free up the Loch Seaforth to let more passengers and their vehicles travel. It will also increase freight capacity.

Both Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd (CMAL) and CalMac continue to actively search the market for further suitable tonnage, either to charter or purchase.

The Scottish Government have also confirmed new investment of £580 million in ports and vessels to support and improve Scotland’s ferry services over the next five years, as part of our wider infrastructure investment plan.

Professional dog walkers, like dog owners, are subject to a number of laws relating to dog welfare and control. The majority of dog walkers are likely to operate sensibly and responsibly; however, the profession itself is currently unregulated and the Scottish Government recognises that issues may arise. We will consider whether there may be a need to bring dog walkers under tighter regulation in any future plans for companion welfare legislation.

Further to the answer provided to S5W-35358, the Scottish Government notes the significant investment CalMac makes in vessel maintenance. CalMac have contracts in place with a number of shipyards to undertake the annual dry-docking of vessels in the fleet. These contracts allow improved planning of the overhaul work as well as undertaking preventative works

The Scottish Government established a Resilience Fund in 2018/19, which is in addition to the annual expenditure for maintenance.

We have secured the short term charter of the MV Arrow to help provide additional sailings on the Stornoway Ullapool route during peak times in the busy summer season. This measure reflects our efforts to help the Western Isles recover from the impact of Covid and the outage of the MV Loch Seaforth earlier this year.

We are also exploring other measures to alleviate the pressures currently experienced in the ferry network.

The UK government`s Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) is responsible for the delivery of driving tests in Scotland. However, Transport Scotland meets regularly with the DVSA to explore ways in the delivery of driving tests could be expedited to ensure that waiting times to access a driving test are minimised as much as possible across Scotland. During our recent engagement, the DVSA confirmed that they have increased the number of practical tests being delivered each day and are also recruiting additional driving test examiners to further increase the number of tests that they can deliver including at weekends. Following the recent changes to indoor physical distancing rules in Scotland, announced by the First Minister on 13 July, Transport Scotland has worked with the DVSA to ensure that the number of driving theory tests being delivered in Scotland will be increased in line with the revised rules. As a result, an additional 4,500 driving theory tests will be available to book in Scotland between 19 July to 3 September.

Projects are listed in Annex D of the Infrastructure Investment Plan; some will need further funding beyond the five year period of the plan.

A National Mission with Local Impact: Infrastructure Investment Plan for Scotland 2021-22 to 2025-26 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Since 2019-20, the Scottish Government has invested over £3 million in the Bikeability Scotland programme run by Cycling Scotland. Bikeability has three levels of competency which teaches children to ride and control a bike, learn to cycle on quiet streets and cycle independently on busier roads. All schools have the opportunity to participate in all levels of Bikeability, with access to free training resources and instructor training.

The most recent full academic year of delivery, pre-pandemic, was 2018-19. 47% of primary schools in 29 participating local authorities delivered Level 2 on-road training, with over 43,000 pupils receiving cycle training, an increase from 37% in 2015-16. This year, 31 local authorities are taking part in delivering Level 2 training.

17 secondary schools currently deliver Bikeability Level 3 training – to cycle independently on busier roads. In 2021-22, an additional 16 secondary schools will introduce this programme.

Scottish Planning Policy makes clear that local and planning authorities should consider the re-use or re-development of brownfield land before new development takes place on greenfield sites. In November 2020 the Scottish Government issued a Position Statement setting out its current thinking on the issues that will need to be addressed when preparing Scotland's fourth National Planning Framework. The Position Statement includes a commitment to significantly enhance policies on the promotion of a brownfield-first approach to development, including for new homes.

The Affordable Housing Supply Programme provides funding support to both local authorities and registered social landlords to bring forward high quality affordable housing projects across Scotland including support as appropriate for site acquisition, infrastructure and remediation costs for brownfield sites.

This year we opened our new £50m low carbon Vacant and Derelict Land Investment Programme to applications from all Scottish local authorities and Clyde Gateway Urban Regeneration Company. It will help with unblocking the reuse of persistent vacant and derelict land, especially in disadvantaged areas, and bringing forward opportunities for new green infrastructure and low carbon living as part of place based regeneration.