Chamber and committees

Most recently services and ferry delivery structures in other countries have been reviewed include Norway, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. These examples will inform the development of ferries policy including in the consideration of relevant assessments and the decarbonisation of the Scottish Government ferry fleet.

The budget allocated to the Energy Investment Fund in 2021-22 was up to £13 million, no budget has been allocated for any future financial years. There are new investment mechanisms in place through the Scottish National Investment Bank which supports the Scottish Government's strategic priorities to achieving our net zero ambitions.

The Bus Decarbonisation Taskforce agreed its remit and Guiding Vision at its first meeting on 11 November 2020, and discussed a first draft of its co-designed pathway to a fully zero-emission bus fleet in July 2021. The ongoing COVID pandemic has made progress slower than would have been ideal, and the Taskforce is expected to publish a final version of the pathway in Summer 2022. All meeting papers and minutes of the Taskforce are published on the CPT Scotland website.

At the most recent meeting of the Bus Decarbonisation Taskforce, senior representatives from the manufacturing and supply chain sector confirmed that supply of zero-emission buses in the coming months and years would not be a constraining factor and confirmed an enthusiasm to rise to the challenge of decarbonisation. The Scottish Government is keen to ensure that opportunities for green skills and jobs from this work are realised to their fullest extent. The full minutes of the Taskforce meeting have been published on the CPT website.

https://www.cpt-uk.org/news/bus-decarbonisation-taskforce/ .

The Scottish Government will shortly begin the first stage of the Adult Disability Payment Review. Priority will be given to identifying proposals for alternative ways of understanding the mobility needs of individuals, and planning stakeholder engagement to feed into decisions regarding the scope and remit of the second stage of the review.

A commitment has been made to commence stage two of the review in 2023, once Adult Disability Payment has been delivered for one year. The timeline for completion will be set in collaboration with the independent group members undertaking the review.

A further update will be provided to parliament in due course.

The 2022-23 Budget allocated £1 million RDEL to the development of the Community Bus Fund. Allocations for future financial years will be informed by policy development and future budgets determined through the outcome of the Scottish Government's Resource Spending Review.

The purpose of the Bus Decarbonisation Taskforce is to bring together leaders from those sectors which most urgently need to work together on the challenges inherent in decarbonisation of the bus sector. These were identified as the bus operating, bus manufacturing, energy, finance and Government sectors, all of whom need to act in a co-ordinated way to remove greenhouse gas emissions from Scotland’s buses, and support a strong and diverse domestic manufacturing sector and supply-chain comprised of high quality green jobs; a key element of the Taskforce’s Guiding Vision. All meeting papers and minutes of the Taskforce are published on the CPT Scotland website. Scottish Ministers are committed to partnership working with the STUC and engage actively with the transport unions on issues of strategic importance.

The Scottish Government does not collect demographic data specifically on the public transport workforce nor does it do so for each mode of public transportation. If collected, this data will be held by public transport operating organisations.

Data from the Annual Population Survey over the period Jan-Dec 2020 provides breakdowns on employment by industry sector which includes the category “Transport and Storage”. It shows that 4% of all those aged over 16 in employment were working in Transport and Storage.

Of those employed in transport and storage industries, 13% are disabled. This compares to a figure of 13% also for those employed in all industries who are disabled.

We understand, following the completion of its ticket office opening hours consultation and Transport Focus’ findings report, that ScotRail intends to publish, in due course, its Diversity Impact Assessment.

The Scottish Government has received £14.564 billion in Covid-19 related funding from the UK Government. Amounts received for 2020-21 were £9.752 billion and for 2021-22 are £4.812 billion. Details of the timing and split of funding received are included in the following table: