Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government supports local authorities to manage ash dieback and replace lost trees with appropriate species through Scottish Forestry working in partnership with The Tree Council. This collaboration produced an ash dieback toolkit, first published in 2022, to help local authorities to manage ash dieback effectively. This covers:

• Raising awareness of ash dieback

• Preparing an Ash Dieback Action Plan

• Taking action and responding to ash dieback

• Recovery and adaptation

Ongoing support for local authorities provides help to develop Ash Dieback Action Plans and facilitates joint working and sharing of experience and best practice across local authorities. Guidance is provided to help those with responsibility for ash trees in Scotland, including local authorities, to make informed management decisions. This includes identifying and monitoring affected ash trees and managing them accordingly, taking a risk-based approach considering tree condition and location. Guidance is also provided to assist with decisions about replacing lost ash trees. This covers both advice on encouraging natural regeneration of alternative native species where possible, and information on appropriate replacement tree species for ash in different habitat types in Scotland in cases where planting is necessary.

The core elements of Anne’s Law have already been delivered by using our existing powers to strengthen Health and social care standards on visiting in care homes and in updates to guidance. As a result people living in care homes can now expect to see family members or friends during outbreaks and are able to name people who can directly participate in meeting their care needs.

The Scottish Government is absolutely committed to enshrining Anne’s Law in primary legislation, and will deliver it within the National Care Service Bill. The timing of this will be dependent on the Bill successfully completing its Parliamentary passage.

I refer the member to the answer to the question S6W-32369 on 8 January 2025. 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

Whole Family Wellbeing Funding continues to be provided by the Scottish Government to deliver transformational change to improve holistic family support so that families get the right support, in the right way and at the right time. By the end of this financial year the Scottish Government expects to have invested over £110m across financial years 2022-23 - 2024-25. This includes £96m provided directly to Children's Service Planning Partnerships (through the General Revenue Grant) to build local service capacity and transform family support services at the local level. CSPPs have responsibility for deciding how to spend their allocation and do so in a variety of ways in line with set criteria. We do not hold figures of how many families have received support via WFWF funded activity, but examples of how CSPPs are spending their allocations can be found in our Evaluation of year 1 activity which was published on 31 January 2024 (https://www.gov.scot/publications/whole-family-wellbeing-funding-wfwf-year-1-process-evaluation-final-report/) and CSPP annual reports published at a local level.

Despite the tight fiscal position, we have once again protected our £50m investment for 2025-26. This investment will ensure that CSPP allocations will remain the same as 2024-25 protecting the good work already being delivered. The following table provides a breakdown of the distribution to date of funding per Local Authority. The allocations for 2025-26 will be published in due course.

I refer the member to the answer to the question S6O-03953 on 13 November 2024. All answers to Oral Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at Official Report: search what was said in Parliament | Scottish Parliament Website

I can also confirm that in autumn 2024, Police Scotland, the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) and the Scottish Biometrics Commissioner set up a short life working group to draft and propose a live facial recognition policy within twelve months, either having found sufficient evidence of how this can support policing in a legal and ethical way, or a recommendation to the contrary. When the SPA policing performance committee met on 10 December 2024, it was confirmed that the first session of the short life working group had been held on 25 October 2024. The publicly available paper submitted to the 10 December meeting confirms the remit of the short life working group; its sub-groups; its Terms of Reference; and a high level timeline of its intended activities.

Commercial sea fishing is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. We need to do all we can to make fishing as safe as possible, and encourage more people to see fishing as a desirable career, which will help to ensure the sustainability of the industry in the long term. The Scottish Fishing Safety Group, established in May 2019 aims to do just that. This industry led group works alongside established safety bodies such as the Marine and Coastguard Agency (MCA) and the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) - on how we can improve health, safety and wellbeing on Scottish vessels. The group supports fishing industry efforts to achieve zero deaths annually and the reduction in accidents across the whole Scottish fishing industry.

Nordic Horizons has not received any funding from the Scottish Government since 2018.

Yes. All FONE group members have the responsibility to report opportunities for new entrants. This includes the Scottish Land Matching Service (SLMS), which actively engages with public and private estates to explore what land opportunities they have available. 35 matches have been formalised through the SLMS and they are actively working with 263 individuals on further joint-ventures, including those on private and publicly owned land.

In December 2024, the Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity wrote to every Scottish Council leader and Chief Executive asking for their support to consider what land opportunities they can offer agricultural new entrants with the view to engage with each of them directly further.

How compulsory purchase orders are factored into the planning for large infrastructure projects is a matter for the relevant acquiring authority (i.e. body with compulsory purchase powers) in the circumstances of the project. As set out in Circular 6/2011: Compulsory purchase orders,https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-planning-series-planning-circular-6-2011-compulsory-purchase-orders/, acquiring authorities are expected – where practicable – to seek to acquire land by agreement before making a compulsory purchase order.

To date, 369 hectares of publicly owned land have been made available for 2024-25. The FONE has done this by one of its core functions, which is to get public bodies around the table to explore what opportunities they can offer agricultural new entrants, use FONE members to publicise the opportunities where they can and where they wish they can utilise the FONE scoring matrix.