Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is providing up to £246 million to SPT, towards the estimated total project cost of £287.5 million for the Subway modernisation programme, which includes: a smartcard ticketing system; new rolling stock and signalling; refurbished stations with improved accessibility.

To date, the Scottish Government has provided just over £142 million since 2011-12 to Subway Modernisation:

The Scottish Government has no plans to provide funding for additional air services from the mainland to Scottish islands. The only mechanism for the provision of subsidised air services is through the imposition of a Public Service Obligation (PSO). In line with legislative requirements, when considering the imposition of a PSO, the adequacy of other modes of transport and the ability of such modes to meet the transport needs under consideration is assessed.

Rail accessibility remains a matter reserved to the UK Government. For the current Rail Regulatory Control Period 6 (2019-2024) the Scottish Government nominated the following stations for the Department for Transport’s Access for All Programme:-

Anderston, Anniesland, Croy, Dumfries, Johnstone, Port Glasgow, Uddingston, Springburn, Shettleston, Falkirk High, Falkirk Grahamston, and Inverurie.

Following the nominations, the UK Department for Transport Access for All Programme and mid-Tier Programmes for this Control Period provided funding for access improvements at Anderston, Anniesland, Croy, Dumfries, Johnstone, Port Glasgow and Uddingston. The UK Government has chosen not to provide funding for Springburn, Shettleston, Falkirk High, Falkirk Grahamston, and Inverurie stations.

Step free access has already been delivered at Anderston, Croy, and Johnstone with the remaining stations where the UK Government accepted the Scottish Government’s nominations due to be completed by the end of the rail funding period in 2024.

The following table shows the average (median) and longest continuous time (expressed in days) spent on remand before transition to the sentenced population or departure, in 2020-21 and 2021-22. Data for 2022-23 is not yet available.

Table 1: Average (median) and Longest (Maximum) Number of Days Spent of Remand

The intention is that fares policy will be reviewed through the Fair Fares Review and Islands Connectivity Plan. Decisions will be taken on implementation in due course.

Some work had commenced with the commercial operator to consider potential options to put in place a compliant RET scheme, although this work has not progressed as quickly as we would have hoped due to other priorities in supporting ferry services.

Applying RET fares on Scottish Government funded services to the Northern Isles routes has previously been considered as potential high risk of distorting the Pentland Firth market and open to challenge. Further discussion and agreement with commercial operators would be required for this to be a viable option.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-19812 on‎ 1 August 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

On 28 June the Scottish Government published the Purpose and Principles for post-school education, research and skills . The Initial Priorities paper that was published alongside makes it clear that we agree that significant system reform is required if we are to achieve the long-term vision and outcomes.

The commitments on skills planning, employer engagement, funding, post-school pathways, the need for meaningful parity of esteem and consistency of language, clearly accept the basis of several recommendations made by James Withers in the Independent Review of the Skills Delivery Landscape.

Our work, with partners, to take forward these actions will further inform our response to the detail of Withers’ recommendations, which we will set out in the context of lifelong education and skills reform in the coming months.

The aim of the Green Growth Accelerator model is to unlock investment over the medium term in low carbon infrastructure. This unlocking would be supported by payments from the Scottish Government to the local authority which are tied to delivery of a set of pre-defined and agreed outcomes.

It takes time to develop infrastructure projects, so to support the initial pilot phase the Scottish Government has provided £720k in resource funding from the 2021-22 budget for six pathfinder projects (£120k per project) to develop business cases to pilot the GGA model across a range of geographical areas and project types. The six pathfinder pilots were selected following an open call for proposals from local authorities.

The Scottish Government provided a further £832k in resource funding through the GGA in 2022-23 to support local authorities with developing their pipeline of low carbon infrastructure projects.

The death of any child or young person is a tragic event and our sympathies are with all parents and families affected. We are awaiting the results of the preliminary investigations into the April 2023 data from Public Health Scotland before we can confirm our next steps. We will continue to work closely with Public Health Scotland, NHS Boards and Healthcare Improvement Scotland on our maternity safety programme of work.

In order to reduce the number of preventable deaths and harm to children and young people, the Scottish Government is funding a National Hub to review all child and neonatal deaths. The National Hub will draw on the evidence from pre-existing reviews and data, including PHS data, Serious and Adverse Event Reviews and Fatal Accident Inquiries, to identify and share learning through the provision of national guidance and annual reporting. The Hub is jointly operated by Healthcare Improvement Scotland and the Care Inspectorate and will issue its first annual report this Autumn. In June 2023 the National Hub published a new national information booklet about the child death review process designed for practitioners to share with bereaved parents, carers or other family members.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-20615 on‎ 14 August 2023 which confirmed that the Scottish Government had launched a consultation seeking views on proposals to extend the tracking and monitoring requirement to under 12 metre commercial fishing vessels.

I urge all stakeholders to engage with this consultation, which closes on 7 November 2023. The consultation documents can be found here: https://consult.gov.scot/marine-scotland/improving-inshore-fisheries-data/

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