Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-35937 on 31 March 2025. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

We have consistently called for the UK Government to remove the two-child cap at source. Fixing a broken Universal Credit system would be the best way to alleviate the impacts of the pernicious two-child cap, however it is clear that despite repeated calls on them to do so, the Scottish Government can no longer wait for action. That is why we are taking decisive action as early as possible, using the limited social security powers that we have, to scrap the cap in Scotland. Our actions will result in an estimated 20,000 fewer children living in relative poverty in 2026-27.

The Scottish Fiscal Commission’s report on “Mitigating the two-child limit and the Scottish Budget” states, “it is likely that the proposed mitigation payments would not generate large behavioural responses over and above the ways that families may already have adapted to the Scottish Child Payment.”

Our own published analysis of how Scottish Child Payment interacts with the labour market concludes that it is not currently negatively affecting work incentives at scale in the economy.

However, we will continue to analyse the impact of Scottish Child Payment on work incentives, and of the two-child cap mitigation when it is introduced.

Statistics on pensioner household income by UK country and English region are published by the Department for Work and Pensions. The median income for these households is presented in the following table.

Median weekly equivalised household income for pensioner households in £ (in 2023-24 prices), before housing costs

Social Security Scotland holds information at an individual level on clients who have been granted an indefinite award of Adult Disability Payment, but does not currently collate this information into a total figure.

Social Security Scotland will continue to review and prioritise any new statistics produced and will take account of users’ needs when developing future publications, in line with Code of Practice for Statistics.

Social Security Scotland routinely publishes statistics on all benefits, including Adult Disability Payment. The latest Adult Disability Payment official statistics publications can be found at: https://www.socialsecurity.gov.scot/publications/statistics.

National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) was developed through extensive stakeholder engagement, supported by a range of impact assessments, and was approved by the Scottish Parliament prior to its adoption in February 2023.

NPF4 Policy 11 (energy) requires that wind energy project design and mitigation will demonstrate how impacts on communities and individual dwellings, including through visual impact, noise and shadow flicker, are addressed.

All applications are subject to site specific assessment and guidance for the assessment of noise from onshore wind turbines across the UK is set out in ETSU-R-97.

All applications are determined on their individual merits and are subject to site specific assessments. Our Fourth National Planning Framework (NPF4) ensures that impacts on communities and nature, including cumulative impacts, are important considerations in the decision-making process. This includes through NPF4 Policy 11 (energy) which requires that wind energy project design and mitigation will demonstrate how impacts on communities and individual dwellings, including through visual impact, noise and shadow flicker, are addressed.

Our Fourth National Planning Framework (NPF4) was published and adopted following extensive consultation and engagement and approval by the Scottish Parliament. Having an established and consistent policy framework enables confidence in the planning system and we have no current plans to amend NPF4.

NPF4 Policy 11 (energy) requires that wind energy project design and mitigation will demonstrate how impacts on communities and individual dwellings, including residential amenity, visual impact, noise and shadow flicker, are addressed.

The Scottish Public Finance Manual (SPFM) requires that all land or property declared as surplus should be disposed of as quickly as possible and sets out a number of ways disposals can achieve best value for money and wider public benefit.

In the last 3 years, Scottish Government has made one sale of a strip of land at Woodhouselee, Midlothian to Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC). This generated £15,000 of revenue.

Revenue generated from land or property sales is collected centrally by Scottish Government Finance then redistributed across Government depending on business need.

Extended Producer Responsibility for Packaging is a four nations policy. The Scottish Government has worked closely with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the other UK nations to jointly develop and implement the extended producer responsibility for packaging scheme.

Once established Scottish Ministers and Government senior officials will hold seats on governance boards which will make up the governance for PackUK (the scheme administrator). This includes a Four Nation Ministerial Steering Board and an Executive Committee.

Extended producer responsibility for packaging (pEPR) fees are intended to incentivise producers to use less packaging and ensure packaging they do use is environmentally sustainable. It also ensures that producers take full responsibility for the environmental impacts of the packaging they place on the market, transferring these costs away from taxpayers.

Producers with an annual turnover less than £2m and 50 tonnes of packaging supplied are exempt from pEPR payments, but are required to report packaging data. This exempts approximately 70% of the UK's smaller producers from paying scheme fees.

Packaging within the scope of Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (cans and PET plastic) is exempt from packaging EPR. The use of reusable/refillable packaging such as beer kegs or reusable bottles is also encouraged under pEPR, as producers are only required to report and pay disposal cost fees for household packaging the first time it is placed on the market, and can then offset these fees when they recycle this packaging at the end of its life, thereby avoiding the vast majority of pEPR fees.