Chamber and committees

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency monitors the water quality of Scotland’s rivers and designated bathing beaches and publishes its classification results annually.

87% of Scotland’s entire water environment is assessed by SEPA as having a high or good classification for water quality, up from 82% in 2014, and for rivers the figure is 85%.

SEPA’s most recent Bathing Waters classification shows that 97% of Scotland’s bathing waters currently achieve the bathing water quality standards with 87% being rated good or excellent, up from 84% in 2023.

Scotland is renowned worldwide for the quality of our rivers, lochs and seas, supporting our tourism economy with our natural environment attracting millions of visitors every year with a total of 109 million tourism visits to Scotland in 2023.

Scotland is leading the way in the green jobs revolution. The PwC Green Jobs Barometer shows that 5.6% of all job adverts in Scotland in 2024 were for jobs that have a positive impact on the environment, meaning Scotland is once again first place among the 12 UK nations and regions in the overall Green Jobs Barometer.

This is an operational matter for Skills Development Scotland. I have asked the Chief Executive of SDS, Damien Yeates to write to you with details on current budget allocated for the Green Jobs Workforce Academy.

This is an operational matter for Skills Development Scotland. I have asked the Chief Executive of SDS, Damien Yeates to write to you with details of how many full-time equivalent staff are currently employed to support the Green Jobs Workforce Academy.

Household soft plastics are not routinely recycled by Scottish Local Authorities. Data is not collected specifically on soft plastics, but Zero Waste Scotland extrapolate from SEPA annual estimates of the amount of plastic waste generated in Scotland and managed in / out with Scotland in the Waste From All Sources report: Waste (from all sources). It is not possible to break this analysis down into sub-types of plastic waste.

We must conduct an Equality Impact Assessment (EQIA) at the earliest stages of developing new policies or revising existing ones. This includes strategies, legislation, guidance, frameworks, training, funding, reviews, and any other activities that affect people. The EQIA process requires evidence gathering to understand and assess the potential impact of policy decisions. This evidence gathering can include public consultations and lived experience discussions with those organisations and members of the public to understand and assess any potential impacts.

Regulation 5 of these Scottish Specific Duties is particularly relevant to EQIAs, as it requires the assessment of all new and revised policies and practices for their impact on the three Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) needs, as well as the publication of these assessment results within a reasonable timeframe and in an easily accessible manner.

The Scottish Government’s Circular Economy & Waste Route Map and 2020 Climate Change Plan update included our commitment to consult on the separate collection of textile waste from households. A consultation was launched on 25 March 2025: Changes to waste management services - Scottish Government consultations - Citizen Space

The consultation will provide evidence and views on how we can prevent textiles becoming waste through more recycling and reuse, including through kerbside collection or measures at Household Waste Recycling Centres. The findings will inform the co-design of the new household recycling Code of Practice and be subject to further policy development with local government and other waste sector stakeholders.

Zero Waste Scotland began research on product stewardship considerations for textiles in Scotland in 2023. The final report will be published in 2025 and will provide a detailed view of textiles material flow across the Scottish value chain, stakeholder insights to required policy interventions and analysis of potential measures that take account of practicality, feasibility and impact.

WRAP is taking action to transform the way that textiles and clothing are bought, used and re-used. They are working with leaders in the UK and globally to develop, share and scale new processes.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) is responsible for monitoring the water quality of Scotland’s rivers and designated bathing beaches and publishes its classification results annually.

87% of Scotland’s entire water environment is currently assessed by SEPA as having a high or good classification for water quality, up from 82% in 2014.

SEPA’s most recent Bathing Waters classification shows that 97% of Scotland’s bathing waters currently achieve the bathing water quality standards with 87% being rated good or excellent, up from 84% in 2023.

Rather than deploying permanent monitoring, which is the common approach for water companies in England, Scottish Water has taken an outcomes focussed approach by carrying out comprehensive Scotland-wide environmental modelling (in partnership with SEPA) to assess the impacts of its assets on water quality during the 2015 to 2021 investment period.

The models which Scottish Water developed allowed it to understand when CSOs will spill, under what rainfall conditions these spills occur and the impact these will have on the environment. This work has allowed Scottish Water and SEPA to prioritise environmental focus and Scottish Water to target its investments accordingly. Adopting this approach has seen consistent improvement in Scotland’s water quality with 87% of all waterbodies meeting Good Status or beyond and 97% of bathing waters meeting or exceeding minimum standards as assessed by SEPA.

In addition to the progress made in improving water quality, Scottish Water recognised the need for more transparency in overflow operation and set out the commitment to install more monitors and to publish the data from these in its Improving Urban Waters routemap.

Transport Scotland doesn’t, as a matter of course, undertake assessments of traffic levels at Sheriffhall roundabout, or other locations on the strategic road network. Traffic data is captured on an ongoing basis for specific projects or studies.

Congestion and traffic levels were assessed as part of the transport appraisal that supported the first Strategic Transport Projects Review (STPR), published in 2008, which led on to improvements to the junction being tabled under intervention 22.

Subsequently detailed consideration of traffic levels at this junction was undertaken in the SESplan A720 Cross Boundary Study, published in 2017, which recognised that the A720 Edinburgh City Bypass plays a fundamental role in providing strategic connectivity and supporting economic development within the region and noted that Sheriffhall roundabout is a well-known bottleneck for travellers using and crossing the A720.

Traffic counts were undertaken at the existing junction in 2014, 2017 and 2018 as part of the development of the A720 Sheriffhall Roundabout project. This information helped inform the projected traffic flows both with and without the proposed improvements as part of the scheme assessment process. In addition, traffic data from permanent automatic traffic counters maintained by Transport Scotland between 2008 and 2017 was also examined.