Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government’s ambition is to explore fully the opportunities across the energy sector for public ownership in an independent Scotland. As an independent state, we would have full powers in relation to energy generation and borrowing and as such would enable Scotland to consider large-scale public sector involvement or ownership in key technologies.

We remain supportive of the future potential for a public energy company in Scotland and, through the new agency, Heat and Energy Efficiency Scotland, we will support others with an interest in exploring options to take forward new models for energy provision.

The Scottish Government has regular engagement on energy with the Welsh Government.

The Scottish Government remains absolutely committed to incorporating the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into Scots law, as far as possible within devolved competence.

Our intention is to bring the Bill back to Parliament for Reconsideration Stage. Preparations for that are well underway and include engagement with the UK Government to try assess whether they are broadly content that the amendments bring with the Bill within legislative competence and to reduce the risk of another referral to the Supreme Court.

We will lodge the motion to reconsider the Bill and publish the amendments to the Bill as soon as possible but cannot yet confirm a timetable.

“Approval in principle, Asset Manager accepts design” is an internal Network Rail approval stage. This signifies the point at which designs are at a sufficient level to be approved to move forward to be designed for construction. A revised date for when the design will be approved following the refinement of the scope referred to in answer to question S6W-12919.

I therefore refer the member to the answer to question S6W-12919 on 21 December 2022. 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 Government is planning to deliver the identified Aberdeen to Central Belt funding by the end of 2026. The funding will be spent on a series of infrastructure upgrades including signal enhancements and specific capacity alternations to facilitate the operation of more and faster trains on the same route.

I am advised by my officials in Transport Scotland that the finalisation of the Single Option is being revised by Network Rail to ensure alignment with wider improvements proposed for the Aberdeen-Central Belt route, including future electrification. I expect an update from Transport Scotland on this matter imminently.

The Scottish Government is committed to decarbonising Scotland’s passenger railway by 2035. In line with the Decarbonisation Action Plan, the intention is to decarbonise the Aberdeen to Central Belt route by 2030.

Transport Scotland officials have regular discussions with UK Government Department for Transport officials regarding a number of maritime issues, including direct ferry links to Europe.

We have been clear since the introduction of our emergency legislation that we would work with the social rented sector to seek an agreed way forward as an alternative to the continuation of the rent cap in the social rented sector beyond March 2023. To support this we have been working with a range of social rented sector organisations including landlord representative bodies COSLA, the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations and Glasgow and West of Scotland Forum of Housing Associations.

Statements of Intent have now been published by COSLA, confirming local authorities’ commitment to keeping rent increases in April 2023 to an average of no more than £5 a week, and by the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, who report that their members are consulting with tenants on a set of increases in April 2023 that will average 6.1%.

The agreement to set out average figures, rather than set a fixed cap, allows flexibility for landlords to respond to their consultations with their tenants.

While we anticipate that many rents will be increased at a level below these average figures, there may be some social sector landlords who will for specific reasons go beyond this level, for example to allow planned improvements or maintenance to proceed.

This will allow for the statutory tenant consultations currently taking place to be taken into account for housing associations’ business plans and local authorities’ housing revenue accounts.

No social landlord is consulting on a rent increase at or above CPI inflation, which was 11.1% at the time of the data being collected.

Given the voluntary agreements reached we anticipate that the first statutory report on the Cost of Living (Tenant Protection) Act 2022, due by 14 January, will formally confirm our intentions to expire the social rented sector rent cap provisions from March 2023.

Today the Scottish Government has published the Onshore Wind Policy Statement, which can be accessed on the Scottish Government website ( https://www.gov.scot/isbn/9781805253754 ). This is the result of careful consideration of the 162 responses received during the consultation period.

The Onshore Wind Policy Statement sets out our ambition for 20GW of onshore wind to be operational by 2030. This challenging ambition, which will see Scotland’s onshore wind capacity more than double, is needed now more than ever, to provide clean, affordable, renewable energy.

The Scottish Government will ensure Scotland’s people benefit from this potential, and to this end will form an Onshore Wind Strategic Leadership Group tasked with pushing forward progress against the issues set out in the Policy Statement and with the development of a Scottish Onshore Wind Sector Deal, to be developed over the first half of 2023.

In addition, we will follow the onshore wind policy statement with our draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan in early January which will set out our approach to the energy transition.

Historic Environment Scotland responded to the High Level masonry issues at Properties in Care in line with their statutory responsibilities and corporate approach and continue accordingly to manage the properties .

The context for the risk management approach to Properties in Care is set by their statutory obligations under a range of health and safety legislation and regulation, common law obligations and their corporate approach to management of risk.

At present there are no plans to re-evaluate the criteria used by Historic Environment Scotland to risk assess the Properties in Care.