Chamber and committees

There were 5,902 tonnes of plastic waste produced from the construction and demolition sector in 2018 in Scotland. Waste (from all sources) (sepa.org.uk)

UK official waste figures for Construction and Demolition show that plastic waste is around 0.05% of the total waste stream. The percentage is similar in Scotland.

Zero Waste Scotland has taken a variety of actions to tackle waste in the construction and demolition sector. In 2020-2021, Zero Waste Scotland undertook a packaging project with national housebuilders to drive down the consumption of packaging waste, including plastics, on site.

In 2020-2021, Zero Waste Scotland also commissioned the development of a methodology to measure the true cost of waste on a construction site. Testing this methodology on a new build housing site, 14% of the waste was identified as plastics.

Zero Waste Scotland provides a range of support and advice to help the Construction and Demolition sector to be more circular Circular Construction | Zero Waste Scotland . In 2021-2022 Zero Waste Scotland will be working with the Construction Industry Research and Information Association (CIRIA) on the development of a national Onsite Best Practice Guide.

The Scottish Government currently only allows travellers returning from green and amber list countries to use NHS tests, delivered through the UK Government’s contract with the travel management company CTM. These tests are the highest quality with established data flows into NHS boards and samples are sequenced to ensure early detection of variants of concern.

On 2 July 2021 Scottish Government officials met with two representatives of the Society of Independent Brewers to discuss Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS). We will consider their views alongside the findings of the Gateway Review into DRS.

As set out in our update to the Climate Change Plan, we will take steps to improve waste data by working with the UK Government, other devolved governments, and agencies such as SEPA, to develop and implement the electronic waste tracking system. This step change in the quality and timeliness of waste data will support decision-making and underpin the key building blocks required to reduce emissions and drive delivery on existing waste and recycling targets.

A joint consultation is being planned for this summer on behalf of all four nations of the UK. This consultation will seek views on how and when mandatory digital waste tracking should be implemented.

Housing to 2040 is Scotland’s first ever long-term national housing strategy and makes clear our ambition to deliver 100,000 affordable homes by
‎ 2031-32, 70% of which will be for social rent.

Local authorities have a statutory function to assess local housing requirements and to set out in their Local Housing Strategy (LHS) how this will be met.

Priorities and outcomes identified in the LHS inform local authority Strategic Housing Investment Plans (SHIPs) which are prepared annually and which set out affordable housing investment priorities over a five year period. These are expected to be publicly available.

The most recent long COVID statistics published by the Office for National Statistics on 5 August 2021 state that, over the four-week period ending 4 July 2021, an estimated 945,000 people living in private households in the UK reported experiencing long COVID (symptoms persisting more than four weeks after the first suspected coronavirus (COVID-19) episode that are not explained by something else). Of those people, an estimated 75,000 lived in Scotland.

According to the ONS August publication, as a proportion of the UK population, prevalence of self-reported long COVID was greatest in people aged 35 to 69 years and lowest for those aged two to 16 years. These detailed breakdowns are available only for the UK and not for each of the four nations, however, there is no reason to expect the age distribution to be different across the four nations of the UK. Detailed estimates are available at Prevalence of ongoing symptoms following coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in the UK - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk) .

We do not currently have for Scotland a breakdown of people experiencing symptoms of long COVID by age. We are working with the EAVE II study, on which the University of Edinburgh and Public Health Scotland collaborate. Funded by the Medical Research Council, this study used pseudonymised GP and other patient data to track the COVID-19 pandemic as it unfolded across Scotland. This dataset is now being used in a separate project funded by the Chief Scientist Office to investigate long COVID, and will generate analysis of people assessed as having long COVID. Early results will be available later in 2021.

The Scottish Housing Regulator collects comprehensive data on sheltered housing provided by Local Authorities and other Social Housing Landlords. The latest published data, as at 31 March 2019, broken down by local authority, is available at:

https://www.housingregulator.gov.scot/media/1407/stock-by-provision-and-la-area-2019.xlsx . Data has been collected since 1999 but is not currently published by the Scottish Housing Regulator. This data has been published by Scottish Government from 2001 to 2013 (details below) and data for other years may be available from the Scottish Housing Regulator.

The latest available figures show that as at March 2019, there were 27,691 sheltered self-contained units (15,237 provided by Local Authorities and 12,454 provided by Housing Associations), 3,051 very sheltered self-contained units (769 provided by Local Authorities and 2,282 provided by Housing Associations) and 15,812 medium dependency self-contained units (6,673 provided by Local Authorities and 12,139 provided by Housing Associations).

The Scottish Government also collects information on the number of sheltered homes provided by local authorities. This data is available from 2001 to 2019, but excludes all local authorities which have transferred their stock to Housing Associations.

Latest available Scottish Government annual statistics on the local authority provision of housing for older people, including the provision of sheltered, very sheltered, and medium dependency housing up to 2019, are published at

https://www.gov.scot/publications/housing-statistics-scotland-2019-key-trends-summary/ , with detailed local authority level Excel tables available at https://www.gov.scot/publications/housing-statistics-housing-for-older-people-and-people-with-disabilities/ . These tables include Scottish Housing Regulator data from 2001 to 2013 on sheltered housing provided by Housing Associations.

The Scottish Government has not carried out specific analysis on this issue.

There are complexities and a variety of international travel possibilities within the global international oil and gas industry. Risk of Covid infection for workers travelling to and from installations on the UK continental shelf (UKCS) cannot be attributed to any single factor, but a comprehensive range of infection control measures has been implemented to reduce this to as low as reasonably practicable.

The regulation of occupational health and safety is reserved to the UK Government. Statutory responsibilities for enforcement in the offshore oil and gas industry lies with the Health and Safety Executive.

Under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 employers have a statutory duty to protect the health and safety of their employees, to undertake appropriate risk assessments and to put in place appropriate mitigations.

The Scottish Government has no statutory involvement in workplace health and safety regulation.

The Housing First Pathfinder programme started in August 2018 across six local authority areas with Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire working in partnership. Up until the 30 June 2021, a total of 531 people have received Housing First support through the pathfinder programme, which has been funded by the Scottish Government, The Merchants House of Glasgow and Social Bite. The following table provides a breakdown of tenancies commenced and the number of tenancies sustained across each local authority area:

The Scottish Household Recycling Charter, agreed in partnership between Scottish Government and COSLA, aims to bring more consistency to recycling services. One of the principles of the charter when designing services is to reduce the capacity provided for waste that cannot be recycled to encourage citizens to recycle, while ensuring all citizens have access to services for recycling and are provided with adequate volumes of containers in line with the Code of Practice.

As part of the Programme for Government 2020-2021, Scottish Government have committed to review the Household Recycling Charter’s Code of Practice, to reflect current best practice and make it easier for households to recycle the right things. The review is a key step in developing a future model of recycling collections, aligning with Scotland’s new deposit return scheme to drive further consistency.

Zero Waste Scotland are leading an advisory group with representatives from Local Authorities and COSLA, to review the Code of Practice. Residual waste capacity is being considered as part of the review.