Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer to the question S6W-35767 on 1 April 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

It would not be appropriate to comment on a live application.

A decision will be taken by Scottish Ministers in due course, following consideration of the application information, consultation responses and representations made by members of the public.

The Scottish Government’s Aviation Statement explicitly calls for a more positive and constructive conversation about aviation and its many benefits, while committing to working with the sector on decarbonisation.

The Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity recently attended the first meeting of the Sustainable Aviation Scotland Group, which involves several senior aviation stakeholders, to encourage greater collaboration on reducing aviation emissions.

A Ministerial roundtable will be held this year to discuss the infrastructure required to enable electric and hydrogen flight, which is expected to be particularly suitable for the Highlands and Islands. Final arrangements are being made but the roundtable will include stakeholders from across the aviation sector.

The Scottish Government has not itself carried out analysis on the comparative costs of undergrounding energy transmission infrastructure and these will vary on a project to project basis. There are a number of industry commissioned reports that demonstrate both in general and on a project specific basis that underground cables are initially more expensive than overhead lines.

As the independent energy regulator for Great Britain, Ofgem is responsible for protecting energy consumers’ interests. Transmission network companies are regulated by Ofgem and when developing projects they must have consideration of their license obligations which require them to be economic and efficient in respect of costs to the consumer. The cost of undergrounding as compared to other forms of transmission infrastructure will be an important consideration for Ofgem assessing the transmission network companies investment plans and agreeing the costs that can be recovered from bill payers.

The proposed reforms will make pre-application consultation for electricity infrastructure projects a statutory requirement and also introduce an Acceptance Stage when Scottish Ministers can decline to accept applications which have not fulfilled the necessary requirements. These reforms will reduce timescales for processing applications and increase local input into project proposals.

The Scottish Government will publish detailed guidance on the Acceptance Stage and what happens if the relevant planning authority objects or if an application is not accepted.

The proposed reforms will apply to applications for consent under section 36 and section 37 of the Electricity Act 1989 made to Scottish Ministers. Section 36 applications made to Scottish Ministers have a capacity of over 50MW. Therefore, it is not anticipated that the reforms to introduce new fees for pre-application functions will reduce application numbers.

The scope of the proposed reforms to vary consents without an application will be limited to variations and will not include suspension or revocation of consents. Interested parties will be notified of the proposal and given the opportunity to make representations. Where the variation proposed by the Scottish Government is to amend the consent or its conditions or both due to a change in environmental circumstances or relevant technological changes, the agreement of the consent-holder will be required.

Separately, the proposed reforms intend that the Scottish Government will be enabled to correct errors or omissions made in a consent, where the consent-holder would be notified of the proposed variation and given the opportunity to make representations to the Scottish Government.

The proposed reforms will make pre-application consultation for electricity infrastructure projects a statutory requirement. This will increase opportunities for meaningful community input.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information which is a matter for NHS heath boards locally.

We are committed to ensuring that all people living in Scotland with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) including Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis are able to access the best possible care and support, and benefit from healthcare services that are safe, effective and put people at the centre of their care.

Whilst our role is to set the strategic policy for the NHS in Scotland, it is NHS Boards locally who are responsible for service delivery. We expect all Boards to follow best practice and adhere to current guidelines and standards for people with suspected IBD and a national IBD pathway for NHS Scotland was published in January 2025: inflammatory-bowel-disease-ibd-pathway.pdf. This pathway is intended to be used for primary and secondary care health care professionals who are concerned that a patient may have undiagnosed IBD.

The pathway includes the use of faecal calprotectin tests which is supported by current clinical evidence for distinguishing between IBD and non-inflammatory bowel diseases (such as irritable bowel syndrome).

Our Budget will make an additional £3 million available in 2025-26 to tackle retail crime.

This funding will support the formation of a Retail Crime Taskforce which will provide a visible and measurable impact on retail crime and will deliver on the following objectives:

• Prevent: Stop people from becoming perpetrators of Retail crime by developing and implementing intervention and diversion mechanisms with partners.
• Pursue: Target retail crime by bringing perpetrators to justice, with a focus on repeat offenders and organised criminals.
• Protect: Strengthen the collective protections against Retail Crime by engaging directly with retailers on crime prevention and training.
• Prepare: Mitigate against the impact of Retail Crime by exploring innovate opportunities for direct reporting systems.

New technologies will also be utilised to explore ways to make it easier for retail staff to directly report crimes to police, as well as capitalising on Police Scotland’s existing Digital Evidence Sharing Capability (DESC), to secure early criminal justice outcomes.

This builds on a successful proof of concept within Fife Division and will aim to provide an efficient and effective direct reporting system to retailers.