Chamber and committees

The Scottish House Conditions survey already accounts for and records the presence of low carbon heating technologies including heat pumps and solar panels.

The Scottish House Condition Survey (SHCS) consists of an interview with householders and a physical inspection of the dwelling they occupy, which provides a picture of Scotland's occupied housing stock. It covers all types of households and dwellings across the country - whether owned or rented, flats or houses. The physical data about the dwelling is recorded by surveyors trained to collect detailed information on housing characteristics.

The presence of a heat pump is collected in the survey through question M2 in the SHCS physical survey form , which records the main form of heating in the dwelling. This question will also record the presence of other low carbon heating technologies including other electric heating sources, and community heating. The type of heat pump (if present) is then recorded in question M11.

The SHCS also collects data on if a dwelling is suitable for solar panels or solar photovoltaics (PV), and if they have been installed through question D7 of the survey SHCS physical survey form , with questions D8 and D9 recording the percentage of the roof which is covered by solar PV and/ or solar panels respectively.

The SHCS key findings report has not previously included figures on the number of dwellings with heat pumps or solar panels / PV, due to their limited prevalence in the dwelling stock, but this can be added to future reports. Both are accounted for in our measurements of EPC’s, modelled energy use, energy costs, and fuel poverty calculations. Additionally, this data is included in the SHCS dataset on the UK Data Archive . We have included the estimated number of dwellings and percentage of all dwellings with a heat pump in table 1, and solar panels, solar PV, or both installed in table 2.

As the 2020 SHCS was suspended due to the Covid-19 pandemic and results from the 2021 External+ SHCS were published as experimental statistics the 2019 SHCS provides the most recent official statistics on heating systems and solar panels / PV. Results from the 2022 SHCS have been pre-announced for publication in February 2024.

Table 1: Estimated number of dwellings and percentage of all dwellings with a heat pump (2019).

We have previously answered two FOIs on website visits to the Building a New Scotland Papers:

• Unique online visitor statistics: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
• Building a New Scotland webpage visitors: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Paper title: An independent Scotland in the EU

Main paper URL: https://www.gov.scot/publications/building-new-scotland-independent-scotland-eu/

Main paper publish date: 17-11-2023

Main paper views in first month (all pages): 11,691

Easy read URL: https://www.gov.scot/publications/building-new-scotland-independent-scotland-european-union-eu-easy-read-version/

Easy read publish date: 17-11-2023

Easy read views or download link clicks in first month: 573

Audio URL: https://soundcloud.com/scotgov/needs-title-building-a-new-scotland-an-independent-scotland-in-the-eu/s-IXKVEu8ZrOd

Audio publish date: 17-11-2023

Audio link clicks in first month: 15

Community language landing page URL: https://www.gov.scot/publications/building-new-scotland-independent-scotland-eu/documents/

Translation publish date: 17-11-2023

Translation downloads in first month:

Arabic: 5

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Cantonese: 11

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Danish: 1

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Finnish: 2

French: 16

Gaelic: 13

German: 13

Greek: 3

Hindi: 1

Hungarian: 2

Irish: 5

Italian: 54

Latvian: 3

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Mandarin: 3

Polish: 5

Punjabi: 5

Romanian: 2

Russian: 2

Slovenian: 0

Spanish: 9

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Ukrainian: 1

Urdu: 5

BSL YouTube Link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_Lwav2GpYY

Date BSL Version Published: 17-11-2023

Views in first 30 days: 26

We have previously answered two FOIs on website visits to the Building a New Scotland Papers:

• Unique online visitor statistics: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
• Building a New Scotland webpage visitors: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Paper title: Creating a modern constitution for an independent Scotland

Main paper URL: https://www.gov.scot/publications/building-new-scotland-creating-modern-constitution-independent-scotland/

Main paper publish date: 19-6-2023

Main paper views in first month (all pages): 9,506

Easy read URL: https://www.gov.scot/publications/building-new-scotland-creating-modern-constitution-independent-scotland-summary-easy-read-version/

Easy read publish date: 19-6-2023

Easy read views or download link clicks in first month: 1,254

Audio URL: https://on.soundcloud.com/4GTRW

Audio publish date: 19-6-2023

Audio link clicks in first month: 5

Community language landing page URL: https://www.gov.scot/publications/building-new-scotland-creating-modern-constitution-independent-scotland-summary/documents/

Translation publish date: 19-6-2023

Translation downloads in first month:

Arabic: 3

Bengalii: 1

Bulgarian: 1

Cantonese: 2

French: 2

Gaelic: 2

Hindi: 2

Italian: 1

Mandarin: 1

Polish: 2

Punjabi: 2

Romanian: 1

Russian: 1

Spanish: 6

Ukrainian: 1

Urdu: 2

BSL YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZKuquhRHpw

Date BSL Version Published: 19-6-2023

Views in first 30 days: 15

The external costs associated with the production and publication of the paper ‘ Social Security in an independent Scotland’ were published in the answer to question S6W-23643 on 20 December 2023. Additionally, there were launch costs for travel, for staff and external attendees, which totalled £114.27. 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 global transition to net zero offers enormous economic opportunities for Scotland. We have strengths and potential in sectors ranging from offshore wind, hydrogen, and advanced manufacturing to data and finance. Across the country, Scottish firms have the chance to sell to the world and create good, well-paid jobs as part of a fair, green and growing economy.

Our Green Industrial Strategy will set out how the Scottish Government will help businesses and investors realise the opportunities from the global transition to net zero. We will set out our strategy in the summer.

The external costs associated with the production and publication of the paper ‘ Citizenship in an independent Scotland’ were published in the answer to question S6W-20992 on 18 September 2023. Additionally, there were launch costs for travel, for staff and external attendees, which totalled £160.80. 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 .

Responsibility for the regulation of the gas network and for the safety of supplies to premises is a matter reserved to the UK government. Within the current gas safety regime, there is no legal minimum frequency for servicing gas appliances in owner-occupied homes and no requirement for sellers to service their boiler before selling. Therefore, there is no requirement for sellers to provide proof of servicing as part of the selling process.

Shelter, the National Campaign for Homeless People Limited includes two registered charities: England and Wales (charity number 263710) and Scotland (charity number SCO02327).The Scottish Government only provided funding to Shelter Scotland in 2022. The three projects funded were the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership, the Scottish Housing Law Service and the Private Rented Sector Homeless Prevention in Dundee project.

The Scottish Empty Homes Partnership’s main objective was to bring as many of Scotland’s long-term empty homes back into use as is possible and to have a dedicated empty homes officer working across all 32 local authorities by March 2022.

The main objective of the grant for the Scottish Housing Law Service was to provide legal advice and representation to those seeking to exercise their legal rights to retain housing, access housing or improve their housing conditions.

The main objective of the grant for the Private Rented Sector Homeless Prevention in Dundee project was to prevent homelessness in the private rented sector by taking an early intervention approach with households at risk of building up arrears to prevent evictions into homelessness.

The Scottish Government has already announced that the annual report and results from the 2022 Scottish House Condition Survey will be published in February 2024.

The Scottish Government microplastics monitoring programme began in 2013, and has undertaken annual surveys since that time. The Scottish Government has conducted an initial assessment for microplastics in surface water, which was published in Scotland’s Marine Assessment 2020, using data from 2013-14 to 2019-20. This assessment can be viewed at https://marine.gov.scot/sma/assessment/microplastics-surface-water

There is currently no internationally agreed baseline for microplastics in surface water, which is mainly due to very few countries conducting this sampling. The sampling of microplastics in surface water generates highly variable data. Due to this variable nature, the data Scottish Government currently holds is not sufficient to produce trends, and several more years of sampling would be needed for a scientifically robust analysis to be conducted and support future assessments.

Our microplastic sampling compliments our wider marine litter monitoring programme and outputs from this have been used to inform the action plan of our revised Marine Litter Strategy published in 2022. All of these actions help address microplastic pollution as they target macro litter which can break down into microplastics, such as fishing gear and wet-wipes containing plastic, as well as microplastics directly in the form of plastic pellets. Plastic pellets are the second largest source of primary microplastic pollution globally. Our work on pellets has been ground breaking and used to inform multiple outputs: the first internationally applicable Publicly Available Specification which is a form of standard published by the British Standards Institution and sets best handling practice requirements for businesses, an internationally adopted recommendation for pellet handling and certification schemes through the Oslo Paris Convention, and our work has also supported the development of a European certification scheme to prevent pellet loss. This follows a previous action on microplastics in the form of legislation to ban microbeads from rinse-off personal care products in 2018.