Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government publishes monthly reports on the Scottish economy at:

Economic briefs and bulletins - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

A report was not published in June 2024 due to the pre-election period for the UK General Election.

I understand and share the Member's frustrations on the Ardrossan Harbour redevelopment, as do my Officials working on the project. The business case work and overall delivery of the project needs to be supported by the financial packages from each of the main funding partners. It is imperative therefore that these and the legal agreements are clearly defined, affordable and ensure value to the public purse.

During recent discussions with funding partners there have been some emerging issues in relation to the funding packages and costs to Government that require further investigation and to be concluded before the business case can be finalised.

Officials are progressing these matters as quickly as possible and will look to provide respective updates when notable progress is made.

In January 2023, we launched a consultation for the draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan (ESJTP), seeking feedback on our draft vision for marine energy, and including a question on whether the Scottish Government should set a deployment target for marine energy. The forthcoming finalised ESJTP will take into account the wide range of consultation responses received. As we develop Scotland’s ambitions for both wave and tidal energy, we will continue to engage with the industry to explore and support solutions to address long-term needs.

The Scottish Government currently has no plans to introduce a HGV overtaking ban on either of the two lane sections of the M8 motorway.

Legislation sets out a wide range of permitted development rights. These allow certain types of development to be carried out without a planning application. In doing so, they help provide certainty and save the time and expense associated with applying for planning permission.

In the first phase of the Scottish Government’s review of permitted development rights, we introduced new PDR for the conversion of certain agricultural and forestry buildings to residential and flexible commercial uses (including shops, food and drink and business uses). We also increased the scale of agricultural buildings that may be built without a planning application. Rural businesses can also make use of and benefit from a range of other PDR.

In November 2022 the Ministerial Population Taskforce published the research report ‘Attitudes to Family Formation in Scotland’ to update the evidence base about fertility, family planning, and ideal family size in Scotland.

Building on international engagement with other countries experiencing low birth rates, the Scottish Government is taking forward comparative work about family friendly policies in other European countries, to establish if successful interventions elsewhere could be applicable in Scotland.

The outputs of this work will be considered alongside recent Census data in order to develop next steps which reflect Scottish Ministers’ ambition for Scotland to be the best possible place for all families.

ScotRail has been recruiting more staff to minimise reliance on staff working on rest days or overtime. ScotRail now employs 250 more train drivers than it did prior to public sector ownership. In addition, 160 Train Drivers are currently being recruited, the highest number ever, and ScotRail plans to continue its recruitment for Train Drivers in the coming years.

All ScotRail staffing costs including the funding for the planned recruitment are reflected in the current Transport Scotland rail budget for the financial year‎ 2024-2025.

The National Marine Plan 2 (NMP2) aims to support sustainable development of our seas, protect our marine environment, and deliver for Scotland’s communities, in particular those living by, relying on, and visiting Scotland’s seas. The NMP2 will support our blue economy vision, helping to tackle the twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change and realising the opportunities from the transition to net zero.

The NMP2 is already in development and stakeholder engagement has commenced on the plan policies, objectives and supporting assessments. Stakeholder involvement at every stage is essential to ensure that Scotland’s marine planning framework can continue to support sound decision-making to guide the future use of our seas. To maximise opportunities to meaningfully engage with stakeholders in the design of the Plan, the delivery timeline for the NMP2 and the accompanying Statement of Public Participation (SPP) have been updated.

Later in 2024, consultation on a marine Planning Position Statement will take place. This is a new stage of the NMP2’s development and will provide an invaluable and earlier opportunity for meaningful discourse. The Statement will set out the views gathered from stakeholders to date, and the Scottish Government’s commitments and aspirations for the new Plan. This will align the development of NMP2 with the approach taken for the National Planning Framework (NPF4), where consultation on the NPF4 position statement was carried out in 2021 and used to inform the development of the draft NPF4.

The feedback gathered from consultation on the statement and from the ongoing programme of stakeholder engagement will be used to produce a draft plan. The draft NMP2 will then be subject to public consultation in 2025.

These documents and further information are available at:

•  Statutory Statement of Public Participation

The Scottish Government has provided consistent support for the marine energy sector for more than a decade, for example through our work with the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), based in Orkney, which is the world’s only fully accredited test and research centre for wave and tidal energy. However, the main levers for enabling the commercialisation of these emerging technologies lie with the UK Government. The UK Government’s Contracts for Difference Allocation Rounds 4 and 5 highlight Scotland’s pioneering role in the tidal stream energy and its potential in our future net zero energy system. We welcome the recently announced £15 million ring-fenced support for tidal steam projects and look forward to working with the UK Government to ensure these technologies are supported through the scheme.

The Scottish Government is committed to developing a voluntary code of practice on dismissing and replacing land-owning land maintenance companies (“the Code”).

Whilst work on the development of the Code continues, other work pressures have impacted the rate of progress.