Chamber and committees

Free school meals are a vital support to thousands of children and young people across the country - ensuring that children have access to a free, healthy and nutritious meal on every day they are in school and are ready to engage in learning.

The Scottish Government and our local authority partners have reached agreement to introduce universal free school lunches, during school term-time, for children in primaries 4 and 5 during the course of the current financial year. Universal provision for all children in primary 4 will begin in August 2021, whilst universal provision for all children in primary 5 will begin in January 2022.

We are providing local authorities with £28 million in this financial year to deliver this commitment, which will see around 90,000 additional children become newly entitled to receive free school lunches during the course of the forthcoming school year.

We will continue to work with our partners in local authorities over the coming months to ensure that our commitment to expanding the universal provision of free school lunches to include all primary school children, during term-time, is delivered by August 2022.

The Alternative Certification Model (ACM) for national qualifications in 2020-21 has been designed to give schools the flexibility to assess learners at times and in ways that are appropriate to their specific needs. This has been enhanced by a programme of support provided by the wider education sector.

As a result, the additional workload will vary and be subject to decisions at a local school level, in terms of their approach to delivering the Alternative Certification Model.

The Alternative Certification Model required teachers to ensure learners receive their national qualifications, based on their professional judgement of demonstrated attainment. We have recognised this unprecedented responsibility through the payment of up to £400 for each teacher involved in supporting the delivery of the ACM, and providing two days set aside during the school year for teachers to work on the assessments.

Employee pay and conditions are the responsibility of Pentland Ferries in relation to its ferry operation. We have not held any discussions with them on this matter.

We have been working to address supply chain issues in the construction industry since the launch of our Construction Recovery Plan in October last year, working with industry and the UK Government to fully understand the current supply chain issues, which we recognise are due to a number of factors including the coronavirus pandemic and the impact of EU Exit.

I have also established a working group to consider immediate supply issues in more detail and I meet with the group on a weekly basis in order to work with Scottish manufacturers to increase output to meet the shortage challenges. I am meeting suppliers to discuss the opportunities available for increasing production, and sourcing more supplies from Scottish manufacturers.

The Scottish Government will continue to work hard to address the problems and blockages faced by companies, where it is in our power to do so.

A business decision has been taken by the owners of the MV Pentalina to withdraw the availability of the vessel for charter. Neither CalMac Ferries Ltd or the Scottish Government would charter a vessel that was not certified to operate in Scottish waters. Achieving the required safety certification to operate a vessel is a matter for the vessels owners and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.

On 23 April 2021 the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) for England and Wales issued a judgement in Josephine Hamilton & Others v Post Office Limited [2021] EWCA Crim 577 relating to cases referred to it by the Criminal Cases Review Commission for England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The case involved a total of 42 applicants who were formerly sub-postmasters or sub-postmistresses for the Post Office Limited who had been convicted of offences including theft, fraud and false accounting.

The Court of Appeal quashed the convictions of 39 of the applicants on the basis that evidence from the Horizon computer system, operated by the Post Office Limited, could not be relied upon.

Post Office Limited have identified persons known to have been convicted in Scotland on the basis of evidence that may relate to the Horizon computer system. This information has been provided to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC). A number of cases are under review by the SCCRC. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service is assisting the SCCRC with its review. Any decision to refer the cases to the High Court is a matter for the SCCRC.

The Island Connectivity Plan was last discussed with the Trades Unions, including Prospect, during the Scottish Trade Union Congress meeting with the former Ferries Minister, Mr Wheelhouse, on 18 August 2020.

We have a commitment to engage with all stakeholders as we develop the plan and the Unions will form part of these discussions going forward.

Scottish Ministers fully recognise the importance of reliable ferry services to the economic, social and cultural development of island and remote mainland communities.

The recent breakdown of the MV Loch Seaforth, and the impacts felt across the network, caused unacceptable disruption for our island communities. During the disruption, Transport Scotland worked with CalMac and engaged with local stakeholders in order to ensure everything was done to return the vessel to service as soon as possible. CalMac redeployed vessels in order to minimise the impacts across the network and put in place measures to maximise capacity, such as deploying a second vessel on the route from Kintyre to Arran. It is imperative the causes of that breakdown are understood and lessons properly learned so that we avoid this situation arising again in future.

Ferry passengers, whether travelling for tourism or other purposes, can apply for compensation for disruption under Passenger Rights Legislation. No other compensation for travel disruption is available for the tourism industry or wider sectors of the economy. However, Scottish Ministers have provided £3.6 billion of support during Covid to tourism businesses and we are committed to investing at least £580 million in ports and vessels over the next five years.

Transport Scotland, through its Trunk Road Operating Companies and Design Build Finance Operate (DBFO) Concessionaires, is responsible for the management and maintenance of the strategic trunk road network, including motorways. Repair of potholes on all other roads is the responsibility of the local authorities.

The following table shows the number of potholes reported or identified on the trunk road network since 2007, by financial year. Transport Scotland’s asset information system does not hold this data prior to 2007.

The Scottish Government fully funds the inspection and repair of all high risk category 1 defects (for example vandalism flooding, spills and potholes), on the trunk road network. The repair of all category 1 defects is funded from commercially sensitive monthly sums and cannot be provided. Transport Scotland’s asset information system does not hold the cost of repairing individual defect types such as potholes.

Trunk road investment is not allocated, recorded or reported on the basis of local authority area.

Since 2007, this Government has invested £4.35 billion in managing, maintaining, and safely operating the Scottish trunk road and motorway network. In 2021-22, we will invest £529 million, an increase of £59 million from 2020-21.

The budget for structural repairs and network strengthening of trunk roads and bridges, including the Forth Road Bridge, is being increased by £46.5 million in 2021-22 to £207 million. The budget for routine and winter maintenance of trunk roads is being increased by £12.5 million to £106.9 million.

We will continue to invest in our extensive trunk road maintenance and operations programmes, to improve Scotland’s road network through essential road maintenance schemes, our bridge strengthening programme, renewal of ancillary assets and increasing the resilience of the network to unplanned events such as landslides, flooding and extreme weather events.

The increases in Network Strengthening and Structural Repairs budgets will provide further investment to support our programmes of essential road carriageway maintenance and bridge strengthening and repairs contributing to our commitment to double investment in maintenance of existing assets over the next 5 years.

In addition, the overall condition of our network is being enhanced through the delivery of our capital investment programme.

Transport Scotland’s Procurement Strategy plays a key role in achieving Transport Scotland’s Vision to create a sustainable, inclusive, safe and accessible transport system, which in turn will help to deliver a healthier, fairer and more prosperous Scotland for communities, businesses and visitors. It aligns to the Scottish Government’s procurement policy and assists in achieving its national outcomes.

Although Transport Scotland does not regularly measure its public procurement policies in the ferries sector against the National Performance Framework specifically, it publishes an Annual Procurement Report, which reports on Transport Scotland’s regulated procurements.

The Transport Scotland’s Annual Procurement Report 2020 was published in January 2021 and reported on compliance with commitments made in our Corporate Procurement Strategy and includes a summary of community benefits generated through Transport Scotland ferries contracts.