Chamber and committees

The primary objective of a devolved Building Safety Levy is to raise revenue to support the funding of cladding remediation for multi residential properties where cladding may present a risk to life. This will also ensure that homeowners and residents do not have to meet those significant costs themselves, directly.

The Scottish Government will balance this objective with minimising the impact on housing supply. We will also work with stakeholders and across the public sector to understand the cumulative impact of existing costs and regulations on the residential property and construction sectors.

Revenues from the UK Government’s Building Safety Levy in England will be small in relation to UK GDP and so the Levy is not expected to have any significant macroeconomic impact. As set out in the 2023-24 Programme for Government, the Scottish Government intends for a devolved Building Safety Levy to apply in equivalence to the Levy that is being introduced in England and so it does not expect the macroeconomic impact to be materially different in Scotland.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information. It is publicly available from Public Health Scotland on the incidence publication page for blood cancers: Leukaemias, Hodgkin lymphoma, Non-hodgkin lymphoma and multiple myeloma.

Zero Waste Scotland recognises the importance of natively grown sustainable fibres in the transition to a Circular Economy for textiles. Zero Waste Scotland are undertaking research on the textiles industry in Scotland to understand material flows and business practices. Results are anticipated next financial year.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-22317 on 7 November 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 .

The Scottish House Condition Survey (SHCS) provides a snapshot of the Scottish housing stock in each survey year including the construction age and built form of Scottish domestic buildings. The SHCS records double glazing for occupied dwellings, however this is recorded as installed pre or post 2003, when higher requirements for double glazing were introduced. The SHCS does not record data on all public sector buildings, just Local Authority owned homes, therefore complete information requested is not available in this form.

The most recent estimates of households with double glazing installed pre 2003 broken down by privately owned, local authority and housing association is presented in the table below.

Table 1: Number of households with pre 2003 double glazing in 2019

CalMac have chartered the MV Alfred on a temporary basis to support resilience throughout the CHFS network, and not principally to serve Stornoway.

At present a number of vessels in the CalMac fleet are carrying out berthing trials including MV Alfred, MV Hebridean Isles and the MV Caledonian Isles. This is to ensure CalMac are fully aware of the capabilities of all of their vessels in the event there is a period of severe disruption and to ensure that all communities continue to receive a service even during severe disruption.

These trials concluded that the MV Alfred would not be able to operate a service to Stornoway, however have proven successful in other ports for example, Lochmaddy/Tarbert where she will provide additional support from 10 November.

Clyde Metro will be transformational for the region. It is likely to be a programme which will be delivered over a number of years, with the scale and capital costs required making it one of the largest programme of works Scotland will have ever seen.

It is too early to comment on the longer term funding of Clyde Metro, however, it is envisaged that the funding model for implementation of Clyde Metro will be determined as part of the next stage of development.

Following the appointment of the First Minister and formation of government in March 2023, 12 Ministers accepted a government issued mobile device. Please see the following list.

Since the publication of the draft second Strategic Transport Projects Review in January 2022, a multi-partner working group consisting of Transport Scotland, Strathclyde Partnership for Transport and Glasgow City Council, known as the Client Delivery Group, has met regularly to discuss and better define the scale of work that Clyde Metro might represent, together with the associated resource and programme requirements. This is overseen by a Programme Steering Group comprising of the Chief Executives of those organisations. I am pleased that Strathclyde Partnership for Transport have undertaken to lead the next stage of the case for investment for Clyde Metro. Transport Scotland will continue to be involved in a project assurance and support role.