Chamber and committees

Scotland will continue to use the pound sterling at the point of independence, establishing an independent Scottish currency as soon as practicable through a careful, managed and responsible transition when an independent Scottish parliament chooses to do so.

The SNP Growth Commission recommended a transition to a separate Scottish currency after six economic tests were met:

• Fiscal sustainability;
• Central Bank credibility and stability of debt issuance;
• Financial requirements of Scottish residents and businesses;
• Sufficiency of foreign exchange and financial reserves;
• Fit to trade and investment patterns;
• Correlation of economic and trade cycle.

The Scottish Government’s investments in private companies are made in line with the Scottish Public Finance Manual (SPFM), supported by a clear economic and commercial rationale and have represented value for money at the time of the investment. While these investments are not without commercial risk, our interventions have protected hundreds of jobs and delivered a national economic return by safeguarding vital businesses and supply chains.

We are working closely with Audit Scotland to strengthen the framework for decisions on future investments in private companies. The SPFM will be updated in January 2022 following feedback from Audit Scotland on planned enhancements to our approach.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Interim Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

The review of SPS’ Gender Identity and Gender Reassignment policy is taking place in two main stages. The first stage involves an in depth analysis of evidence that has emerged since the existing SPS policy was introduced. This work is underway and will directly inform the development work for the next stage.

The second stage is a series of discussions with key stakeholders which will involve:

• engagement with prison staff who have experience of working with transgender persons in Scotland’s prisons, commencing December 2021.
• a series of interviews with transgender persons in prison, commencing January 2022.
• a survey of individuals living in custody across establishments in Scotland, commencing February 2022.
• an invitation being extended to identified stakeholders for one to one discussions with SPS between February and May 2022. This will include invitations to organisations representing communities of interest and identity.

In tandem with stakeholder discussions, the current policy will be available on the SPS website to invite comment and feedback from other interested parties. The full analysis of stakeholder feedback and evidence and a refreshed policy position is expected to be concluded in 2022.

Since 2015-16, around 180 listed Scottish public bodies have been required to report annually on compliance with their statutory climate change duties. To assess progress on emissions reduction, the Scottish Government funds the Sustainable Scotland Network (SSN) Secretariat to produce an annual analysis of the submitted reports. Reported emissions from the public sector continue to decrease, with Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions down 28.5% since mandatory reporting began in 2015-16.

National Records of Scotland produce an annual National Statistics publication each year on drug-related deaths in Scotland. The most recent report provides information on drug-related deaths details in 2020 and earlier years. Section 7 of the report provides an overview of drug-related deaths by substances implicated. Tables SUB1 and SUB2 provide information on the substances which were reported for drug-related deaths in Scotland between 2000 and 2020. Tables HBX and CX provide figures for individual drugs, for NHS Boards and councils. Annex E and Table NPS1 provide information relating to New Psychoactive Substances.

The full report and supplementary tables can be accessed from the following link: Drug-related Deaths in Scotland in 2020 | National Records of Scotland (nrscotland.gov.uk)

Hospital admissions

Public Health Scotland information on hospital activity relating to illicit drug use in Scotland are not specific enough to identify the substances specified (heroin and methadone are the only opioids with specific ICD-10 diagnostic codes).

We recognise the pandemic’s impact on the economy and businesses across a wide range of sectors. So far, the Scottish Government has provided £79.3 million directly to taxi and private hire drivers and operators in response to the pandemic. Further support of up to £28 million was announced on 5 January 2022 from within the £375 million package of funding announced on 21 December 2021, bringing total support for the sector to over £107 million. The Scottish Government is also calling on the UK Government to re-introduce schemes such as the Self-Employment Income Support Grant in order to make further support available.

The taxi and private-hire sector is one of a number of sectors experiencing labour market challenges arising from the pandemic, and is exacerbated by this being a largely self-employed sector. We are aware that Glasgow City Council, who are the independent licensing authority responsible for administration of the taxi-licensing regime, have held constructive talks with the trade to ascertain how the licensing authority can streamline the licensing process.

The public health surveillance system for drug harms will be fully operational by 31 March 2022 and led by Public Health Scotland. An early warning system is in development and structures are in place to ensure evidence based approaches to reducing drug harms are implemented.

The system collates and analyses a range of information relating to drug harms made available through organisations such as Police Scotland, Health Boards Scottish Prison Services, Local Authorities, the third sector and people with lived and living experience.

The Scottish Drug Deaths Taskforce has funded a project through Stirling University to research and develop the key components required to implement Drug Checking facilities in three areas in Scotland (Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen). Research began in January 2021 and will conclude with an evaluation report in January 2023. The project will also include a parallel programme of implementation.

The project team has committed to submitting applications to the Home Office in early 2022. Assuming support from the Home Office is forthcoming, we expect services to be established in Aberdeen, Dundee and Glasgow in 2022.

We have highlighted our desire to introduce these facilities to the Home Office as any activity which involves the possession of controlled drugs would require a Home Office licence. Kit Malthouse, the UK Government Minister for Policing, has indicated that he is open to discussing this with the Scottish Government and conversations have taken place between Scottish and UK officials to progress this.

From September 2021 we have introduced quarterly reporting of suspected drug-related deaths, providing far more timely data on the DRD crisis/situation for the first time. This report uses management information from Police Scotland on suspected drug deaths. The second publication of these suspected figures was in December 2021 and covered the period from July to September 2021 ( Suspected drug deaths in Scotland: July to September 2021 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) ). The next report will be published in March 2022 and will cover suspected deaths up to the end of December 2021.

We continue to work with Police Scotland, Public Health Scotland and National Records of Scotland to review the surveillance data we have, review quality and determine whether additional information could be published in the future.

Non-domestic properties in Scotland are valued by independent Scottish Assessors based on the law. A property’s rateable values reflects the valuation of the lands, heritages and any rateable plant and machinery, but is not disaggregated by component. Therefore the Scottish Government could not disaggregate the liability associated with the installation of a solar panel from the total rateable value of the property.

Under the Valuation for Rating (Plant and Machinery) (Scotland) Regulations 2000, solar panels, wind turbines and storage batteries are already exempt from rating where they are used for the generation, storage, transformation or transmission of power, where the power is mainly or exclusively ‘for distribution for sale to consumers’.

The Scottish Budget 2022-23 will expand the Business Growth Accelerator relief for property improvements to include the installation of solar panels as a qualifying improvement. The Business Growth Accelerator provides 100% relief on new builds for up to 12 months after first occupation, and no rates increases for 12 months after a qualifying property improvement.