Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government continues to work closely with DAERA NI officials and key agencies through the Paws for Thought Puppy Trafficking Group to disrupt and target those involved in the smuggling of puppies into Scotland from Northern Ireland. The collaborative actions of this Group are delivering significant reductions in the number of pups being trafficked into Scotland, mainly as a consequence of intelligence-led targeting of known or flagged transporters. The Group also continues to raise awareness among ferry passengers of puppy smuggling through the use of flyers, posters and social media, with anyone seeing suspicious activity encouraged to immediately report it.

More widely, the Scottish Government continues to work with the multi-agency Pet Trade Taskforce to share intelligence and target those involved in the illegal breeding and smuggling of puppies for sale in Scotland.

The Scottish Government has undertaken no such assessments. It is the responsibility of the enforcement agencies to plan and execute any stop and search of vehicles entering Scotland by ferry. On the call from the Dogs Trust for visual checks on all dogs entering Scotland, we consider this impractical, as it would require significant resources to be permanently deployed. Additionally, it should be recognised that it is a small minority of individuals that are involved in the smuggling of puppies from NI to Scotland and so visually inspecting every dog arriving in Scotland would be disproportionate. We consider intelligence-led, targeted checks to be the most effective approach.

The Scottish Government continues to support measures to reduce the number of dogs per vehicle which can be transported non-commercially into the UK, having obtained legislative consent from the Scottish Parliament for this to be taken forward under the UK Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill before this was withdrawn by the UK Government in May 2023, and having agreed in principle to seek legislative consent for the Animal Welfare (Import of Dogs, Cats and Ferrets) Bill before this fell due to the dissolution of the UK Parliament in May 2024.

The Scottish Government maintains that to ensure consistency of approach and the most effective outcomes, these measures would best be delivered by a UK Parliament bill. To this end, Scottish Government officials continue to engage with DEFRA on the possibility of legislation in the UK parliament to reduce the number of dogs per vehicle which can be transported non-commercially into the UK, along with other animal welfare measures relating to the transport of pets.

The visual checking of all dogs entering Scotland via Cairnryan, would require deployment of additional human resource when there are already significant demands being placed on local authority and other enforcement agency staff.

Many commercial movements of animals are already inspected at Border Control Posts, and pet dogs travelling with their owners on ferries will often be checked by APHA trained ferry staff. The movements of concern, i.e. puppies being smuggled, happens under the radar, and is best addressed through intelligence-led targeted enforcement action.

The Scottish Government does not hold any such data.

The Scottish Government continues to support measures to restrict the transport of pregnant dogs into the UK, having obtained legislative consent from the Scottish Parliament for this to be taken forward under the UK Animal Welfare (Kept Animals) Bill before this was withdrawn by the UK Government in May 2023, and having agreed in principle to seek legislative consent for the Animal Welfare (Import of Dogs, Cats and Ferrets) Bill before this fell due to the dissolution of the UK Parliament in May 2024.

The Scottish Government maintains that to ensure consistency of approach and the most effective outcomes, these measures would best be delivered by a UK Parliament bill. To this end, Scottish Government officials continue to engage with DEFRA on the possibility of legislation in the UK parliament to restrict the transport of pregnant dogs into the UK, along with other animal welfare measures relating to the transport of pets.

The Scottish Government has committed up to £500 million strategic investment over five years, to leverage private investment in critical offshore wind infrastructure and supply chain.

Additional support for energy transition in Aberdeen and the North East region is also being provided through:

• The Just Transition Fund, through which we have allocated up to £75 million across the North East region to support projects, including the Supply Chain Pathway and Energy Transition Challenge Fund helping supply chain companies to transition and access new net zero and global business opportunities, and the Offshore Energy Skills Passport aiding the cross sector transferability of the offshore energy workforce.
• The Energy Transition Fund, which is supporting four major projects in Aberdeen and the North East region. These include supporting development in Aberdeen of the Energy Transition Zone, providing the necessary facilities and investment opportunities to attract renewable energy manufacturing companies and the creation of the Global Underwater Hub, to provide sub sea supply chain companies with access to multiple sector markets worldwide.

The draft Islands Connectivity Plan (ICP) Strategic Approach was published for public consultation from 1 February 2024 to 6 May 2024. The draft proposed that we would revisit the Freight Fares Review in the medium to longer term.

The purpose of the consultation was to gather feedback on our proposals and test our understanding of the priority issues facing island transport connectivity and ferry services in particular.

The outputs from the consultation and engagement will support the finalisation of the ICP which will set out our plans for taking forward ferry fares policy.

The Scottish Government analyses a range of impacts, including on the economy, when considering Income Tax policy options during the annual budget process. We also closely monitor the impacts of our existing policies on revenues, taxpayers, and the economy. Scottish Income Tax performance remains strong – Scotland outperformed the rest of the UK in both tax and earnings growth for both 2022-23 and 2023-24. Scottish Income Tax policy for 2025-26 will be announced during the annual Budget process.

The most recent Instrumental Music Services Survey 2023 Instrumental Music Services: Results from the IMS Survey 2023 (improvementservice.org.uk) (published in December 2023) confirmed that the number of pupils accessing free instrumental music tuition was the highest on record since the survey began in 2012.

It is for individual councils to make decisions about their own provision. For those local authorities which do operate waiting lists, it is clearly important that they work to accommodate as many interested pupils as possible.