Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government has now met its target of 6,000 public EV charge points two years early.

Since 2011 the Scottish Government has invested over £65 million in public EV charging. As a result of this early investment, and rapidly increasing private sector investment, today Scotland has one of the most comprehensive public charging networks in the UK, and the latest official UK Department for Transport statistics show that Scotland has the highest number of public chargers per head of population of any part of the UK, except London, and the most rapid charge points of any part of the UK.

In partnership with our stakeholders, we have been developing the Draft Vision Implementation Plan and route map for the delivery of approximately 24,000 additional public charge points by 2030. I thank stakeholders for their continuing engagement to support delivering our Vision for world-class, people focused public EV charging network.

As previously indicated, we will publish the draft Implementation Plan for consultation on its proposed actions by the end of the year and we envisage that the final Implementation Plan and route map will be published in 2025.

Development of climate policy continues on an ongoing basis ahead of the publication of the draft climate change plan. Where any additional policy requires an expedited legislative vehicle, we will actively explore opportunities to do so, whilst ensuring that all measures are subject to appropriate level of Parliamentary scrutiny.

Meanwhile, the Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Act 2024 requires us to set carbon budgets levels via secondary legislation, once we have received advice from the Climate Change Committee. We have written to the Committee to request this advice, and will bring forward regulations to set carbon budgets once it has been received.

The Scottish Government remains commitment to securing a long term, sustainable future for the Grangemouth industrial cluster, and highly skilled workforce located there. This is outlined in our draft Grangemouth Industrial Just Transition Plan which was published for consultation on 7 November.

This document is designed to set the strategic direction for Grangemouth’s transition to net zero, including a co-designed vision for the future of the cluster and a series of proposed actions to support this. The final plan will take cognisance of the outputs of Project Willow which is due to report in early 2025.

Medical packaging, such as blister packaging, is not easily recycled due to strict regulatory requirements for pharmaceutical packaging set by the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. However, the Scottish Government is taking steps to encourage businesses to reduce the amount of packaging waste and to improve recycling through implementation of extended producer responsibility for packaging from 2025. This includes obligations for producers of pharmaceutical packaging.

The Circular Economy (Scotland) Act 2024 requires that Scottish Ministers publish a circular economy strategy, which will be developed over the next two years. In advance of that, we will shortly be publishing a final version of our circular economy and waste route map, which will set out actions to deliver sustainable use of our resources and progress a circular economy to 2030. As part of these we will continue to consider medical packaging items.

The Scottish Government is committed to reducing high deer numbers in order to help us to achieve our biodiversity and carbon objectives. In addition to the Cairngorms National Park Authority deer management incentives pilot, NatureScot launched two pilot schemes led by this autumn to incentivise deer managers to increase deer culls in specific parts of Scotland.

These pilot schemes have been implemented this year in different parts of Scotland to test different approaches to incentives and to better understand the barriers to deer management.

While these pilots do not constitute a single national scheme, we will use the findings from them to inform decisions on future incentive schemes.

Protecting the planet is a clear government priority which is why we must ensure that resourcing matches the scale of work required to deliver a net zero Scotland by 2045, balancing that with a need to ensure efficiencies in our public services.

We continually review staffing and resourcing, to support our commitments and ensure that the government’s ambition for tackling climate change is delivered as part of our regular assurance processes.

In addition, there is oversight of resourcing of climate change activity through the Global Climate Emergency Programme Board.

The Scottish Government is aware of the report.

The Scottish Government already has in place service level agreements with the Animal and Plant Health Agency and local authorities to ensure farm animal welfare legislation is complied with. In addition, Scottish Government Inspectors from our Rural Payment and Inspections Directorate conduct a number of on farm inspections annually which include the consideration of any livestock present.

The Scottish Government also recognises the challenges faced by local authorities in the current fiscal climate and in line with the Verity House Agreement, we continue to engage with COSLA on resourcing matters.

The NRAC formula is an objective measure of the need for health care services across Scotland.

Under the existing formula the additional cost of providing health services in remote and rural areas is factored within one of the key components in determining funding allocations, with the formula giving greater weights to areas where there is evidence of unavoidable excess costs of supplying healthcare services.

The Scottish Government have committed to continually review the funding formula. This process is managed by the Technical Advisory Group for Resource Allocation (TAGRA) and supports vital work to reduce health inequalities; ensuring that we continue to allocate funding according to the relative need for healthcare in each Board area. Work is underway to review this, however, funding formulas are inherently complex and the review will take time.

Tackling health inequalities and improving life expectancy remain clear aims of the Scottish Government. To achieve this, we are taking forward wide-ranging action targeted to support communities most in need and address the root causes of inequality; which have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 Pandemic and other recent economic shocks.

This includes allocating around £3 billion a year since 2022-23 to tackle poverty and protect people during the ongoing cost-of-living crisis - as well as initiatives to promote healthy lifestyles through tobacco control, preventing alcohol related harm, promoting healthy eating and physical activity. Reinforced by targeted action through our Women’s Health Plan, which clearly sets out actions which aim to address women’s health inequalities by raising awareness across women’s health, improving access to healthcare for women across their lives and tackling inequalities in health outcomes for women and girls.

We are also working with our partners to develop a Population Health Framework, to take a cross-government and cross-sector approach to improve the key building blocks of health including: good early years and education; good work and income; healthy places; and equitable health care. With an overarching ambition to accelerate the recovery and improvement of population health in Scotland with a focus on a whole system approach to preventative action.

The Scottish Government payment system confirms that no funding has been provided to Stream Bioenergy in the last 5 years.