Chamber and committees

Ministers remain fully committed to utilising every lever within their devolved competence to support and grow domestic supply chain which is why we are working to realise our ambitions for the offshore wind supply chain in Scotland through The Scottish Offshore Wind Energy Council.

Our Collaborative Framework will help forge effective partnerships to deliver on supply chain potential. New ScotWind leaseholders have joined existing Scottish offshore wind developers in signing up to a Collaborative Framework Charter, agreeing to work jointly together to build a pipeline of supply chain work greater than the sum of its individual parts. 24 organisations, including representatives of all 17 ScotWind projects with signed lease option agreements, have agreed to work together in the development and delivery of this Collaborative Framework.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-11992 on 28 November 2022. 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

The Alexander Thomson Hotel is used by Glasgow Health and Social Care Partnership (GHSCP) to provide temporary accommodation to people experiencing homelessness, in line with their statutory duties. We are aware that this has at times included asylum seeking families with children, who have not accessed Home Office asylum accommodation, and that concerns have been raised about the suitability of bed and breakfast accommodation for families and the length of time families were accommodated at the hotel.

GHSCP has responded to these concerns and has now secured temporary furnished accommodation for families who had been accommodated in the hotel for an unsuitable period of time. They have also undertaken a review of practice in relation to access to accommodation in circumstances where asylum seeking families with children present to homeless services. The Home Office has a duty to provide accommodation to people who would otherwise be destitute while awaiting a decision on their application, and this duty takes precedence over local authority provision of temporary accommodation.

Asylum is reserved to the UK Parliament and handled by the Home Office. This includes the provision of asylum accommodation. As far as the Scottish Government is aware, the Home Office has not used the Alexander Thomson Hotel to provide asylum accommodation. The Scottish Government has not, therefore, engaged with the Home Office regarding the standard of accommodation at this hotel for people seeking asylum, but has raised significant concerns with the Home Office about its use of hotels to accommodate people seeking asylum and will continue to do so.

GHSCP has committed to ending the use of bed and breakfast accommodation in the city overall through the implementation of their Temporary Accommodation Strategy. However, while they continue to use this type of accommodation in emergency situations, they will prioritise dispersed temporary furnished accommodation for families with children and will minimise the time families spend in unsuitable accommodation.

The Scottish Government has also taken action to ensure temporary accommodation in Scotland is high quality, is only used for short periods and meets all the household’s needs. In May 2020 we extended the Unsuitable Accommodation Order to all homeless households so that no homeless household should be placed in unsuitable accommodation, such as hotels or bed and breakfast accommodation, for more than seven days. In October 2021 we established the Temporary Accommodation Standards working group to produce a standards framework for temporary accommodation and to consider how this can be regulated and legally enforced. This will ensure that temporary accommodation used by local authorities to fulfil their duty to accommodate homeless households is safe, warm and of good quality, and that there is a consistency in the standard of temporary accommodation across all local authorities in Scotland.

Investing in our innovative businesses is a key priority of the Scottish Government and we are committed to becoming a world leading, innovation nation, to increasing productivity, growing our economy and creating sustainable, green jobs.

That is why this winter we will publish a new National Innovation Strategy for Scotland, that will set out our 10 year vision for Scotland to become one of the most innovative small nations in the world by 2032.

As investing in our innovative businesses is key to productivity growth, the strategy will introduce a comprehensive and joined up package of investment support.

We will build on the support already available to businesses through our Enterprise Agencies, who since 2017 have distributed around £600m directly to businesses to build their capacity and capability to innovate, and initiatives such as the Digital Development Grant, which since September 2020 has invested almost £50m to over 5,600 SMEs to help them utilise digital technologies and enhance workforce skills.

This will ensure that all of our businesses, people and institutions are ready and able to meet the global economic challenges and opportunities we face over the next ten years.

The Scottish Government’s drive to boost productivity and innovation is set out in the third programme of the National Strategy for Economic Transformation (NSET) . Our approach to expanding international opportunities is set out in NSET’s fifth programme “New Markets”, which is in turn driven by our Trade and Investment plans, Shaping Scotland's Economy: inward investment plan and A Trading Nation: a plan for growing Scotland's exports .

The inward investment plan, which was published in October 2020, takes a targeted approach to attract high quality inward investment into nine opportunity areas where Scotland’s strengths meet international demand, that fall within the overarching areas of Net Zero, Digital and High Value Manufacturing. The export plan refocuses the enterprise agencies’ export support activities to the markets with the international opportunities that best match our strengths, and to support the companies most able to service these opportunities.

Evidence suggests that foreign owned firms make a disproportionate impact to our economic performance and productivity. Just 3% of business in Scotland are foreign owned but account for over a third of jobs, almost half of GVA, just under two thirds of business research & development spending and three quarters of exports.

Progress to date on both the export growth and inward investment plans was set out in detail in A Trading Nation: progress review 2022 and Shaping Scotland's Economy - progress report 2022 .

Any proposals around its future operational estate are a matter for Scottish Enterprise. I have therefore asked the Chief Executive of Scottish Enterprise to respond to you directly. However, I do understand that the current consultation on office requirements - which includes consideration of co-location with other public sector bodies and industry partners, to enhance collaborative working – will include completion of an Equality Impact Assessment as a key component.

The Scottish Government welcomed the commitment by the UK Government to introduce a Home Shipbuilding Credit Guarantee Scheme (HSCGS) as part of the National Shipbuilding Strategy Refresh.

Once the detail of the HSCGS is known, we will engage with the UK Government and the shipbuilding industry to establish how best to maximise the benefits for Scotland.

The Scottish Government engaged with the UK Government throughout the development of the National Shipbuilding Strategy Refresh and continues to engage with the National Shipbuilding Office through the National Shipbuilding Strategy Board, which is scheduled to meet again in December.

Scottish Government agencies are also members of wider structures that support the strategy. For example, representatives of Skills Development Scotland are members of the UK Shipbuilding Skills Taskforce, chaired by Dr Paul Little of City of Glasgow College.

The Scottish Government will continue to contribute to these forums and ensure that Scotland’s world class shipbuilding industry remains well represented.

Based on NRS and ONS data, the number of international migrants who have settled in Scotland in the last 10 years, and comparative UK data, is: