Chamber and committees

The Draft Vision for Scotland’s Public Electric Vehicle Charging Network published in January provides the guiding vision on how Scotland’s public electric vehicle charging network will continue to grow across Scotland in a fair and inclusive way.

The Scottish Government’s £60m Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Fund, that aims to leverage at least half of this funding from private sector sources over the next 4 years, will target investment in growing the public charging network across all of Scotland in areas where commercial investment on its own is unviable. This year, Scottish Government funding has already been provided or is being made available to all of Scotland’s local authorities to develop public electric vehicle charge point strategies and expansion plans including the Ayrshire Councils as well as Dumfries and Galloway.

I also refer the member to the answer to S6W-08398 on 23 May 2022. In addition to the £60m that will be invested through the EV Infrastructure Fund, the Scottish Government has provided a wide range of incentives to support the early uptake of electric vehicles including more than £145m loan funding to support vehicle purchase (of which £3.5m has gone to households and business in East Ayrshire) and over £50m investment in the ChargePlace Scotland Network of public chargepoints. Electric vehicles now make up a significant proportion of monthly car sales highlighting a rapidly developing and competitive market. This will create further opportunities and incentives for people and businesses across all of Scotland to shift to an electric vehicle.

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 hold data on the number of journeys where children and young people are securely transported for the duration of a custodial sentence. Handcuffs are used in all journeys due to the type of vehicle used. The total number of journeys in the current contract period is:

Duties relating to secure transport lie principally with the local authority responsible for the child’s placement. Information is not held centrally on the use of handcuffs and restraint being applied to care-experienced children whilst being securely transported.

The Scottish Government has a contract with GEOAmey to provide secure transport for children convicted on indictment and given a custodial sentence. for providing this transportation.

GEOAmey must provide the Scottish Government with details of when restraint is used. No incidents of restraint have been recorded during the current contract.

GEOAmey must ensure that the child or young person being transported, staff and the general public are protected by robust arrangements throughout each journey, including the prevention of escape. Multi-purpose vehicles are used to transport children and young people, rather than prison vans used to transport adult prisoners. Because of this, handcuffs are used for each journey.

Details of each journey, any risks to be taken into consideration by GEOAmey and any subsequent incidents are held on the Scottish Government’s Parole Case Management System.

The Women’s Health Plan is a three year strategy, published in August 2021, which underpins actions to improve women’s health inequalities. The Plan includes the long term ambition to adopt a life course approach across all services to improve women’s health holistically.

Through the Respiratory Care Action Plan for Scotland we aim to improve outcomes for people living with respiratory conditions in Scotland. The Plan sets out our priorities and commitments for driving improvement in the prevention, diagnosis, care, treatment and support of people living with respiratory conditions including asthma.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-08462 on 23 May 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 .

Cemre Marin Endustri shipyard has provided full refund guarantees for the two new Islay vessels and these have been lodged with CMAL’s nominated bank. The refund guarantees cover the full amount payable prior to the delivery of each vessel at which point CMAL pay the final 20% and take possession of the vessel. The Contract has defined delivery dates set for both vessels in November 2024 and February 2025.

The Heat in Buildings Strategy (7 October 2021), committed to introducing primary legislation in the current session of the Scottish Parliament that would set a regulatory framework for heat and energy efficiency, as a key action to meeting Scotland’s statutory climate change targets.

This strategy proposes to introduce minimum energy efficiency standards for private rented, owner-occupied and social housing. Regulations are proposed to be introduced that will require all properties to meet a minimum standard equivalent to EPC C by 2033.

Subject to consultation, the Scottish Government is proposing that compliance with the standard may be required at a variety of trigger points, including following the completion of a sale and after the change of a tenancy (for private rented sector properties), where installation of energy efficiency measures is technically-feasible and cost-effective.

The Scottish Government will consult publicly on these proposals within the coming year.

Buildings which are the subject of a conversion, as defined under building regulations, are already required to meet current building standards, to the extent this is reasonably practicable.

Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) provide an assessment of the modelled energy performance of buildings. The Scottish Government recognises that the information presented on EPCs needs to be reformed in line with the recommendations of the Climate Change Committee. We consulted last year on reforming EPCs to introduce a new metric for energy efficiency. This is intended to ensure that the EPC metrics align with our net zero target.

Following our consultation, we are commissioning research to understand the implications of several options for the new energy efficiency metric. These options include an energy demand metric which would be based on the dwelling’s space heating and cooling demand. As set out in our consultation, we intend that EPCs will present the new energy efficiency metric alongside the current running cost and carbon emissions metrics.

The Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA) is responsible for the recording of data relating to children and young people in the Children’s Hearings System. Official Statistics, published annually, are available on the SCRA website https://www.scra.gov.uk/ , and include the number of children referred to SCRA each year, and the number of children on a compulsory supervision order.