Chamber and committees

As set out in Scottish Water’s 2020-21 Annual Report, while thousands of projects were delivered in the 2015- 21 period there were 86 projects due by but not delivering benefits to customers at 31 March 2021. Scottish Water expects customers to be receiving the benefits of 57 of these projects by the end of the 2022-23 financial year, leaving 29 still to be completed.

The Scottish Government has been working with counterparts at both the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Communities in Northern Ireland to ensure any person moving to or from Scotland who is in receipt of disability benefits can do so without disruption to their benefits.

The Disability Assistance for Children and Young People (Scotland) Regulations 2021 allow a person moving from Scotland to the rest of the UK to retain their benefit entitlement for up to 13 weeks. This is to allow time for the person moving to establish a new entitlement in the country they are settling in. We understand that the intention of other UK administrations is to mirror this arrangement.

The Scottish Government is also working with DWP to ensure anyone coming to Scotland from the rest of the UK will have the Scottish equivalent of their existing benefit awarded automatically, without a need to apply. However, it is our understanding that the DWP and the Department for Communities will require anyone moving from Scotland to these administrations to submit a new application before they can be considered for award of the equivalent disability benefit in the rest of the UK.

Scottish Water is the only shareholder in Scottish Water Horizons Holdings Ltd, Scottish Water Horizons Holdings Ltd is the only shareholder in Scottish Water Business Stream Holdings Ltd and Scottish Water Business Stream Holdings Ltd is the only shareholder in Scottish Water Business Stream Ltd.

The £10m of equity invested by Scottish Water Business Stream Holdings Ltd in Scottish Water Business Stream Ltd (SWBS) was part of the precautionary funding facilities which were put in place for SWBS during 2020-2021 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and will be eligible to receive future dividends from Scottish Water Business Stream Ltd.

The expansion of the water charges reduction scheme (WCRS) from April 2021 is worth £86m across the 2021-27 period and it will provide support for over 470,000 households. The increase in discount from 25% to 35%, again from 2021, means that customers in receipt of the WCRS will be protected from price increases over the regulatory period. There are therefore no plans to review the scheme at this time but it will be part of the strategic review of charges ahead of the next regulatory period.

Scottish Water set out in its 2021 Delivery Plan its expectation that it would invest between £570m and £650m (excluding responsive repair activity) in 2021-22. Scottish Water forecasts that it will outturn in the upper half of this range.

Scottish Water Horizons Holdings limited acquired the PFI companies for £16.2m on 19 December 2018 (see note 11 to the Scottish Water’s financial statements for the year ending 31 March 2019). The value of bank debt as at 31 March 2022 will be c. £31m. Scottish Water is the only shareholder in Scottish Water Horizons Holdings Ltd.

The Scottish Government has no plans at this time to review the eligibility criteria for Funeral Support Payment but we continue to monitor and evaluate all our benefits.

During the development of Funeral Support Payment we consulted and engaged with stakeholders, including people with direct personal experience of the benefits system. This work helped to inform the eligibility criteria for Funeral Support Payment. As a result, we substantially widened eligibility compared to the UK Government’s funeral payment. This has allowed us to support 40% more people, who would have received nothing from the UK Government.

Eligibility for Funeral Support Payment is based on receipt of a qualifying benefit, ensuring support is targeted at those on lowest incomes. State pension recipients who are in receipt of a qualifying benefit - for example pension credit - are therefore eligible to apply.

The Scottish Government continues to urge the UK Government to maximise take-up of Pension Credit. This is a vital support for many older people, but we know that only around 6 in 10 of those who are entitled to it actually claim it. On 12 November 2020 we joined Welsh and Northern Irish Ministers in sending a joint letter to Secretary of State for Work and Pensions urging a more strategic approach to maximising the take-up of reserved benefits. To date no response has been received.

I note the UKAEA’s STEP competition is ongoing and no decision has been taken on a preferred site.

As we move forward, our draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan, to be published in 2022, will provide a road map for the future of Scotland’s energy system and amplify the voices of those most impacted. That is why we will co-design this Plan with workers, businesses and communities, offering the opportunity for those within or associated with the nuclear energy industry to contribute to this dialogue.

As set out in the Scottish Government's A Fairer, Greener Scotland: Programme for Government 2021-22, published on 7 September 2021, we made a commitment to create a National Public Energy Company. We will work to have a virtual agency established this year, and a dedicated physical agency by September 2025. The virtual agency will be in place throughout the transition period until the standalone Agency is in place.

This is an ongoing area of work, and as a first step we launched a consultation in December 2021 which closed on 8 February to help inform development of the design of the new body. Consultation responses are currently being analysed and further details will be released as the work evolves.

The then Housing Minister, Mr Stewart, wrote to the UK Government in March 2021 to raise this issue, but the response received from HM Treasury suggested this would be prohibitively expensive to VAT receipts. Whilst cost is clearly a consideration, we believe this alone should not dictate policy decisions and that the changes suggested would help communities retain existing - often historic - buildings. This would also contribute towards our net-zero ambitions by reducing the emissions caused by demolition and new construction, which benefits from lower VAT rates.