The Isle of Skye remains one of Scotland’s most popular tourist destinations. The increase in traffic over the Skye Bridge, which is part of the A87 trunk road, is reflective of its continuing popularity and as a route for those travelling to the Western Isles and to the Island of Raasay by ferry.

This government recognises that increased traffic also creates challenges. That is why, along with maintaining and ensuring resilience of the trunk road, we are upgrading the A87/A855 junction in Portree. This aims to improve safety for all road users, with work due to commence in this financial year. More widely we are investing approximately £4.65 million in 2023-24 on maintaining the A87 trunk road, which includes the section from the Skye Bridge to the port of Uig.

Longer term, the second Strategic Transport Projects Review recommends that investment on the A87 and wider trunk road network is targeted at maintaining a network of roads which are safe, resilient and adapted to deal with the impacts of climate change.

Improvement to local roads and transport infrastructure remain the responsibility of the Highland Council.

It is the responsibility of Registered Social Landlords and Local Authorities to address potentially unsafe cladding however as the current pilot was initially established as being tenure neutral, out of 28 assessments that are currently live, 7 at time of entry were registered as social landlords or housing associations.

Transport Scotland’s Operating Company for the A83, BEAR Scotland, has recently carried out surveys on the road during very heavy rain conditions. During the severe weather event of 6th to 8th of October 2023, both Council maintained and Trunk roads were affected by landslides as well as localised flooding however there is no evidence to suggest the A83 is regularly restricted to single file traffic for any significant lengths of time. BEAR Scotland will continue to manage and maintain the A83 in accordance with Transport Scotland’s robust maintenance contracts.

This section of the A83, in common with the rest of the trunk road network, is subject to a variety of inspections and surveys. Weekly safety inspections are carried out to identify defects that represent an immediate hazard, which are then required to be repaired within specified timescales.

In some cases where no designed drainage system exists this will be considered as an improvement or vulnerable location scheme and prioritised accordingly. Interventions may include enhanced management and maintenance to physical intervention being carried out when funding is approved by Transport Scotland.

Cyclic maintenance is also undertaken annually to ensure that all drainage assets on the trunk road are clean and functioning to their maximum capacity. This includes cleaning gullies and manholes, re-cutting grips and jetting piped grips annually and harrowing filter drain material every three years.

As set out in the Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Bill, Scottish Ministers will specify the standards of the Single Building Assessment. Following a robust tendering process, we have appointed an independent contractor to develop an end-to-end Single Building Assessment. The specification will be informed by stakeholder engagement as well as drawing on experience from the pilot phase of the Cladding Remediation Programme.

All buildings within the pilot phase of the Cladding Remediation Programme are due to be on a Single Building Assessment pathway by Summer 2024, as set out in the First Minister's policy priority mandate letter to the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice.

Further to the answer to question S6W-24362 on 22 January 2024 the Scottish Government continues to engage with Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) on the implications of the budget decision. SPT was the only regional transport partnership which received direct general capital support budget allocation, in previous budgets funded through the Local Government Finance settlement Regional Transport Partnerships line.

The UK Autumn Statement was a worst-case scenario for Scotland and confirmed that the Scottish Government Capital Block Grant is forecast to contract by almost 10% in real terms over 5 years (2023-24 to 2027-28). This required very difficult decisions across all portfolios.

Scottish Government was not able to undertake consultation with SPT in advance of publication, and I recognise the disappointment in this, however, you will appreciate the detail of the draft Scottish Budget cannot be discussed out with Government, until Parliament is informed when the Deputy First Minister makes her statement.

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 .

The responsibility for the balancing of grid lies with the National Grid Electricity System Operator and wider system integration costs are set by the regulator, Ofgem. This data is not held by the Scottish Government.

Although the Scottish Government has not made an assessment of this, evidence from the Climate Change Committee suggests that integration costs could be around £10- 25/MWh for systems with up to 50-65% renewables but could increase further at higher penetrations. However, as the Committee on Climate Change note, it is challenging to estimate system integration costs and extensive assumptions are required to do so. Estimates of system integration costs are largely reliant on modelling. More details can be found here: Technical-Annex-Integrating-variable-renewables-into-the-UK-electricity-system.pdf (theccc.org.uk) .

The Scottish Household Survey costs in the following table cover both the social survey (approximately 10,500 households interviewed per year) and the physical survey (approximately 3,000 residential properties inspected per year). Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, only 3,000 households were interviewed for the 2020 social survey, and the 2020 and 2021 social surveys were carried out by telephone rather than by the usual face-to-face method. There was no 2020 physical survey, and the 2021 physical survey inspections were external only, with information on internal aspects of the property collected from the householder by telephone.

The Scottish Government cannot direct the independent Scottish Housing Regulator to publish the daily rate of each person on its statutory managers list and, as such, will not be requesting that they do so.

Local authorities are responsible for the management of local roads and paths in their area, including design of low traffic neighbourhoods. The Scottish Government has provided guidance for these within the National Planning Framework , the “ Our Place ” website and Cycling by Design guidance.