Chamber and committees

The Social Housing Net Zero Heat Fund (SHNZHF) launched in August 2020 and provides capital funding to social landlords to retrofit their existing housing stock by installing clean heat and improving their energy efficiency. Projects are eligible for up to 60% of the capital costs of clean heating systems and 50% of energy efficiency measures.

This year the SHNZHF is investing approximately £16.8m in 19 projects. To date, the fund has awarded approximately £75.3 million to 80 projects across Scotland for the installation of net zero measures to existing social rented homes.

The date set for the next funding checkpoint of the SHNZHF has not yet been set. When set it will be communicated to stakeholders through the fund website and stakeholder channels.

Social Landlords interested in developing heat networks can also access Scotland’s Heat Network Fund which makes capital funding available for the construction of new heat networks in addition to the decarbonisation and expansion of existing heat networks.

Our Area Based Schemes target areas with high levels of fuel poverty and enable improvements projects to go ahead in mixed tenure blocks benefiting some social tenants. Since 2013 we have invested over £600 million in area based schemes. This has helped around 40,000 social tenants and their neighbours to benefit from net zero measures and warmer homes that are less expensive to heat.

These projects have been classed as referral projects in the Strategic Investment Model process and have been referred to their local enterprise agency to continue discussions on ways in which the projects can be supported. Full details about the route forward for each of the project categories are available online: Full SIM Stage 2 List published | Offshore Wind Scotland.

While the Scottish Government supports the industry-led Strategic Investment Model, the decision to prioritise projects for investment through the Strategic Investment Model was made by industry – not the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government was disappointed to hear of the decision to close the Albion Automotive site in Glasgow. This has obviously been a very worrying time for the workforce, their families and the local area.

Scottish Enterprise worked closely with the company to explore all viable options to retain these highly skilled jobs in Scotland, but unfortunately a solution could not be found.

The Scottish Government’s initiative for responding to redundancy situations, Partnership Action for Continuing Employment, has been working with the company to support the affected staff and will continue to provide support as required. We understand that a number of staff have secured alternative employment.

The Scottish Government is committed to land reform and improving transparency of those who own and control land in Scotland is at the heart of our land reform objectives.

The Scottish Government will continue to review any evidence – including that arising from the Scottish Land Commission’s report on land and property taxation – and assess this as part of our wider approach to tax policy

Registers of Scotland are currently working to deliver the benefits of a completed land register through their Unlocking Sasines project. This uses spatial data to help ‘unlock’ the historic information in the Sasine register, which means that they can link Sasine property search sheets to a map for the first time, making it visually more helpful and accessible. Additionally, the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill will improve transparency and help ensure that large scale land holdings deliver in the public interest. The Bill will place legal responsibilities on the owners of the very largest landholdings to set out – through Land Management Plans - how they use their land and how that contributes to key public policy priorities, like addressing climate change and protecting and restoring nature.

Our Mental Health & Wellbeing Strategy lays out our vision for improving mental health so people can get the right help, in the right place, at the right time for any aspect of their mental health. This includes people whose mental health has been affected as a result of migraines.

I acknowledge the recent report by the Migraine Trust, which highlighted the links between migraines and mental health.

Post School Education and Skills Reform is a 10-year transformation programme which will help us to achieve the ambitions set out in the Purpose and Principles for Post-School Education, Research and Skills.

Early priorities include:

• leading a new, national approach to skills planning and working with partners to strengthen regional approaches;
• reforming the education and skills funding system so it is easier to navigate and is responsive to learners and to skills priorities, initially by introducing a Bill to simplify the post-school funding body landscape;
• continuing to work closely with partners to improve careers support;
• apprenticeships reform to reduce the complexity, make the system more transparent and maximise the value of investment to learners and the economy; and
• building up an understanding of the post-school qualifications landscape alongside defining the oversight role for the new qualifications body.

The Programme Board provides the necessary governance and assurance to support successful delivery of the aims of the Post School Education and Skills Reform Programme.

The 152nd Open, which took place at Royal Troon in South Ayrshire from 14-21 July 2024, was a significant success for Scotland. The Championship enjoyed a record crowd for Troon, with over 250,000 spectators in attendance, more than half of whom travelled from outside of Scotland.

Independent research from Sheffield Hallam University’s Sport Industry Research Centre has found that The 152nd Open generated an estimated £87.3 million in total economic impact – new money entering the economy – for Scotland. Ayrshire received total economic impact of an estimated £43.8 million.

The figures for this year’s Championship bring the total economic benefit generated by the ten stagings of The Open in Scotland since 2005 to £1.36 billion.

The Open is synonymous with Scotland and of significant importance to our country from an economic and reputational perspective. Scottish Ministers have therefore committed funding for a renewed long-term agreement with The R&A starting in 2024, which will ensure that its major championships are staged in Scotland regularly until 2034. The agreement guarantees that 14 major championships organised by The R&A will be staged in Scotland across its lifetime, including five stagings of The Open.

The agreement also brings an exclusive benefits package for Scotland, covering elements such as international promotion, advertising and support for Scottish Government policies, notably in relation to sustainability and health.

As well as delivering significant economic benefits at national and local level, the investment in The R&A’s major championships will drive tourism and showcase Scotland as a world-class stage for major events.

Funding from the Scottish Government and VisitScotland is £1 million per year for 11 years, therefore totalling £11 million. Given the economic impact and wider value that can be expected, this represents very strong value for money.

The Nature Restoration Fund (NRF) makes funding available through two main strands: the competitive strand administered by NatureScot, and the Edinburgh Process strand, which provides direct allocations to Local Authorities and National Parks.

In total, to date, 220 projects have been offered funding from the competitive strand of the NRF, including 28 NRF-funded Scottish Marine Environmental Enhancement Fund (SMEEF) projects. This represents a total of £33,366,872 in committed funding.

The following table sets out by local authority area the 183 projects awarded competitive funding to the end of March 2024, the period for which data is currently available. We do not hold information about the amounts of funding offered in this format and this does not include the NRF-funded SMEEF projects referred to above.

Public Health Scotland's (PHS) independent evaluation of Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP) of alcohol estimated that our world-leading policy reduced wholly alcohol-attributable deaths by 13.4% and was likely to have reduced hospital admissions wholly attributable to alcohol by 4.1%.

There was strong and consistent evidence of a reduction in alcohol consumption following MUP implementation, and that the reduction in consumption was driven by the heaviest purchasing households, leading to the conclusion that MUP was well targeted. As MUP was estimated to have resulted in a decrease in alcohol-attributable deaths and hospital admissions related to chronic conditions, the evaluation took this as further evidence to suggest that MUP has reduced consumption in those that drink at hazardous and harmful levels.

Overall, the evidence supports that MUP has had a positive impact on health outcomes, including alcohol-related health inequalities.

The Scottish Government is aware that the introduction of zonal pricing could have a significant impact on all market participants, including industry, communities and consumers. It is therefore important that any such proposal is considered in the round in wider electricity market reform, which considers how we can establish an energy system that ultimately delivers investment, energy security and translates the lower costs of renewables through to consumers.

The Scottish Government welcomes the constructive engagement we have had with Ofgem, NG ESO, the UK Government and industry on the reform of electricity markets, however, it is crucial that the UK Government urgently provides clarity on the timetable and direction of travel on this key piece of work.