Chamber and committees

Through the Scottish Government-funded Living Wage Employer Accreditation scheme over 85 percent of workers receive at least the real Living Wage in Scotland. We are taking a range of action to further increase this number, including:

• Funding for Poverty Alliance to deliver Living Wage and Living Hours Accreditation and Making Living Wage Place recognition.
• ?Building on over £2.4bn worth of public sector funding between April 2019 and March 2021, including £619.8 million worth of contracts, through Fair Work First we are applying real Living Wage criteria to encourage employers to pay workers fairly.
• From October 2021, we are mandating payment of the real Living Wage in Scottish Government contracts wherever relevant and proportionate.
• Through the Bute House Agreement, by summer 2022, we will make it a requirement for public sector grant recipients to pay at least the real Living Wage to all employees, within the limits on devolved competence.
• Our funding agreement with COSLA to deliver Early Learning and Childcare expansion allows local authorities to pay sustainable rates that enables private and third sector services to pay at least the real Living Wage to staff delivering funded provision.
• We have led the way in increasing the minimum hourly rates of pay for the adult social care workforce among the four UK nations. In April 2022, the minimum hourly rate for those providing direct adult social care increased to £10.50 per hour - up from £10.02 which was introduced in December.
• Our Retail Strategy commits to delivering a Fair Work Agreement that retailers can sign up to and demonstrate their commitment to improve fair work, helping to reduce in-work poverty.

The NHS and Public Health Scotland provide support to expectant mothers for a healthy and safe pregnancy. Currently, the Committee on Toxicity has been supporting Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition by conducting a large scale risk assessment of the maternal health issues associated with legacy pesticides such as hexachlorocyclohexanes, endosulfan, and other organochlorine pesticides; and the plastic additive bisphenol A (BPA).

Additionally, The Scottish Government have legislated to end the supply and manufacture of the single use plastic items most commonly found littered, as set in the Programme for Government 2021-2021. The new regulations on single-use plastics are coming into force on 01 June 2022.

Information relating to the number of homes receiving measures from Home Energy Efficiency Programme Scotland (HEEPS) schemes for the last five years has been lodged with the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. Number 63123).

Properties benefitting from an energy efficiency measure delivered as part of our Warmer Homes Scotland or Area Based Schemes will have received a survey. Properties benefitting from measures funded with the support of a Scottish Government loan or cashback will have been recommended for the measure in an Energy Performance Certificate.

The information requested about numbers of surveys completed in support of our Warmer Homes Scotland services has been published as:

Households Warmer Homes Scotland surveyed and delivered energy efficiency measures to: FOI release - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

For our other Home Energy Efficiency Programme Scotland schemes, we do not collect or collate separate information about the number of properties that may have benefitted from a survey.

We do not collect or collate information for all schemes about the value of the support provided by local authority area. Information about allocations and spending as part of the Area Based Schemes delivered by local authority is published online and can be found at https://www.gov.scot/publications/home-energy-efficiency-programmes-for-scotland-annual-final-measures-reports/

The National Treatment Centres are all new build centres that are being developed on existing hospital sites as either a new stand-alone facility or as an extension to the existing hospital building. The exception to this is the NTC in Highland that is being built on a new site that is not an existing hospital site.

Carrick Glen is the only NTC that is being developed from a previously independent sector facility.

The export of waste is a reserved matter.

The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes is the international Convention that governs the movement of hazardous waste, to which the UK is a party. The Convention, as implemented in UK legislation, bans all exports of hazardous waste to developing countries. Control mechanisms on the shipment of other types of waste from Scotland to countries outside the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) are governed by retained European legislation.

While waste export legislation is a matter for the UK Government, we continue to actively discuss waste shipment regulations, in light of our commitment to a truly circular economy, to ensure our environment is protected, and that all waste is managed responsibly and sustainably.

To meet these objectives, we are calling for further action from the UK Government to deliver its existing commitment to ban plastic waste exports to non-OECD countries, and bring forward further measures to influence global markets and reduce imported and exported emissions. This includes making progress on the Committee on Climate Change’s recommendation to “phase out” exports of waste by 2030, which would support Scotland’s transition to a fully circular economy.

The NTC locations are:

Golden Jubilee, Clydebank – Eye Centre and Surgical Centre

NTC Forth Valley – Forth Valley Royal Hospital, Larbert

NTC Fife – Victoria Hospital, Kirkcaldy

NTC Highland - Inverness

NTC Grampian - Aberdeen

NTC Tayside – Perth Royal Infirmary

NTC Ayrshire & Arran – Carrick Glen Hospital site

NTC Lanarkshire – Cumbernauld

NTC Lothian – St John’s Hospital

NTC Lothian Eye Centre – Edinburgh Royal Infirmary campus

The Scottish Government is absolutely committed to reaching net zero by 2045. The decarbonisation of our infrastructure will be central to this goal.

Our five-year Infrastructure Investment Plan published in February 2021 includes details of around £26 billion of major projects and national programmes with more to be confirmed in future years.

The Plan delivers our National Infrastructure Mission and sets a long-term vision of infrastructure supporting an inclusive, net zero carbon economy in Scotland.

The £26 billion pipeline of major projects and national programmes includes almost £9 billion for environmental sustainability and the transition to net zero emissions, including over £280 million to support 18,000 hectares of forestry and restoring peatlands.

That information is not held centrally. This data can be obtained from SEPA.

We are committed to ensuring Scotland takes more responsibility for its own waste, maximising its value and reducing the environmental and carbon impact. A large majority of Scotland’s waste is already managed within Scotland, but around 14% is currently processed elsewhere.

International waste export legislation is a reserved matter, and we are calling for further action from the UK Government to deliver existing commitments and bring forward measures to influence global markets and reduce imported and exported emissions. This includes making progress on the Committee on Climate Change’s recommendation to “phase out” exports of waste by 2030, which would support Scotland’s transition to a fully circular economy.

The hospital will specialise in orthopaedics but may carry out other low complexity surgical specialty procedures once open.

Our Fisheries Management Strategy contains a range of actions to support more sustainable and responsible fisheries management in Scotland. Policies, such as the Future Catching Policy and the introduction of Remote Electronic Monitoring to key parts of the fishing fleet, will support increased sustainability of practice, and will increase accountability and confidence that we are fishing at sustainable levels. These consultations are open until 07 June 2022.

In addition, the Bute House Agreement aims to deliver on our shared commitment to achieve and maintain good environmental status for all of Scotland’s seas. The agreement includes a commitment to consult on a cap on inshore fishing activity, as well as implementation of Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs) which will provide additional protection for some fish nursery areas, both of which will help to improve fish stocks.

As a guiding principle we will follow the scientific advice and take a Precautionary Approach with regards to management of our pressure stocks, in line with the Fisheries Act of 2020.

Finally, we will continue to work closely with our network of Regional Inshore Fisheries Groups, and are already using learning from our Outer Hebrides Inshore Fisheries Pilot which commenced in November 2020. This Pilot is trialling pot limitation in order to inform sustainable management options for other discrete inshore fisheries to ensure that our fish stocks are sustainably managed.