Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government’s funded Food for Life Scotland Programme currently operates within 15 local authorities with 19 ‘Food for Life Served Here’ awarded caterers across 1,336 sites in Scotland.

We continue to support the delivery of the Food for Life Programme which has had a primary focus on school meals with over 100,000 daily ‘Food for Life Served Here’ meals served in primaries, secondaries and additional support needs schools. Most recently over the past 12 months, 191 new local authority sites have achieved ‘Food for Life Served Here’.

Throughout financial year 2024-25, the Soil Association will continue to work with local authorities on maintaining accreditation as well as seeking to further embed Food for Life principles across the wider Scottish Public sector.

The review will examine all aspects of the four existing community rights to buy - Community Right to Buy, Crofting Community Right to Buy, Community Right to Buy Abandoned, Neglected or Detrimental Land, and the Right to Buy Land to Further Sustainable Development. This will include Scottish Government’s legislative and administrative processes and the various interactions between the Scottish Government, community groups, landowners and stakeholder organisations.

Since financial year 2021-22, the Scottish Government has awarded £1,860,000 to the Soil Association for the Food for Life Scotland programme.

A breakdown of funding for the last four financial years has been provided in the following table.

At present, there are no license requests for seabed mining in Scotland’s inshore or offshore waters.

Deep sea mining refers to the exploration for - or extraction of - minerals from the seabed at depths greater than 200 metres. Most of Scotland’s waters of this depth or greater fall within existing MPAs. Existing Conservation and Management Advice for the West of Scotland Marine Protected Area from Joint Nature Conservation Committee: West of Scotland MPA | JNCC - Adviser to Government on Nature Conservation, which covers the majority or our deep waters and seamounts, advises against seabed mining in such waters.

Any licensing request relating to seabed mining within Scotland’s seas would be subject to the licensing requirements set out in the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010 for inshore waters (between 0 and 12 nautical miles), and the UK Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009 for offshore waters (between 12 and 200nm), as well as statutory environmental assessment requirements and the policies set out in Scotland’s National Marine Plan, which covers both inshore and offshore waters. Consideration of any licence application would be based on best available evidence.

Scotland’s National Marine Plan 2015 sets policies for the sustainable development of our seas and marine resources. Aggregates Policy 2 states that decision makers should ensure all the necessary environmental issues are considered and safeguards are in place when determining whether any proposed marine aggregate dredging is considered to be environmentally acceptable. Any licensing request relating to seabed mining in Scotland’s seas would be subject to this policy.

The National Marine Plan 2 (NMP2), which is currently being developed, will support sustainable development of our seas, protect our marine environment, and deliver for our coastal communities. NMP2 is considering our marine economy, local communities, and the environment together by adopting a Blue Economy: A Blue Economy Vision for Scotland - gov.scot (www.gov.scot). This will help get the right planning framework in place to balance the need for protection and enhancement of the marine environment, and sustainable development of existing and emerging sectors.

The Scottish Government recognises the serious erosion issues to the sand dunes in Montrose and the impact this could have on flood risk for residents.

Through our Dynamic Coast project, we have worked closely with local authorities to help them plan for coastal adaptation and in our Programme for Government 2020 we announced a new £11.7 million capital budget over four years for coastal change adaptation, starting in 2022-23.

In 2024-25, funding of £2.7m will be distributed to local authorities in two ways. £1.65m in direct allocation to coastal local authorities and £1.05m will be made available for local authorities to bit for to undertake case studies. Angus Council, where Montrose sits in, will receive £56,375 for coastal change adaptation in 2024-25.

In addition, Angus Council submitted a proposal to fund a case study and an additional £440k will be distributed for this, which is the largest allocation for any local authority to undertake a case study.

Local authorities can choose to additionally fund coastal protection work from their general capital grant allocation.

The reasons for not approving the four most recent late applications are detailed in the decision notice for each. These can be found in the Register of Community Interest in Land (RCIL), which is held on the Registers of Scotland website. It is free to access. The four cases were:

Broomhill Community Trust Hub Limited (Ref:CB00263) – September 2023

Kinlochard (Cottages) Residents Association Ltd (Ref: CB00248) – January 2021

Kinlochard (Cottages) Residents Association Ltd (Ref: CB00247) – November 2020

Carty Port Community Company (Ref: CB00234) - April 2018

The new National Marine Plan 2 (NMP2) will set out an updated planning framework to support sustainable management of our seas and is being developed with representatives from marine sectors and local communities. NMP2 will consider the requirement for any specific planning policies regarding seabed mining activities in Scotland’s seas and the need for any associated implementation guidance. The UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Scotland) (Continuity) Act 2021 ('the Continuity Act') established the five guiding principles on the environment in law; this includes the precautionary principle. These will be considered as part of the development of NMP2 planning policies. All policies in the draft NMP2 will be subject to statutory assessments to determine the potential impacts on marine sectors, communities and the marine environment and identify any mitigation measures required.

Deep sea mining refers to the exploration for - or extraction of - minerals from the seabed at depths greater than 200 metres. Most of Scotland’s waters of this depth or greater fall within existing Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). Existing Conservation and Management Advice for the West of Scotland MPA from the Joint Nature Conservation Committee: West of Scotland MPA | JNCC - Adviser to Government on Nature Conservation (JNCC), which covers the majority or our deep waters and seamounts, advises against seabed mining in such waters. The Scottish Government is working closely with the JNCC on the West of Scotland MPA, this includes projects such as the Managing Impacts of Deep Sea Resource Exploitation or MIDAS Project: Library | MIDAS (eu-midas.net) Any licence applications would be considered on the best available evidence.

Expanding our woodlands alongside restoring peatlands are critical elements of our plans to reach net zero and address climate change.

Woodland creation and re-stocking in Scotland must comply with the UK Forestry Standard which defines deep peat as greater that 50 centimetres. The most recent review of the UK Forestry Standard in October 2023 considered whether the definition of deep peat for forestry in terms of carbon sequestration needed to be lowered. All UK nations agreed there was insufficient evidence to support a change. Evidence shows conifers are faster at sequestering carbon in the short term compared to broadleaves. Scotland will continue to prohibit planting on peats deeper than 50 centimetres.

Cultivation guidance for woodland creation was updated in 2021 to exclude the use of intensive cultivation techniques on organo-mineral soils with an organic layer over 10 centimetres in depth. The guidance update minimises disturbance to soils during woodland creation to reduce emissions and create an earlier positive soil carbon balance.

The duty to prepare and publish guidance under section 23 of the Visitor Levy (Scotland) Act 2024 falls on VisitScotland. We anticipate they will send a draft of the guidance to Scottish Ministers in the next few weeks.

Launched in 2017, No Wrong Path is an initiative led by Developing the Young Workforce (DYW), designed to provide inspiration and reassurance to young people receiving their exam results. DYW facilitates the engagement between employers and schools to support young people transition into the world of work. 

In the decade since the DYW programme started we have seen a significant increase in the numbers of young people achieving vocational and technical qualifications, recognising the breadth of young people’s talents and skills.

We must ensure that people have the skills they need at every stage of life to have rewarding careers and meet the demands of an ever-changing economy. DYW and its no wrong path initiative is continuing to support this ambition, playing an important role in preparing young people for the world of work and working with industry to match the needs of employers with the needs of young people.