Chamber and committees

The National Contingency Plan for Marine Pollution from Shipping and Offshore Installations sets out the roles and responsibilities of the wide range of agencies involved in responding to such an incident. Marine Scotland’s primary role in this context is to assess and advise on environmental impacts. This includes chairing the Environment Group if one is established. The National Contingency Plan is currently being reviewed by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, which has overall responsibility for its maintenance and implementation on a UK wide basis. Marine Scotland will be contributing to this review to ensure that Scottish interests are properly reflected.

The First Minister and myself spoke directly to Shell senior management regarding their response to the spill and to stress the importance of clear communication. Scottish Government officials have also contributed to the Operations Control Unit established by the Secretary of State’s Representative for Maritime Salvage and Intervention, alongside a range of bodies including Shell.

Scottish ministers do not specify the level of contingency plans that the rail industry makes for any type of event. However, it is expected that the rail industry has sufficient and robust plans in place so that the effects of forseeable disruptive events are minimised. This has been the case since rail powers were devolved in 2005, and was also the case prior to 2005 under the management of the (GB) Strategic Rail Authority.

The Green Deal and Energy Company Obligation are UK Government initiatives that will be made available in Scotland with the agreement of the Scottish Parliament and government.

The Scottish Government will hold a joint consultation with the UK Government in Autumn 2011 which will set out the policy and regulations for Green Deal and the Energy Company Obligation with a view to both policies becoming operational in autumn 2012. Information to support the reporting framework on the progress and effectiveness of the Green Deal and the Energy Company Obligation will be established at that time.

Scottish ministers fund Network Rail to operate, maintain and renew the railway infrastructure in Scotland. Generally, Scottish ministers do not specify how Network Rail spends the money, as it has a wide variety of challenges to meet in achieving the target performance figures that have been set.

The Scottish Government has held recent dialogue with Network Rail about flooding on the Edinburgh to Glasgow main line, and has asked Network Rail to prepare a report on how it is tackling persistent areas of flooding on this line.

Scottish ministers fund Network Rail to operate, maintain and renew the railway infrastructure in Scotland, and fund First ScotRail to deliver the franchised passenger services. The Scottish Government has set Network Rail and First ScotRail performance targets that they must deliver, including for robust operation during poor weather.

Learning from the experiences gained during the last two winters, the Scottish Government, ScotRail and Network Rail have identified areas for improvement and all are working hard to make the railway system more resilient.

The Scottish Government has not carried out any modelling to identify rail routes vulnerable as a result of climate change.

However, Network Rail under UK Climate Change obligations provided the Secretary of State (of the Environment) a report in April 2011 that gives:

(a) an assessment of the current and predicted impact of climate change in relation to Network Rail’s functions, and

(b) a statement of Network Rail’s proposals and policies for adapting to climate change in the exercise of its functions and the time-scales for introducing these proposals and policies.

I refer the member to the answers to questions S4W-01373 on 11 July 2011 and S4W-02271 on 5 September 2011. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Apps2/MAQASearch/QAndMSearch.aspx.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-01373 on 11 July 2011.

Planning legislation requires that in preparing a local development plan the planning authority (a) are to take into account the National Planning Framework; (b) are to have regard to such information and considerations as are prescribed in the Town and Country Planning (Development Planning) (Scotland) Regulations 2008, and (c) may have regard to such other information and considerations as appear to them to be relevant. Scottish Ministers would only consider intervening in the process of adopting a local development plan where it appeared to them that the proposed plan was in some respect unsatisfactory, for example in terms of its implications for national policy.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

Work is currently underway within the Scottish Government to review the options for reporting on the greenhouse gas emissions attributable to Scotland’s consumption of goods and services in order to determine the most suitable approach to fulfilling the reporting duty in section 37 of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009.

Given the time lags in the availability of the emissions data that is required to estimate consumption-based emissions (greenhouse gas emissions by industry for Scotland as well as the countries from which we import) and the compilation of the necessary economic and environmental input-output information (domestic and abroad), we anticipate being able to report on 2010 consumption-based emissions in 2013.

The Scottish Government will seek to minimise the delay in the reporting period wherever possible providing this does not adversely impact the quality and validity of the information.

In October 2009, the Scottish Government published a time series of Scotland’s Ecological Footprint and Greenhouse Gas Footprint for the period 1992-2006. This is available online at the following address:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2009/10/28101012/0.