Chamber and committees

The criteria to qualify for free school meals is provided for in section 53(3) of the Education (Scotland) Act 1980. A number of changes have been made to the criteria since 2007 to help increase the availability of free school meals for children in primary 4 and above, particularly children and young people living in low income households.

The Education (School Lunches) (Scotland) Regulations 2009 extended the eligibility criteria for a free school lunch to pupils in receipt of, and to pupils with parents in receipt of child tax credit and working tax credit (based on income not exceeding an amount specified by Regulations under the Tax Credits Act 2002 – the Tax Credits (Income Thresholds and Determination of Rates) Regulations 2002).

The Education (School Lunches) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2013 prescribed the receipt of universal credit to include pupils in receipt of, and to pupils with parents in receipt of universal credit, as an eligibility criterion for free school meals. This was an interim measure intended to protect access to free school meals during the early stages of its roll out. The Scottish Government is currently working with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) to consider the eligibility criteria for free school meals under universal credit in the future.

In 2015, amendments to section 53 of the Education Act (Scotland) 1980 made via the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 gave education authorities new powers to provide school meals free of charge to pupils who satisfy such conditions as the authority thinks fit. Information about the use of this power is not held centrally.

The answer to question S5W-03014 on 29 September 2016, sets out the changes (both increases and decreases) since 2007 to income threshold for free school meal eligibility linked to the receipt of child tax credit by a parent or pupil (and not working tax credit). All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

Scotland’s strong housing rights for homeless households mean that nobody should have to sleep rough. Glasgow City Council have the duty to provide housing and homelessness services in their area.

Homelessness statistics indicate that the number of homeless applicants to Glasgow City Council in 2015-16 reporting that they had slept rough before applying has decreased year on year over the past five years. We know, however, that only rough sleepers who approach local authorities are recorded. This is why the Scottish Government has been working with stakeholders such as the Glasgow Homelessness Network to get more robust data on the figures of those rough sleeping in Glasgow and to assess the needs of those involved.

The Scottish Government recognises that some rough sleeping will result from more complex needs and cannot always be addressed by simply providing accommodation. We are working with our partners in health and social services to ensure we have better information on rough sleepers and their needs to help address this issue.

The UK Government has recently offered guarantees on EU funding to cover, in full, the payment of all EU funding contracts for structural funds projects that are entered into before the date that the UK proposes to leave the EU.

The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Constitution has confirmed that these guarantees will be passed on in full to Scottish stakeholders to provide stability and certainty for the Scottish economy.

The Scottish Government will negotiate with the UK Government to ensure that future financial support for the range of economic and social development initiatives currently supported by structural funds is allocated on a fair and equitable basis across the UK post Brexit.

We will work closely with the local authorities, enterprise and skills agencies, digital partners and the third sector to shape future measures taken to help grow the economy and support individuals and communities.

Scotland is an active and valued partner in European research collaborations and while the UK Government’s guarantee on Horizon 2020 funding is welcome as far as it goes, it fails to recognise what we would otherwise have received as continuing members of the EU.

The Scottish Government will publish proposals over the coming weeks that would allow Scotland to stay in the single market and to preserve aspects of our relationship with the EU, even if the rest of the UK is intending to leave.

Through the core research budget for higher education, the Scottish Government continues to support high-impact, world-class research in Scotland’s Universities. However as autonomous institutions, the funding of specific areas of research, including disability research, is a decision for each individual university.

As part of our promise to build a fairer Scotland, the Scottish Government is committed to increasing the number of accessible homes across all tenures. Local authorities are required by law to prepare a local housing strategy supported by an assessment of housing need and demand. The strategy has to set out the current need for specialist provision across all housing tenures that will help to support people to live independently; the likely requirement for this provision over the next five years; how current needs are being met; and what more is planned to meet future need.

Affordable Housing Supply Programme funding decisions are therefore based on priorities identified in Local Housing Strategies and local authority Strategic Housing Investment Plans. Housing for social rent which is delivered through the grant-funded Affordable Housing Supply Programme already has to meet accessibility standards, but funding is also available for specialist housing – for example, helping disabled people with more complex needs to live independently in their own homes.

We are also working with Disabled People’s Organisations, local authorities and the housing sector to develop appropriate solutions. Our Disability Delivery Plan, which will be published later this year, will set out the further actions we will take to achieve this.

Local authorities were invited as part of the development of their Strategic Housing Investment Plans to identify priority housing sites that could, with support from the Fund, be unlocked to bring forward housing within the next five years. All expressions of interest to the Fund are therefore deemed to be priorities for the Local Authority.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all students with a disability, long term medical condition or additional support needs are able to access higher education and are fully supported throughout their studies. Universities have a duty under the Equality Act 2010 to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to ensure that students with disabilities which affect their studies are not placed at a disadvantage. In addition to this, universities receive funding from the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) in the form of the Disabled Students Premium, which enables them to make their institution and course provision more inclusive through reasonable adjustments for students with additional needs. A total of £2.8m was allocated to universities in academic year 2016-17.

We continue to work closely with the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), the sector and through the Disabled Students Advisory Group (DSAG) which comprises a wide range of experts in the field of support for disabled students, to review inclusive practices which Scottish universities have in place to support disabled students and identify where improvements can be made.

ScotRail expect all scheduled trains to run unless there are exceptional circumstances. There are two sorts of cancellations, planned and unplanned. A planned cancellation is one which might be required because of, for example, engineering work. Planned engineering work is advertised in advance, and is not counted against ScotRail’s performance statistics. An unplanned cancellation is defined as follows:

Cancellation means a Passenger Service:

(a) which is included in the Applicable Timetable and which is cancelled;

(b) which is included in the Applicable Timetable and which operates less than 50 per cent. of its scheduled mileage; or

(c) which is omitted from the Applicable Timetable, or included in it in a modified form that does not enable the Franchisee to operate more than 50 per cent. of such Passenger Service’s scheduled mileage, without the Franchisee discharging its obligations under Schedule 1.2 (Operating Obligations) in relation thereto;

An unplanned cancellation can arise for because of a range of exceptional circumstances, including mechanical breakdowns, staff shortages, problems with the track (e.g. broken rails), network operation (e.g. a signals failure), other operators’ performance, or, on occasion, the weather.

Tackling fuel poverty has always been a priority for this Government and we are using all the powers within our control to achieve this.

We have allocated over £650 million since 2009 and we will make available half a billion pounds over the next four years to tackle fuel poverty and make our homes and building warmer and cheaper to heat.

This year we are making available £113 million to improve the energy efficiency of Scotland’s homes building on the 1 million energy efficiency measures delivered through a range of UK and Scottish Government programmes to almost 1 million homes since 2008.

Our spending on domestic energy efficiency has already made hundreds of thousands of homes warmer and cheaper to heat and, as the Scottish House Condition Survey shows, has helped to mitigate the rise in fuel poverty.