Chamber and committees

Asylum and immigration are matters reserved to the UK Parliament and handled by the Home Office. This includes the design and operation of the UK asylum system and decisions relating to asylum applications. The Scottish Government is not involved in these processes, but can provide signposting to sources of information and advice.

The Scottish Government has made clear that the UK Government must consider asylum applications from Afghan nationals quickly and compassionately.

As per the Scottish Government's response to S5W-35177 on 19 February 2021 and S6W-02708 on 16 September 2021, the Kickstart Scheme is a programme of work reserved to the UK Government and it is for the Department of Work and Pensions to report on it.

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 £10,000 grant awarded to Voluntary Health Scotland (VHS) to scope the development of the Arts, Culture, Health and Wellbeing Scotland (ACHWS) supported the network to develop an infrastructure, systems and develop a brand identity that would help the network to build their network membership base and their partnerships across the UK.

The grant also supported online events, held in partnership with VHS, such as; Caring, Creativity and Connectedness, The Role of Culture in the Health and Wellbeing of Older People and The Role of Culture in the Health and Wellbeing of Young People. The events promoted knowledge exchange, raised awareness of the network and extended the reach and influence of the network.

Officials from the Scottish Government continue to attend ACHWS meetings to offer support to help build further partnerships across policy and cultural organisations.

The Scottish Government and VisitScotland are in close contact with Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park (LLTNPA) and other partners on a regular basis. Working with LLTNP, VisitScotland has led a responsible tourism marketing campaign and developed a national action plan for visitor management to help meet the challenges of the 2021 season while international travel has remained restricted.

The LLTNPA has worked in collaboration with other public bodies to address and manage visitor pressures through the National Park Safe Recovery Action Group. It’s Visitor Management Plans - Respect Protect Enjoy -Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park (lochlomond-trossachs.org) sets out the extensive range of measures and resources put in place for the 2021 season. The partners continue to meet every Monday to discuss emerging issues, solutions and opportunities. It is recognised that some challenges will require longer term solutions.

Localised visitor management groups have also been established this summer. Meetings have been held to ensure stakeholders (communities, land managers, businesses and recreation groups) are informed on the partnership work to manage visitor pressures. Recordings of each session have been published online on our Advice for Communities webpage. These sessions have included signposting to funding.

Funding of £475,000 has been provided by the Scottish Government over the last two years to the National Park to meet the costs associated with additional visitor management pressures following the easing of COVID-19 restrictions. In addition to this a further £425,000 has been allocated to mitigate the wider impact of the pandemic on businesses and local communities. This funding has supported increased seasonal staff (such as rangers), toilet provision and signage among other things.

The Scottish Government also increased in the Park Authority’s Capital budget by £540,000 for 2021-22 to deliver visitor infrastructure improvements and develop a capital investment plan to better support visitor management. This also enabled the organisation to establish a £250,000 Green Recovery Fund.

https://www.lochlomond-trossachs.org/park-authority/how-we-can-help/funding-grants/national-park-grant-scheme/

LLTNPA has received £100k from Transport Scotland towards a Sustainable Visitor Transport Co-ordination Project and a parallel Shuttle Bus Pilot in 2022 which focuses on visitor hot spots.

As set out in our draft Heat in Buildings Strategy - partial Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment, the estimated average capital cost of converting a home from a fossil fuel boiler to an equivalent zero emission system such as an air source heat pump is just over £12,000. These estimates are sourced from research commissioned by the Climate Change Committee to inform its Sixth Carbon Budget. The cost for an individual dwelling can differ from this average depending on building type, existing levels of energy efficiency and type of heating system being replaced.

The Scottish Government has committed to introducing regulations for zero emissions heat from 2025, subject to confirmation of devolved competence, technological developments, and action by the UK Government in reserved areas. We will consult in further detail in 2022, but it is envisaged that any such regulations will apply to building owners.

The Scottish Government provides a range of financial support to households to help meet the costs of changing from fossil fuel systems to low and zero emissions alternatives. If they meet certain eligibility criteria, households may be able to access fully-funded support through Warmer Homes Scotland, or local authority-led Area-Based Schemes. For other households interest-free Home Energy Scotland Loans with up to 75% cashback grants are available. However, due to the higher unit cost of electricity compared to fossil fuels such as natural gas, urgent decisions are needed by the UK Government to ensure zero emissions running costs are comparable to fossil fuel heating. These include urgent action on energy prices which must be rebalanced.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-02207 on 2 September 2021. 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 .

Sustainability, across all three pillars; social, environmental and economic, is central to Scotland’s Economic and Tourism Strategies. Measures we are taking to ensure sustainable islands tourism include:

£30 million of investment over the next five years to ensure delivery of the National Islands Plan. This will support a range of areas including tourism, infrastructure, innovation, energy transition and skills - informed by our learning of how island communities have responded and adapted to COVID-19.

Delivery of the 2018-19 Programme for Government to develop an Islands passport to encourage more sustainable tourism to Scotland’s inhabited islands. The project was soft launched earlier this year with good collaboration with many islands and tourism stakeholder groups.

Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) has also committed £3m to target young people through job placements particularly in the islands and west coast and support delayed community-led projects (due to COVID-19) supporting innovation in tourism leadership.

HIE is also investing £1.25m to support tourism’s transition to net zero, this includes decarbonising key tourism assets in some of their most remote regions, such as Fair Isle and Uist.

The criteria for the fund is currently being developed by the Scotland on Tour steering group, which is made up of representatives from the music industry, the Scottish Government and Creative Scotland. Detailed guidance will be published shortly, with artists, venues and festivals able to apply to the fund in October 2021.

The music industry is a key part of Scotland’s culture sector and makes a significant contribution to our economy. It is vital that we support Scottish artists as they continue to recover from the pandemic, and we want to ensure that this fund is as widely accessible as possible.

Afghan families are already being welcomed into Scottish communities under the Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) for Locally Employed Staff.

In her letter to the Prime Minister of 24 August, the First Minister called for a commitment to a substantial increase in numbers and for more detail about the new Afghan Citizens’ Resettlement Scheme (ACRS), including timescales for arrivals and funding to support local authority participation, as well as for wider services which are essential to support people to settle and be able to begin to rebuild their lives.

The Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government wrote to the Home Secretary on 1 September and asked the UK Government to provide more detail on eligibility for refugee resettlement under the ACRS. She highlighted that people who may be vulnerable in Afghanistan or the region due to protected characteristics should also be considered for resettlement and called on the UK Government to consider easing the eligibility criteria for family reunion.

On 6 September, the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government and I met with the UK Government’s Afghan Resettlement Minister, Victoria Atkins, and Lord Greenhalgh, Minister for Building Safety and Communities, as part of a devolved administrations call to discuss Afghan relocation and resettlement. In addition to those who are vulnerable, we asked for consideration to be given to those who already have family settled in the UK and for those with connections to be matched to the same regions, in order to help support integration.

Following the commitment made by the Prime Minister on 18 August that the UK will not return Afghan nationals who have sought asylum in the UK, the First Minister wrote to the Prime Minister on 24 August to urge the Home Office to urgently review any cases which are in the asylum appeals process, or where people have previously been refused asylum.

The Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government wrote to the Home Secretary on 1 September. She asked the UK Government to consider easing the eligibility criteria for family reunion to enable more people from Afghanistan (and elsewhere around the world) to join family members in the UK. She also called for asylum applications from Afghan nationals in the UK to be considered quickly and compassionately and pressed the Home Office to urgently review any cases which are in the asylum appeals process or where people have previously been refused asylum on the basis that Kabul is safe.

On 6 September, the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government and I met with the UK Government’s Afghan Resettlement Minister, Victoria Atkins, and Lord Greenhalgh, Minister for Building Safety and Communities, as part of a devolved administrations call to discuss relocation and resettlement from Afghanistan. During that call we raised our concerns about family reunion and the position of Afghan nationals in the UK asylum system, including those whose applications have been refused, as well as those awaiting an initial decision and those in the appeal process.