Chamber and committees

The £500 million Just Transition Fund for North East and Moray has allocated £75 million to date, including a multi-year capital programme supporting 24 projects. The open and competitive bidding round assessed projects against published criteria in line with public finance guidelines. Details of successful projects are published here: Just Transition Fund: year one projects - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . I have committed to regular updates on progress towards a just transition to net zero to Parliament and the Just Transition Commission.

The pathfinder projects supported through the Green Growth Accelerator are still at the development stage and, as such, no private investment has been secured yet.

This is an operational matter for ScotRail and Stena Line. ScotRail advises that it regularly meets with Stena Line to review potential service changes and ensure tickets are available on rail retail systems. Details of these tickets can be found via Rail & Sail to Ireland | Stena Line , which also provides contact details for Stena Line for further information.

The Climate Change Plan Advisory Group has undergone 4 of 7 plenary meetings and has so far elicited wide ranging input from diverse stakeholders into the next draft Climate Change Plan. This input includes on topics such as our vision for the future of Scotland, just transition work and energy use, with a Sub- Group meeting on the topic of heat in buildings planned in September.

The Scottish Government will produce an Outcomes Report regarding the policy outputs from the Climate Change Plan Advisory Group after the final meeting in October 2023. Policy outcomes from the group will be used to inform development of the upcoming draft Climate Change Plan.

This is an operational matter for ScotRail and Stena Line. ScotRail advises that it regularly meets with Stena Line to review potential service changes and ensure tickets are available on rail retail systems and Stena Line expands the service if demand dictates. Details of these tickets can be found via Rail & Sail to Ireland | Stena Line , which also provides contact details for Stena Line for further information.

The Scottish Government will produce an Outcomes Report regarding the policy outputs from the Climate Change Plan Advisory Group after the final meeting in October 2023. Policy outcomes from the group will also be used to inform development of the upcoming draft Climate Change Plan.

Transport Scotland has conducted extensive analysis of the carbon benefits of transport modal shift in Scotland. However, there has been no flow-specific analysis on the Edinburgh/Glasgow to Belfast corridor.

Significant public consultation and stakeholder engagement was undertaken as part of the second Strategic Transport Projects Review (STPR2), published in December 2022. STPR2 will inform the Scottish Government’s transport investment programme in Scotland over the next 20 years (2022-2042) and will help to deliver the vision, priorities and outcomes for transport set out in the National Transport Strategy (NTS2). Within this there is a recommendation for a review of the upgrade or relocation of Stranraer rail station to be undertaken. Stakeholder engagement and public consultation were key elements of this review, including a three-month public consultation on the draft recommendations between January and April 2022. A summary report detailing the outcomes of this exercise was produced alongside an analysis report setting out how responses were used to inform the appraisal process. STPR2 Recommendation 40 includes measures to improve access to Stranraer and ports at Cairnryan; to encourage greater use of public transport and support wider town regeneration proposals, this recommendation also includes a review of the upgrade or relocation of Stranraer rail station.

The Scottish Government accepted the recommendations in the 2022 Planning for Skills Report and have taken action to improve our assurance and oversight of skills planning, including through the actions taken as part of the Shared Outcomes Framework (published in March 2022). The Scottish Government also published the National Strategy for Economic Transformation (NSET) in March 2022, which includes analysis and actions to develop Scotland’s Skilled Workforce.

In Autumn 2022, the Scottish Government initiated the independent review of the Skills Delivery Landscape, led by James Withers, to provide recommendations on how the skills functions of our public bodies, including skills planning, should change to ensure the system remains fit for purpose for delivering the ambitions in NSET.

In his final report, published in June 2023, James Withers recommends that the Scottish Government takes responsibility for national skills planning. Following that report, in its Initial Priorities paper, published on 28 June 2023 alongside the Purpose and Principles for post-school education, research and skills, the Scottish Government accepted the basis of many recommendations made by James Withers including taking responsibility for national skills planning and enhancing the role of employers in shaping system planning priorities, pathways and provision.

We will be working over the coming months, with partners, to explore the practicalities of implementing these priorities including our approach to developing new national and regional skills planning processes.

We are investing £1.8 billion in this Parliamentary term on zero direct emission heating and energy efficiency solutions. Building on this, the Green Heat Finance Taskforce is continuing with its work to explore which financing and funding products offer the greatest potential for development at scale in Scotland to help finance our heating transition, in line with our net zero targets. The Taskforce will shortly publish their Part 1 Report which will focus primarily on options for individual property owners, while a second report later in the year will cover options for communal solutions that can support multiple properties. These reports will inform development of our medium to longer term strategic financing and funding plans for heat.

The pace of the Heat in Buildings transition requires a substantial growth in supply chains, particularly in the availability of skilled heating and energy efficiency installers and we continue to work with the sector to ensure the right mix of skills are in place at the scale needed across Scotland to successfully meet our ambitions. We publish a progress report against our Heat in Buildings Strategy annually – the latest update is available here: Heat in Buildings Strategy: 2022 update - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

Working with the Scottish Government and the Scottish Funding Council, Skills Development Scotland is leading two CESAP Pathfinder projects to enable a better understanding of the complex green skills landscape and explore the relationship between future demand and existing provision. One of those projects is focused on the decarbonisation of domestic and commercial heating and the findings will be published once the pathfinder concludes.

We are committed to a fair and managed transition to net zero and are developing Just Transition Plans for key sectors across Scotland. This includes a plan for the Built Environment and Construction, to ensure the economic and social opportunities of the transition to net zero are captured and the risks associated with rapid structural change are mitigated.