Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government wants to improve opportunities, outcomes and support for autistic people, people with learning disabilities, and neurodivergent people. We are continuing to work on a proposed Learning Disability, Autism and Neurodiversity Bill. Following scoping work in 2022, and an extended period of further engagement with stakeholders, practitioners, and people with lived experience, we will launch a public consultation on a proposed Bill by the end of 2023.

The Scottish Government is taking a human rights-based approach to the Bill’s development and is working to ensure that it is fully co-designed with people with lived experience.

3 Panels have been supporting the work to develop policy for the Bill – a professional panel, a stakeholders panel and a lived experience panel. The members of the lived experience panel are all neurodivergent people with a wide range of life experiences.

Where house or pet-sitting does not involve payment for services, or other commercial considerations such as benefits in kind, that activity is classed as an ‘informal arrangement’ between individuals. There is no requirement for a short-term let licence.

Where that activity is performed as a paid service by a professional, there would be no requirement for a short-term let licence - if the accommodation is provided for the principal purpose of facilitating the provision of work or services by the guest.

Home exchanges are within scope of the short-term let licensing legislation - they include a commercial consideration in the form of a benefit in kind. The mandatory set of safety standards at the heart of the scheme, such as gas safety certificates and appropriate electrical equipment, still apply to homes being swapped. Anyone interested in using accommodation will wish to be assured that it meets required standards. Additionally, it is beneficial for ‘home swappers’ allowing guests to use their home to be able to advise those guests that the accommodation is licensed and complies with relevant conditions.

Part of the Temporary Accommodation Task and Finish Group’s remit was to consider ways to reduce the high number of children in temporary accommodation, some of whom are in temporary accommodation for long periods. In our response to the Temporary Accommodation Task and Finish Group recommendations, we said that we will support local authorities’ efforts to ensure households with children who have been living in temporary accommodation for a number of years are supported into suitable permanent housing.

Our national acquisition plan is one way to help boost the supply of available affordable housing, including settled family homes. We will invest at least £60m from the Affordable Housing Supply Programme in 2023-24 to enable local authorities and registered social landlords to acquire properties of the right types and in the right places for use as high quality, affordable, permanent homes.

The Scottish Government is making £3.5 billion available in this parliamentary term towards the delivery of more affordable and social homes. Scotland has led the UK in providing affordable housing, delivering 122,201 affordable homes between April 2007 to the end of March 2023. Since 2007, Scotland has seen over 40% more affordable homes delivered per head of population than in England, and over 70% more than in Wales.

In addition to increasing housing supply, we will maximise the use of existing homes. This includes providing funding for councils and social landlords to bring empty homes back into use, asking social landlords to increase allocations to homeless households, and supporting councils to develop targeted plans to reduce temporary accommodation pressures. Meetings with the local authorities with the greatest temporary accommodation pressures are taking place to better understand the specific issues they are facing and what work could be undertaken in partnership to reduce the number of households, including those with children, in temporary accommodation.

We remain committed to having restorative justice (RJ) services available across Scotland. We are clear that the needs and voices of persons harmed must to be central to RJ processes and that services must be safe, consistent, evidence-led, trauma informed and of a high standard.

Restorative justice is already possible, with RJ services available in some areas and national guidance in place. We are continuing our work to develop a national service, based on a hub and spoke model.

The pandemic slowed progress and initial development work also identified complexities which need further exploration. We are committed to taking the time to resolve these issues and develop a safe and robust system. Work is underway with partners across the justice system to do this.

A national Hub has been established within Community Justice Scotland (CJS) (focused on RJ for adults) and the Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice (CYCJ) are developing similar services for children and young people. Work is currently focussed on developing a policy and practice framework and on testing the model within the Lothian and Borders area.

Following testing and evaluation of the model in Lothian and Borders, we will work with CJS, CYCJ, partners across the justice system and adults, children and young people who may wish to access RJ to plan the expansion of RJ.

The Scottish Government recognises that the imprisonment rate in Scotland is high and we are taking action to address that. I wrote to the Criminal Justice Committee on 13 September, to highlight the issue and outline the actions being taken to tackle the rise in the prison population, this letter can be found at: Scotland's Prison Population | Scottish Parliament Website

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

The prisoner population on 15 September 2023 of those establishments operating above their design capacity is detailed within the following table:

In the current system care home providers should clearly set out their terms and conditions to residents and their families in the contractual arrangements; these are covered by consumer protection laws.

The Scottish Government acknowledges, however, that the social care sector requires reform. We remain committed to delivering a National Care Service to improve quality, fairness and consistency of provision that meets individuals’ needs. The design and delivery of the National Care Service will have human rights embedded throughout.

The Scottish Government-funded Farm Advisory Service (FAS) is and will continue to offer a range of high-quality generic and bespoke consultancy and specialist advice to Scottish farmers, crofters, and land managers. This includes advice on sustainable practice at its core.

Current and future advisory services will be monitored and contractually required to prioritise inclusion and accessibility for all support, including the uptake of sustainable practices.

The Scottish Government is open to the use of technological advances to improve the selectivity of fishing gears, including static gear, within our inshore waters. We intend to use the fora of our FMAC Group and the RIFG network to explore how use of such technologies could compliment policy currently being developed.

The Scottish Government is currently supporting the development of a European standard for recyclability and circularity in fishing and aquaculture gear, (CEN/TC 466). This standard will provide guidance and encourage designers, makers and users to adopt best practice and available technologies to ensure that gear stays in use for as long as possible, including retrieval in the event of it being lost.

We need to rapidly accelerate our deployment of renewables in order to support decarbonisation of the GB grid by 2035, and significant investment in our grid infrastructure is required to ensure clean, low-cost renewable electricity can flow to where it is needed. We are clear that such infrastructure must be delivered with lasting benefits for our economy and the people of Scotland .

In regard to the proposals for pylons in the Torthorward area, we understand that Scottish Power Energy Networks (SPEN) has undertaken the first of two rounds of public consultations on the proposed Harestanes West connection. No application has been submitted to Scottish Ministers for consideration with regards to this development. Once an application is submitted it is subject to consultation with the public, statutory and local bodies, and local communities have an opportunity to make a representation to the formal application.

The Scottish Government is aware that communities in areas which may be impacted by proposed electricity network developments may have questions and concerns regarding pylon infrastructure, and we can provide assurance that any potential impacts - on communities, nature, landscape and other valued natural assets - are important considerations when determining applications for consent.

The Scottish Government welcomes the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland’s report and will carefully consider its recommendations.

The Scottish Government has already taken action to address the gaps in data on out-of-area placements specifically for people with learning disabilities and complex care needs through the implementation of the recommendations made within the Coming Home Implementation Report.

This work is being carried out in partnership with COSLA and brings practitioners, professionals and people with lived experience together to progress these recommendations which aim to significantly reduce inappropriate out-of-area placements experienced by people with learning disabilities and complex care needs.

We launched Dynamic Support Registers across Scotland in May 2023 to improve monitoring of out-of-area placements and to help local areas to plan for people with learning disabilities and complex care needs. Integration Authorities are operationalising these local Dynamic Support Registers and will also report data from them using a new national reporting system.

The operation of Dynamic Support Registers by all Integration Authorities was agreed through a Memorandum of Understanding between the Scottish Government and COSLA.