Chamber and committees

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.

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.

There is no exemption anywhere in the UK for oil and gas workers arriving from red list countries. Passengers arriving from red list countries are required to enter managed isolation in a quarantine hotel.  

There is an exemption for oil and gas workers arriving from amber list countries to undertake work on critical infrastructure in Scotland. They are still required to take a pre-departure test before travel, complete a passenger locator form before travelling to Scotland, book and take a testing package for days 2 and 8, self-isolate at home for 10 days when not at or travelling to and from a place where they are required to undertake the activities this exemption applies to and show a letter to Border Force from their employer outlining the work they will be doing.

We continue to liaise regularly with OGUK, trades unions and other stakeholders on measures to protect the safety of those working in the industry, including through the forum of the Oil and Gas and Energy Transition Strategic Leadership Group.

Since the publication of the rehabilitation framework in August 2020, we have established a National Advisory Board to oversee its implementation and we have appointed a professional advisor to lead on this programme of work.  

The rehabilitation programme is currently undertaking a significant scoping exercise through a self-assessment process to understand the current status of rehabilitation services in Scotland, from the perspective of the staff working in them.  

The self-assessment tool has been circulated to all NHS Boards, Health & Social Care Partnerships, third sector organisations, and Leisure Trusts as part of Local Authorities.  

The outputs from the self-assessment tool along with demand and capacity data will help us shape priorities, understand challenges and opportunities and inform funding decisions.  

Scottish Government annual statistics on the number of long term empty properties and unoccupied exemptions are published at

Housing statistics quarterly update: December 2020 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) ,

with detailed local authority level Excel tables with figures from 1996 to 2020 available at Housing statistics: Empty properties and second homes - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

These figures are sourced from the Council Tax Base data return, and relate to properties on the Council Tax Valuation List as at the first Monday in September each year.

Since 2007, the number of long term empty properties in Scotland has increased from 20,328 properties to 47,333 in 2020. However some of the rises across this period, particularly across 2013 to 2015, will have been due to reclassification exercises which local authorities carry out from time to time, or issues with management information systems, rather than being real changes in the numbers of long term empty properties.

The 16% (6,370 properties) increase in the number of long-term empty properties over the latest year between September 2019 and September 2020 is likely to be associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, which directly affected both the property rental and sales markets, with the movement restrictions in place also having a range of other impacts.

The most recent annual data as at September 2020 shows that the local authorities with the highest number of long-term empty properties include the City of Edinburgh (7,152 properties), Aberdeen City (4,537 properties), Glasgow City (3,536 properties), Aberdeenshire (3,167), and Fife (2,943).

The Scottish Government provides a significant amount of financial support to small and medium-sized enterprises in Scotland, notably through our enterprise agencies.

The following table provides information on funding predominantly aimed at businesses with fewer than 250 employees, which was approved by Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and South of Scotland Enterprise in each financial year between 2017 and 2021.

Funding approved by the enterprise agencies aimed at businesses with fewer than 250 employees (£m)

Note: Approvals by South of Scotland Enterprise are included only for 2020-21, the agency’s first year of operation. 

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-00977 on 22 July 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  

We have not engaged with the Irish Government on this subject.

A Gateway Review 0: Strategic Assessment is a programme-only review that sets the programme in the wider policy or corporate context. This review investigates the direction and planned outcomes of the programme, together with the progress of its constituent projects.

In addition, the Gateway Review 0 into Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) had a particular remit to examine the delivery schedule for DRS, especially in light of the impact of COVID-19.

We are carefully considering the findings of the Gateway Review, as well as listening to wider stakeholder views, and will provide an update to Parliament and businesses following summer recess.