Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government recognised that damage from flooding during the autumn of 2023 extended into parts of the Highlands and for this reason the eligible area of the Agricultural Floodbank scheme has been extended to include Highland Speyside.

I was concerned to hear of the situation at Tots Bots Ltd and the people affected by this announcement are our immediate priority. The Scottish Government is providing support through our initiative for responding to redundancy situations, Partnership Action for Continuing Employment (PACE). A PACE event was held on 17 November which was attended by 10 former Tots Bots employees and to date 17 further PACE engagements have taken place.

Businesses in Scotland can access advice, guidance and financial support from a wide range of organisations across the public sector. There are over 750 publicly funded interventions to support businesses in Scotland including through grants or loans, consultancy, research, training opportunities and self-help guides. Most of this is available to any business, anywhere in Scotland, whatever stage of growth it is at.

On non-domestic rates, the Scottish Budget 2023-24 ensures the lowest poundage in the UK for the fifth year in a row and supports a package of reliefs worth an estimated £749 million. This includes the most generous Small Business Bonus Scheme relief in the UK which is estimated to save ratepayers £249 million this year.

The Scottish Government is also working with the enterprise agencies, local government, and other public bodies to improve the way we support businesses through the Business Support Partnership. A range of business support is available via Business Gateway and Scottish Enterprise and can be accessed via findbusinesssupport.gov.scot

The idea for a Women’s Business Centre was among a suite of options considered in the review led by Ana Stewart culminating in the publication of Pathways for a New Approach to Women in Entrepreneurship. The Pathways report was published in February 2023 following extensive consultation and contained a wide range of recommendations on provision of advice and support, access to finance and investment as well as entrepreneurial education and use of disaggregated data. As that report did not recommend the establishment of a Women’s Business Centre we will now work to progress the recommendations from Pathways instead. In June 2023 the Scottish Government accepted the Pathways report in full and began work to implement its key recommendations. The first phase of that work established the Pathways Pre-Start Fund to support more women, and other under-represented groups, into business ownership and to realise their entrepreneurial potential. The 20 projects receiving funding have been published at Pathways Pre-Start Fund: funded programmes - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring everyone who is eligible to vote can do so and is working with partners to look at potential new ways to increase registration levels amongst under-represented groups including young people.

Curriculum for Excellence provides opportunities for young people of all ages and stages to develop their political literacy skills. This is most likely to feature in the social studies curricular area, which, helps young people develop as responsible, informed citizens with a global outlook covering important topics, including democracy and voting.

To support schools and teachers there is an extensive range of materials and resources to draw on, including the “You Decide” Political Literacy resource from Education Scotland, which provides guidance on how to ensure that learners use their voice, participate and contribute to decision-making processes.

The Electoral Commission provides free, impartial resources for schools and youth groups to use to support young people to develop their understanding of the voting process. Their resources include a series of lesson plans linked to the curriculum and interactive activities and videos, which cover topics such as how to register to vote, what happens at the polling place and how to find information about candidates.

The Commission also works with education partners to run a campaign called Welcome to Your Vote Week each year to encourage schools and other organisations to have conversations with young people about democracy. They can get involved in a range of ways, including organising a voter registration event or democracy day. In 2023, 150 schools and youth organisations participated.

The Commission recently began a partnership with Children in Scotland to bring together young people from across Scotland to inform its future work and ensure it meets the needs of young people, including the messaging that will help drive registration levels.

Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) send Invitations to Register to all those on the schools lists that are eligible to register. EROs report good engagement with schools, particularly those run by local authorities, where they get a good response to invitations to register. The reduction in franchise age to 16 means that all attainers to the local government register are in full time education as they will be under the age of 16. Most EROs are also supplied with lists of all students at Scottish Universities who are resident and eligible to register.

The Scottish Government opposes the inappropriate use of fire and rehire practices and we are clear that the practice does not represent Fair Work. In cases where contractual changes are necessary, there should always be appropriate and meaningful consultation

While employment law remains reserved, we encourage employers in Scotland to follow good practice in decisions regarding their workforce.

The Scottish Government has agreed a package of support for people whose homes and businesses were affected by Storm Babet.

Funding is being provided to eligible local authorities to allow them to issue flat rate grants to all households and businesses suffering from the impacts of Storm Babet. The grants will comprise a £1,500 community recovery grant for those whose properties have been flooded, and a £3,000 business recovery grant for businesses, community groups and organisations impacted by flooding. Grants will be administered by eligible local authorities which are those that had an exceptional red warning for rain during October’s storm. Letters offering funding have been issued to Dundee City Council, Angus Council, Aberdeenshire Council and Perth and Kinross Council to enable them to make the grant payments.

We are also providing Angus Council with additional funding of up to £100,000 to help those families who have lost everything to resettle and rebuild their lives. We have also announced funding to help farmers repair floodbanks damaged by the extreme rainfall during October.

The models and approaches that could be considered for delivering a public interest test for land reform were originally set out by the Scottish Land Commission in their discussion paper, Legislative proposals to address the impact of Scotland’s concentration of land ownership (published February 2021).

Based on the Scottish Land Commission’s recommendations, we put forward our proposals for a Public Interest Test on land transfers in our consultation document, Land Reform in a Net Zero Nation (published July 2022).

The consultation opened on 4 July 2022 and closed on 30 October 2022, asking a total of 51 questions. It also invited respondents to give us views on other ideas and proposals. Our proposals for the criteria which would determine the types of landholdings that would be in scope for the Public Interest Test, and how the Test would be applied, were set out in Parts 4 and 7.

Since the consultation we have commissioned analysis of the responses to it. The responses included a range of views on models for/approaches to a Public Interest Test. We have considered these carefully as we take forward development of our proposals. We have also engaged, and will continue to engage, with a range of internal and external stakeholders over the Test, along with the other measures proposed for the Bill.

The Scottish Consultants Contract is designed to ensure that Consultants who work within NHS Scotland have time for supporting professional activities. How much time received is based on working patterns and forms part of the job planning process they undertake with their employers.

The time that is dedicated to supporting professional activities can be used for research, teaching, training and supervising Junior Doctors.

The Scottish Government is working with all public sector partners to understand the extent of, and risks associated with, RAAC across all public bodies. In respect of issues concerning RAAC outside of schools and housing, Scottish Government officials are working closely with the Scottish Heads of Property Services (SHOPS) which is co-ordinating an information gathering exercise on our behalf in respect of the prevalence of RAAC in the non school/non housing estate. Information is also sought on planned actions and mitigations. Scottish Government officials will continue to attend SHOPS meetings to support information sharing, help facilitate wider engagement with other sectors and ensure awareness of best industry practice in mitigating RAAC impacts.

Infrastructure on the UK rail network, including level crossings on the West Coast Mainline, is a matter for Network Rail, therefore Network Rail would be best placed to provide this information.

Network Rail advises that all level crossings fully meet the operational and safety requirements and regularly undergo the required risk assessment programme.