Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government welcomes any activity that can lead to a positive impact on the health of our veteran community.

As the armed forces are subject to the reserved responsibility of the UK Government, the Veterans’ Health Innovation Fund is open to applications from Scottish projects as well as projects from the rest of the UK.

It is a one-off fund being administered by the Defence and Security Accelerator on behalf of UK Office of Veterans’ Affairs and is open to projects – including in Scotland – that will drive forward innovation in techniques and pathways for meeting veterans’ physical and mental health needs. It aims to ensure treatment is informed by the latest research and developments in clinical care.

The Scottish Government is a member of the fund’s steering board. The steering Board will determine which projects are successful against set criteria and be put forward for UKG ministerial approval.

The Scottish Government believes that renewables, particularly wind, has a vital role to play to achieve our net zero targets and to the decarbonisation of the energy system.

Scotland’s natural resources, which include strong and consistent wind resource, along with our established expertise in offshore oil and gas, skilled offshore workforce, excellent port structure and strong innovation hub, make Scotland one of the best places in the world to develop offshore wind and its supply chain.

The recent ScotWind leasing round demonstrates this, by delivering around £700 million in option fee revenues to the public purse, plus the ScotWind projects committed to investment of up to £25 billion across the Scottish supply chain across the 17 ScotWind offshore wind projects as set out in their Supply Chain Development Statements

This work will be further complemented by the Scottish Offshore Wind Energy Council’s (SOWEC) Collaborative Framework. This Charter signed by 24 organisations offshore wind developments in Scotland, is a practical way for developers and Scottish ports to work together, helping to build a long-term pipeline of work and creating certainty that ports need to prioritise investment in higher value activities like fabrication. By working together developers can identify joint opportunities, mitigating risks in bringing together the infrastructure needed to build out the full pipeline of ScotWind projects.

The war in Ukraine has sent shockwaves through the global food system and the impacts are being felt by producers and consumers in Scotland. This has compounded the challenging operating environment caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and Brexit.

I committed to support active farming and food production with direct payments - which provides certainty to the industry - and we delivered 2021 Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) payments to schedule with over £564 million issued to date. In addition, this year, to support farmers with the cost of living, the Scottish Government has brought forward the advance payment start date to as early in the year as is practicably possible. The intention is to support businesses, as far as possible, with immediate cash flow challenges.

The Scottish Government is also monitoring the impacts of energy prices and other input costs on agriculture, fisheries and food sectors. For example, in March, we set up the Short-life Food Security and Supply Taskforce jointly with industry to monitor, identify and respond to any potential disruption to food security and supply, as a result of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Its report was published in June 2022: www.gov.scot/news/safeguarding-food-security .

The First Minister has issued a letter to the Prime Minister calling for an emergency meeting of the 4 Nations’ Heads of Government Council and has convened the Scottish Government Resilience Committee, which will now meet weekly. However, it remains the case that the powers and resources needed to tackle this emergency on the scale required - access to borrowing, welfare, VAT on fuel, taxation of windfall profits, regulation of the energy market - lie with the UK Government. Scottish Ministers have repeatedly called for the UK Government to urgently take further, tangible action.

The Scottish Government’s Social Enterprise Strategy was launched in 2016 and sets out a wide-ranging, ambitious and long-term programme to develop the potential of Scotland's social enterprise sector. The latest Social Enterprise Action Plan was published on 24 th March 2021 and covers the period 2021-24.

In 2021-22 we spent £7.1M in supporting social enterprise and expect to spend £6.6M in 2022-23. £15M was distributed through COVID support funds in 2021-22.

Funding is provided to third sector organisations, including social enterprises, from across Scottish Government portfolios and is not collated centrally.

Following completion of an innovative co-creative process with the community, work to assess four route options, including the community’s preferred route option, is ongoing. A preferred route is expected to be announced later this year. Once a preferred route option is announced a timetable for the statutory processes will be set. It is necessary that the correct statutory process is followed to ensure a fair and transparent assessment of options and impacts on local communities and road users.

Work is ongoing to determine the most suitable procurement options, when the statutory process is complete, for the remaining sections of the A9 dualling. This is a complex exercise which looks at a number of factors including how the project can be delivered most efficiently by the industry, whilst minimising disruption to road users and helping to support economic recovery post-COVID. An update on the outcomes of this complex piece of work will be provided when the work is completed.

As set out in the response to S6W-06821 on 10 March 2022 the vast majority of homelessness funding provided to local authorities has been included in the block grant. It is at each local authority’s discretion as to how they use this resource to prevent and respond to homelessness.

In addition, the Scottish Government provides local authorities with an annual share of £23.5 million for homelessness prevention and response measures and an annual share of £8 million to support the implementation of rapid rehousing transition plans (RRTPs). This funding is transferred to local government over the course of the year, and the breakdown of this funding for 2021-22, the last full financial year, is set out in the tables below. The final table includes resource provided to local authorities for coordination of the five Housing Options Hubs across Scotland.

The Scottish Government is aware of the importance of rural bus services for villages across the country and are committed, in partnership with operators and local authorities, to looking at ways of ensuring that those living in or visiting Patna, as well as all other towns and villages across Scotland, are provided with effective and accessible public transport.

Since the end of January children and young people under the age of 22 in Scotland have been able to travel for free by bus. Around half of Scotland’s population are now eligible for free bus travel including those aged over 60, under 22 and eligible disabled persons. The Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 provides an enhanced suite of options for local transport authorities to improve bus services according to their local needs.

The Scottish Government’s Community Bus Fund will support local transport authorities to explore the options in the Act, and to improve public transport in their areas – £1 million is allocated in the 2022-23 Scottish Budget for development of the Community Bus Fund. The Scottish Government have provided up to £210 million in funding to support bus services during the pandemic and are providing £100 million in to support bus services this year including additional recovery funding.

Additionally, the second Strategic Transport Projects Review (STPR2), which sets the priorities for transport spending over the next 20 years and has been developed in conjunction with stakeholders across the country, includes several recommendations which are relevant to rural areas and will have a positive impact on improving public transport connectivity to nearby towns and major cities. The draft report was published on 20 January this year for a three month consultation period. Feedback is now being considered and the final report is due later this year.

The Scottish Funding Council (SFC) has a statutory obligation under section 13 of the Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Act 2005 to secure that provision is made for assessing and enhancing the quality of higher education provided by fundable bodies in Scotland.

On our behalf, to meet this obligation the SFC, supported by the Quality Assurance Agency, works with institutions so that they meet an agreed set of expectations for academic standards and quality, as measured against agreed sector reference points such as the UK Quality Code, to ensure that best practice is followed regarding moderation and marking of assessments, including the use of external expertise and examiners.

The ScotWind projects committed to investment of up to £25 billion across the Scottish supply chain across the 17 ScotWind offshore wind projects as set out in their Supply Chain Development Statements. This work is further complemented by the Scottish Offshore Wind Energy Council’s (SOWEC) Collaborative Framework as a practical way for developers and Scottish ports to work together, helping to build a long-term pipeline of work, creating certainty that ports need to prioritise investment in higher value activities like fabrication. By working together developers can identify joint opportunities, mitigating risks in bringing together the infrastructure needed to build out the full pipeline of ScotWind projects. The call for year one projects of the Just Transition Fund closed on 15 July 2022 and expressions of interest are currently being assessed against the published Fund criteria. It will not be possible to indicate what portion of the Fund will be allocated specifically to manufacturing capability until final decisions on awards have concluded.

Over the last two years our NHS has suffered the biggest shock of its 74 year existence. Caring for large numbers of patients seriously unwell with COVID-19 has inevitably meant that planned care procedures have had to be delayed, and while we are working hard to recover and remobilise our NHS, this will not be done in a few weeks or even months. Addressing the backlog of care, while continuing to meet the ongoing urgent health and care needs of the country, remains a priority for this Government.

We know that excessively long waits have grown as a result of the pandemic, which is why we now need to focus on treating people that are waiting too long for treatment. On 6 July 2022, I introduced a new set of targets for NHS Scotland to address the backlog of planned care.

We will continue to work with the National Complex Pelvic Mesh Removal Service in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde to improve the waits that people are currently experiencing.

In the first instance where patients have concerns regarding their appointments these are best addressed by contacting their local Health Board who can advise on rescheduling in a timely manner. The patient feedback team within the Health Board may also be able to advise or support if required.