Chamber and committees

Support for the refurbishment of cultural assets, such as small-scale building renovations, accessibility improvements or installing fixed assets, can be accessed by individuals and organisations applying to Creative Scotland’s Open Fund.

On a select case-by-case basis, a Regularly Funded Organisation (RFO) by Creative Scotland may also be authorised to use some of its regular funding towards refurbishment costs. This would require the organisation to demonstrate to Creative Scotland how the refurbishment represents value for money, public benefit and supports the delivery of their overall creative programme.

I have asked Janet Egdell, interim Chief Executive of the National Records of Scotland to respond. Her response is as follows:

The Migration Statistics Quarterly Summary for Scotland (MSQS) provided Scottish-specific secondary analysis of the Migration Statistics Quarterly Report (MSQR) which used to be published by ONS. The MSQR - and therefore MSQS - have been paused while ONS are progressing a transformation programme of the population and migration statistics system. During this programme, there is limited migration data available at Scotland level, particularly for the headline measures of long-term international migration flows as well as migrant stocks. Once these releases are being updated regularly again, we will explore the options for reinstating the MSQS.

I have asked Janet Egdell, interim Chief Executive of The National Records of Scotland to respond. Her response is as follows:

These statistics are planned for publication in February 2024. The publication date has been delayed in order to incorporate the new census data.

Argyll and Bute Council requested activation of the Bellwin Scheme on 9 October and the Scottish Government responded on the same day to confirm that Ministers had activated the Bellwin Scheme in relation to the flooding on 7 and 8 October 2023.

The Bellwin Scheme allows Ministers to make additional revenue support available to local authorities to assist with immediate and unforeseen costs in dealing with the aftermath of emergency incidents. The key criterion of the Scheme is to safeguard life and property, and prevent suffering or severe inconvenience.

The Scheme addresses revenue and uninsurable expenditure incurred within a two month period from the date of the incident (or such later date as agreed between the Scottish Government and local authority).

Payments are only made once the local authority has exceeded its annual Bellwin Threshold which represents 0.2 per cent of their net revenue budget for the year in question. This is the amount local authorities are deemed to set aside to cover unforeseen emergencies across the financial year.

The 2023-24 Bellwin Threshold for Argyll and Bute is £528,662.

The external costs associated with the production and publication of the Building a New Scotland paper, ‘Our marine sector in an independent Scotland’, are set out in the following table:

Outside interference is a risk which the Scottish Government is aware of through our regular threat analysis and risk assessment processes. The Scottish Government employs a range of measures to mitigate this type of risk as much as possible. As I’m sure Mr Cole-Hamilton will understand, it would not be appropriate to publish the details of these measures.

Ministers will take decisions about where the funding is allocated in 2024-25 and future years subject to the outcome of the Scottish Budget process and associated approval by the Scottish Parliament.

The draft budget will be published later this year and will be the subject of Parliamentary scrutiny in early 2024. The Scottish Government intends to present the Draft Budget 2024-25 to Parliament on Tuesday 19 December 2023.

Ministers and civil servants engage regularly with INEOS and Petroineos as a matter of course, given the strategic importance of the assets at Grangemouth.

Recent engagements include two site visits in at Grangemouth to discuss INEOS’ net zero roadmap, which were attended by the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Net Zero and Just Transition and both the Energy Minister and myself in April and June.

I also met representatives of Petroineos’ Joint Ventures Partners in June 2023 as part of the Scottish Government’s regular engagement with the business.

The First Minister and I also spoke to senior management at the refinery on 23 November 2023, during which we outlined our expectation that the business should explore every possible option to extend refining operations beyond the conclusion of import terminal infrastructure construction.

The Scottish Government doesn’t inform the Met Office about landslips, as this is not an operational requirement of this UK Weather Agency. The role of the Met Office is to make meteorological predictions across all timescales from weather forecasts to climate change.

It should be noted however, The Met Office is one of a number of stakeholders the Scottish Government liaise with in the course of preparing responses to resilience and weather related events. The Met Office provide weather related advice to the Scottish Government, which in turn serves to inform our wider resilience response, including consideration of landslip risk in areas such as the A83, Rest and be Thankful.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-23120 on 7 December 2023. 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 .