Chamber and committees

It is not accurate to state that 100% of proposals between 2020 and 2025 have been approved.

To clarify, the Environment Information Request response of 28 February 2025 to which the question referred, noted that, of the 7 renewable energy applications received by the Energy Consents Unit in the Scottish Borders local authority area, all were approved.

Other applications for developments located elsewhere in Scotland have been rejected during this time.

The decision whether to grant consent is taken only after careful consideration of environmental information, consultee responses and public representations.

The Scottish Government recognises the value and special characteristics of Scotland’s traditional and protected buildings. Traditionally built properties make up around 18% of all homes in Scotland and may have different requirements to other homes because of their construction type, location or status.

Although Edinburgh College ceased delivery of the Stonemasonry Modern Apprenticeship in 2023, there are still three centres of stonemasonry MA training across Scotland: City of Glasgow College (CoGC) and Historic Environment Scotland (HES) at Stirling and Elgin.

The Scottish Government continues to work to ensure traditional skills needed to undertake retrofitting work are available. Scotland’s revised strategy for the historic environment “Our Past Our Future” has as one of its three key priorities “Delivering the transition to net zero”. Collaboration will be key to achieving success, as is working across different sectors and employer groups, and working nationwide across regional borders.

On 3 April 2025 it was announced that a new national training centre for Scotland, focused on traditional skills, had secured £3.7 million of National Lottery support. Scotland’s Centre of Excellence for Canals and Traditional Skills will be located near Lock 16 on the banks of the Forth and Clyde Canal in Falkirk. The centre, which will see Scottish Canals partner with Historic Environment Scotland, will focus on developing pathways into heritage skills training, volunteering, and employment within the historic environment sector.

On 8 April 2025, Historic Environment Scotland, Historic England and Cadw, published a new retrofit training handbook to support learners undertaking retrofit qualifications.

The Scottish Government has no role in the design or regulation of electricity infrastructure, aside from its statutory planning and consenting processes.

The electricity network in Scotland is physically and economically integrated with the rest of Great Britain. Supply and demand across the network needs to be carefully balanced.

Independent analysis commissioned by the National Energy System Operator (NESO) indicates that by 2035 their recommendations for a decarbonised electricity system could add up to £15 billion each year to the UK economy and support an average of 20,000 jobs each year. It is estimated that a third of these benefits are likely to be in Scotland, contributing £5.2 billion to our economy and supporting over 6,000 jobs per year.

The report can be viewed here – https://www.neso.energy/publications/beyond-2030

As this is an operational matter for Scottish Water, and the Scottish Government does not hold the information, I have asked them to respond. Their reply is as follows:

Combined sewer overflows are licensed by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) and are designed to prevent the sewer network from becoming overwhelmed during times of heavy rainfall and putting homes and businesses at risk of internal flooding.

Scottish Water does not hold information for reported spills during dry weather, or the reasons for spills, however it publishes all reportable pollution events each year to SEPA and this information is available in its annual reports, which can be found at https://www.scottishwater.co.uk/Help-and-Resources/Document-Hub/Key-Publications/Annual-Reports. In addition, Scottish Water has recently launched an online map to provide customers with near real-time information about the operation of their monitored storm overflows and this map, as well as information about storm overflows, is available on its website at https://www.scottishwater.co.uk/Your-Home/Your-Waste-Water/Overflows/Live-Overflow-Map. To help address the issue of pollution incidents, Scottish Water is already expanding its intelligent sensor network to predict and prevent incidents and help speed up the operational response.

The post of Traffic Commissioner for Scotland is currently vacant but I understand the role has been advertised on the UK Government’s Public Appointment website. The closing date for applications is 28 April 2025.

On 2 April, I received a letter from the Secretary of State for Transport, the Rt. Hon. Heidi Alexander MP advising that Richard Turfitt (Senior Traffic Commissioner) will cover the role on a temporary basis. I welcome Mr Turfitt’s temporary appointment to allow work to progress on improving bus services in Scotland.

In 2023-24 spending on additional support for learning reached a record high of over £1 billion. This includes a continued investment in pupil support assistants, by providing authorities with £15m each year, specifically to support schools and authorities to respond to the individual needs of children and young people.

In 2025-26, an additional £28m will be invested in additional support for learning, to support the recruitment and retention of the ASN workforce at a local level. A further £1 million will be provided to support national initiatives to help recruit and train more ASN teachers.

Funding to local authorities has also been increased this year to £186.5 million, as part of our agreement with COSLA to restore teacher numbers to 2023 levels.

Information on teacher vacancies is not held centrally.

The Single Building Assessment (SBA) is a comprehensive evaluation designed to assess fire safety risks associated with external wall systems in Scottish buildings. However, specific definitions for the terms (a) development, (b) building, and (c) stairs within the context of the SBA are not explicitly detailed in the definitions of the Housing Cladding Remediation (Scotland) Act 2025.

Development: The term development is not specifically defined within the SBA. Generally, in Scottish planning context, development refers to the carrying out of building, engineering, mining, or other operations in, on, over, or under land, or the making of any material change in the use of any buildings or other land.

Building: While the SBA specification does not provide a specific definition of building, it refers to in-scope buildings as those eligible for assessment under the programme.

The Cladding Remediation Programme aims to address risks in domestic multi-residential buildings that meet the following criteria:

• have at least one flat
• Have cladding
• are 11 meters or more in height
• were either
  • constructed between 1 June 1992 and 1 June 2022
  • developed between 1 June 1992 and 1 June 2022

Stairs: The term stairs is not explicitly defined in the SBA-related documents. In general construction terminology, stairs refer to a set of steps leading from one floor of a building to another.

The Scottish Government does not record this information. The First-Tier Tribunal for Scotland, Additional Support Needs (ASN) Jurisdiction is a separate and independent body.

Yearly statistics Tribunal Forum | First-tier Tribunal for Scotland (Health and Education Chamber) (from 2016 onwards) are published on the total number of applications to the ASN Tribunal in relation to additional support needs following the annual Tribunal Forum, broken down by Education Authority and high-level reason for the hearing.

ASN Tribunal Decisions are published, providing detail of each case, and can be accessed via the Tribunal website: Decisions | First-tier Tribunal for Scotland (Health and Education Chamber). Not all decisions are published, based on permission from the parent / child and the education authority concerned.

In August 2024, I published the national relationships and behaviour in schools action plan as part of our response to the Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research report published in November 2023. The plan is jointly owned with COSLA, given the statutory responsibility for the delivery of education rests with our councils.

The first progress report on the action plan, setting out the range of activity that has been taken forward between November 2023 and March 2025, was published on 28 March 2024. During the first phase of the plan, progress has been made against all 20 actions set out within it, including relationships and behaviour in schools. Outputs include new guidance on addressing gender-based violence in schools, updated guidance on mobile phones, and updated anti-bullying guidance.

Theme 7 of the action plan relates to tracking impact and progress, with an action to continue to update and maintain the evidence base on relationships and behaviour in schools. As noted within the Progress Report, the Scottish Advisory Group on Relationships and Behaviour in Schools has begun its considerations on the scope of the sixth wave of the Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research, which will be commissioned during phase 2, with fieldwork expected in early 2026. We also continue to reflect on other sources of evidence, including information brought to us by our professional teaching unions.