Chamber and committees

As part of our ongoing statutory duty to keep the provisions of the Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) (Scotland) Act 2022 under review, a series of reports have been published setting out the evidence as to why the Scottish Government believes the Act remains necessary and proportionate. You may wish to note that the most recent report was laid in Parliament on 12 January 2024.

To inform the development of this series of reports, Scottish Ministers issued regular ‘Calls for Evidence’ to a wide range of rented sector stakeholder groups in respect of the social, private and student rented sectors – including institutional investors such as the Scottish Property Federation and UK Finance, who were able to share the Call for Evidence with the investor community. Responses to the Calls for Evidence helped inform Scottish Ministers’ statutory ongoing review of the necessity and proportionality of the provisions.

In addition, I am aware that representatives from the Scottish Property Federation and UK Finance are members of the Scottish Government’s Private Rented Sector Stakeholder Group and have been able to feed in their views on the impact of the emergency Act via that forum for some time.

A well-regulated private rented sector is good for both tenants and landlords – whilst also being compatible with investment. We are working to develop a long-term model of rent control that works for Scotland, and I recognise how important it is for this Government to work with the housing sector and others to foster confidence and trust. We will therefore continue to work with stakeholders across landlord, tenant and investor groups to understand their perspectives. The Minister for Housing and I are due to hold a round table with a range of institutional investors later this month.

The UK Autumn Statement was a worst-case scenario for Scotland and confirmed that the Scottish Government Capital Block Grant is forecast to contract by almost 10% in real terms over 5 years (2023-24 to 2027-28). Capital spending pressures across the Scottish Government far exceed available funding This means that it will take longer to deliver all our capital commitments, and difficult decisions were required in order to achieve a fiscally sustainable capital budget. As such, we targeted the limited capital funding available towards supporting employment and the economy, achieving our net zero ambitions and maintaining high-quality public services across Scotland.

A significant proportion of the expenditure in the portfolio is legally and contractually committed, and the budget ensures that those commitments are met in full in this budget as well as allocating funding to support critical maintenance and renewal expenditure to ensure that the people of Scotland have access to a safe and reliable transport system.

The budget process also considered equalities and fairer Scotland duties and progress towards our statutory targets for climate change and child poverty in prioritising the budget available to me. I refer to the Equalities and Fairer Scotland Budget Statement and Carbon Assessment published alongside this budget.

Officials continue to engage with SPT on the implications of the budget decision along with the impact on future spending plans, and SPT are invited to advise Transport Scotland on any impacts of budget decisions on risk to service provision.

The Scottish Government continues to make significant investment in Scotland’s NHS while recognising the need to reform the way we deliver services to meet the changing needs of the people in Scotland. The Government has been clear in the Policy Prospectus and Programme for Government : reform is required. Scottish Ministers have outlined that given the growing demand our health service faces, the NHS requires major reform to ensure that we have a sustainable health service able to deliver the best possible care for patients.

Running a time-limited pilot of judge-only rape trials was a recommendation of the cross-sector review led by Lady Dorrian, Scotland’s second most senior judge, on improving the justice system in the way it responds to serious sexual offending.

The pilot is part of a package of reforms in the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill that is currently being considered by the Criminal Justice Committee. The Committee has heard a range of views including from some of the most senior, qualified and respected legal voices in the country who have spoken in support of the pilot. Strong support for the pilot has also been voiced by victim support organisations and justice agencies, such as the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service.

I held a programme of meetings with the legal profession in 2023 to hear their views on the pilot first-hand, and to invite them to work with the Scottish Government as plans for the pilot develop. As I emphasised to the Committee on 7 February, the Scottish Government will work to build consensus as it progresses the pilot and will continue to listen to the voices of partners from across the justice system, as well as, importantly, victims.

The purpose of the pilot is to gather empirical evidence on the most effective way to respond to rape and attempted rape cases. This includes exploring whether changing the decision maker from juries to a judge improves complainers’ experiences (for example, by resulting in shorter, more focussed trials that could minimise re-traumatisation) and whether it removes barriers to victims accessing justice. Judges will be required to provide written reasons for verdicts in the pilot, which will increase transparency, safeguard the rights of accused people, and provide unparalleled insights into the issues, deliberations and challenges in these cases.

We refute any such suggestion and remain committed to delivering efficient and sustainable ferry service for the Arran community.

The development of the Ardrossan project remains challenging for all partners. The tender design work identified gaps in the original base case submitted by Peel Ports Group and North Ayrshire Council.

The project scope is of vital importance to the business case and cost estimate review work. There is a clear need for a robust business case to support decisions by partners on this scale of project. The impact of recent announcements from Peel Ports Group around the condition and integrity of the existing port infrastructure is under review.

From 23 March 2022 to end September 2023, 15,765 homes have now been delivered towards the 110,000 affordable homes target, of which 12,188 (77%) are homes for social rent.

We are expecting the next set of quarterly statistics, covering the period to end December 2023, to be published towards the end of March.

We remain focused on delivering 110,000 affordable homes by 2032 and to support that we will bring forward the review scheduled for 2026-27 to 2024, which will concentrate on deliverability.

The homes provided through the Affordable Housing Supply Programme comprise homes for social rent, for mid-market rent and for low cost home ownership. These homes take various forms including; new build homes, rehabilitation projects, conversions and off-the-shelf purchases of both new and second hand homes.

The Scottish Government is not committed to changing the law in this area. However, in line with paragraph 9.15 of the Family Justice Modernisation Strategy Family Justice Modernisation Strategy - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) , the Scottish Government is carrying out a review of section 6 of the Child Abduction Act 1984, on the offence in Scots law of a parent taking or sending a child out of the United Kingdom without consent. As part of this review, we are speaking to key stakeholders to obtain their views. We are also taking account of previous work, such as report 102 by the Scottish Law Commission in 1987 on child abduction Child abduction (SLC 102) (scotlawcom.gov.uk) . I am aiming to publish the outcomes of this review by the Scottish Government, along with Impact Assessments on the effect any change in the law would have, later this year.

The following table provides the answer to :

1. age of each vessel was at the start of 2024

2. total length of service of each vessel has been with the CalMac fleet and any previous operators.

CalMac Ferries Limited are unable to provide the information requested as the data is not held in this format. CalMac do not measure vessels outage in days, as many technical issues are resolved in a number of hours.

I have provided reference to a previous Parliamentary Question S6W-15774 on 29 March 2023 with accompanying Bib number 64075, showing all weather related cancellation per vessel for the last 10 years. 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 .