Chamber and committees

The Bill will place legal responsibilities on owners of large landholdings to set out how they use their land and how that contributes to key public policy priorities, like addressing climate change and protecting and restoring nature.

Also, in addition to my answer to S6W-32938 on 17 January 2025 about the new land management tenancy, tenant farmers and small landholders will have more equality of opportunity to deliver net zero improvements to the land they farm and cultivate. This will enable them to become more sustainable and productive in their farming and be rewarded for their investment of time and resources.

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

The Scottish Government currently has no plans to introduce a centralised fee for multi-agency involvement in environmental authorisations. SEPA is Scotland’s environmental regulator, responsible for granting environmental authorisations, and regularly consults and updates the Environmental Regulations (Scotland) Charging Scheme 2018 for fees and charges.

The Scottish Government’s investment in rail covers a wide range of improvements and decarbonisation of rail services forms part of that, be it fleet replacement, investment in feeder stations, or electrification of railway lines and therefore is integrated into the rail budget figures to be found in the draft budget for 2025-26 in Chapter 8 – Transport

ScotRail and Caledonian Sleeper submit their forward forecasts as part of annual budget processes. Forward forecasts of ScotRail and Caledonian Sleeper revenue and the level of subsidy required are subject to ongoing discussions between the train operating companies, Transport Scotland and Scottish Rail Holdings.

All Scottish Government fleet vehicles are maintained in line with manufacturers guidelines to ensure emission regulation compliance. 

The Scottish Government owns two bicycles, and we do not lease any bicycles.

Our bicycles are for use in campaign marketing in respect of Net Zero messages, and are not made available to staff for use on official business.

Registers of Scotland is accountable to the Scottish Parliament and its performance is regularly scrutinised by the Economy and Fair Work Committee. The Scottish Government also receives regular reports on the progress RoS is making in delivery of its Corporate Plan 2022-2027 strategic objectives, which includes updates on the achievement against RoS’s Key Performance Indicators for its service performance (timeliness, quality and customer satisfaction).

The Scottish Government does not currently plan to increase the availability of bicycles for use by staff. We do not have any plans to increase the availability of other sustainable transport options. 

Our staff already have access to cycle mileage expenses for official business journeys, a cycle to work scheme for commuting journeys, a season ticket scheme covering public transport operators, and discounted personal car hire and car club journeys through our staff benefits package.

The majority of Registers of Scotland fees are set by Order which is subject to the affirmative procedure. The fees were last updated in April 2021. In making a fee order, Ministers will seek to balance affordability with covering the costs of running the registers. RoS is continuously working to improve its efficiency, and thereby keep its running costs as low as possible. 

In October 2024 the average house price for Scotland from UK HPI was £197,000. The RoS fee for a house of this value is £400, which represents 0.2% of the purchase price.