Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-24265 on 15 January 2024. 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 .

We are initiating our commitment of up to £500 million to anchor our offshore wind supply chain in Scotland with investment of £67 million in 2024-2025.

This commercial and grant investment will stimulate and support private investment in the infrastructure and manufacturing facilities critical to the growth of our world-leading offshore wind sector.

We have worked with public sector partners to develop a framework which will achieve strategic alignment of public sector investment in offshore renewables supply chain and infrastructure development.

This very much aligns with the approach taken by the Scottish Offshore Wind Energy Council (SOWEC) in developing the Strategic Investment Model (SIM) to move from project-led to sector level investment that better supports growth in port and supply chain capacity and capability.

We will continue to collaborate with public sector partners and engage with industry and other partners as we finalise our approach and we will provide an update in due course.

Our strategic investment will support market certainty, create new jobs, embed innovation, and boost skills to foster a competitive economy, underscoring our determination to maximise the economic benefits from Scotland’s offshore wind potential.

The Scottish Government has not used external auditors or an independent review to consider whether the (i) Housing to 2040 strategy, (ii) 110,000 affordable housing supply target and (iii) Affordable Housing Supply Programme are achievable.

The expansion of Hospital at Home is already supporting Boards maximise capacity to meet demand and helping more people receive care at home or as close to home as possible, where clinically appropriate – which is relieving pressure on the front door of our A&Es. Early feedback from NHS Boards indicates good progress is being made in terms of increasing Hospital at Home capacity in key areas.

The Scottish Government has no plans to begin an immediate and urgent external review of the Affordable Housing Supply Programme. We have recently confirmed plans for a 2024 review of the 110,000 homes target focused on the timeline for delivery.

The Scottish Government has allocated (a) £42m in 2019-20, (b) £42m in 2020-21 (c) £52m in 2021-22 (d) £63m in 2022-23 (e) £61m in 2023-24 and (f) £88.5m in 2024-25 to local authorities through the general capital grant to invest in flood protection and resilience measures.

Angela Constance: I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

SPS does not record this information.

Guidance on this issue is contained within the Supporting Transgender Pupils In Schools Guidance. This is available from Supporting transgender young people in schools: guidance for Scottish schools - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Information has been shared in response to similar questions many times (at least annually) since Roseanna Cunningham answered on 15 August 2017, most recently in response to Willie Rennie MSP on 9 November 2023.

Local authorities are responsible for the development and delivery of flood protection schemes. The 2015-2021 Flood Risk Management Strategies included 42 formal flood protection schemes. Local authorities were expected to start work on development of these schemes by 2021.

Flood protection schemes can have significant impacts on individuals, communities and the environment, and so require careful and detailed planning and consultation, it was recognised that construction work may not be completed within the 2015-2021 timeframe.

15 of the flood schemes have now been completed.

Schemes (a) under construction are as follows:

Of the people convicted for homicide (Murder or Culpable homicide) between the years 2017-18 and 2021-22, with 2021-22 being the most recent year for which data are available, none of them received a main penalty of (a) Sheriff Court fine, (b) Justice of the Peace Court fine, (c) fiscal fine, (d) fiscal compensation order, (e) fiscal combined offer.

(f) Police antisocial behaviour penalties are limited to certain antisocial behaviour offences as laid out in section 128 of the Antisocial Behaviour (S) Act 2004, of which homicide is not included.

The ‘Criminal Proceedings in Scotland, 2021-22’ statistical bulletin contains information on convictions and main penalty by crime type. Tables 3 and 7(a) in the Main Bulletin Tables can be found under supporting documents here: Criminal Proceedings in Scotland, 2021-22 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .