Chamber and committees

Our National Infrastructure Mission plans for over £33 billion of Scottish Government investment over the course of the current Parliamentary term. This means that annual investment in our hospitals, schools, houses, transport, low carbon technology and digital connections, will be around £1.56 billion higher by 2025-26 than in 2019-20.

All international studies show that boosting infrastructure investment is expected to have a positive impact on Scotland’s long-term economic growth. Scottish Government analysis published in 2018 available at www.gov.scot/Infrastructure investment: evidence summary showed the annual UK government investment was around 2.6% of UK GDP, one percentage point below the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) average.

The National Infrastructure Mission represents an increase in annual investment by 1% of 2017 Scottish GDP by the end of this Parliament, raising the level of public investment in infrastructure in Scotland to internationally competitive levels and providing economic stimulus.

The Scottish Government and Scottish Green Party agree that transport plays a crucial role in supporting a green and fair recovery and our shared position on this is included in the draft shared policy programme, forming part of the cooperation agreement.

We believe that bold action is needed to increase the pace of change and the scale of investment to support the priorities and outcomes set out in the National Transport Strategy, including our ambitious climate goals. We agree that in the face of the climate emergency we need to shift away from spending money on new road projects that encourage more people to drive, and instead focus our money and effort on maintaining roads, improving safety and providing a realistic and affordable alternative through investing in public transport and active travel.

The Sustainable Investment Hierarchy contained in the second National Transport Strategy and published in February 2020, can trace its linage back to the first Strategic Transport Projects Review in 2008, which in turn was developed from Scotland’s first National Transport Strategy (NTS) published in 2006. This was enhanced as part of the second NTS to include reducing the need to travel unsustainably at the top of the hierarchy. In addition, NTS sets out the commitment to ensure we will not build road infrastructure to cater for forecast unconstrained increases in traffic volumes.

We need to balance the significant changes in travel behaviour required to meet a target of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions with our duty to ensure that Scotland has high quality infrastructure to meet the needs of all our residents, businesses and visitors. That is why we are continuing work on our programme of trunk road improvement scheme to improve resilience, safety and deliver sustainable inclusive growth for the people of Scotland. Work on the trunk roads projects and programmes under construction, procurement or design and development continue and are subject to the statutory assessment and business case processes.

The Scottish Government is committed to dualling the A9 between Perth and Inverness. We have underlined this commitment by commencing procurement of construction the section of the A9 between Tomatin and Moy. The procurement for this £115M section commenced with publication of a contract notice on the Public Contracts Scotland Portal on 19 August 2021, and the contract for construction is expected to be awarded in the second half of 2022.

Design work is progressing well with the statutory process well underway for seven of the remaining eight schemes. Made orders for two adjoining schemes, Glen Garry to Dalwhinnie and Dalwhinnie to Crubenmore were published on 30 July 2021. An additional two schemes, Tay Crossing to Ballinluig and Pitlochry to Killiecrankie, are due to be published in the coming weeks. The only section not to have started the statutory process is between Pass of Birnam and Tay Crossing, which was the subject of a co-creative process with the local community. Work is currently underway to identify the preferred route for this section.

A market consultation exercise commenced earlier this year to inform assessment of procurement options for remaining sections when the statutory processes are complete. Determination of the optimal procurement option is a complex exercise which is considering a pipeline of work in a form that can be delivered by the industry, supports the economic recovery post COVID and minimises disruption to users if this lifeline route.

It is expected this analysis will be completed in the coming weeks and will inform decision making on our procurement approach and phasing.

The contract notice for the third section of the A9 to be dualled, Tomatin to Moy, was published on the Public Contracts Scotland portal on 19 August 2021. We anticipate the contract for this section to be awarded in the second half of 2022 with construction work starting thereafter.

It is also expected that the procurement process for the A737 Improvements at Beith project will commence later in 2021-22.

The proportion of the total estimated Scottish Government investment at Annex D of the Infrastructure Investment Plan between 2021-22 to 2025-2026 in relation to a) utility networks, b) transport and c) digital communications is 8.7%, 27.2% and 5.4% respectively.

Further details relating to this estimated five-year planned investment are contained within the following table noting that gas and electricity network policy and regulation as well as digital infrastructure is reserved to the UK Government. The Low Carbon Infrastructure Transition Programme (LCITP) funding covers a range of projects relating to low carbon infrastructure, some of which include heat networks. For the purposes of this answer, the full LCITP allocation has been included within the table as it is not currently possible to say what share is dedicated to utility networks.

I can confirm that we are using capital funding for the third section of the A9 to be dualled between Tomatin to Moy.

A market consultation exercise commenced earlier this year to inform assessment of procurement options for remaining sections when the statutory processes are complete. Determination of the optimal procurement option is a complex exercise which is considering a pipeline of work in a form that can be delivered by the industry, supports the economic recovery post COVID and minimises disruption to users if this lifeline route.

It is expected this analysis will be completed in the coming weeks and will inform decision making on our procurement approach and phasing.

The first six-monthly update report on the progress of the pipeline of projects and programmes within the new five-year Infrastructure Investment Plan will be provided to Parliament in autumn 2021. The first full annual progress report of the Plan will be provided to Parliament in spring 2022.

The process to return Glasgow Prestwick Airport to the private sector continues and decisions have still to be taken in relation to the prospective sale of the business. With the process to return Prestwick Airport to the private sector continuing, it would not be appropriate for the Scottish Government to comment further at this time.

We have committed to updating Parliament on the sale process at the appropriate stage and to protect the integrity of the process we will not be making any further comment at this time.

Glasgow Prestwick Airport is operated on a commercial basis and at arm’s length from the Scottish Government, in compliance with our obligations under the Trade and Co-operation Agreement between the UK and the EU.

Prestwick Airport continues to develop as a specialist airport, carving a niche in a very competitive aviation market. It is for the airport’s management team to consider all potential business opportunities to maximise the use of the assets of the airport and build on the progress which has already been made.

We are committed to ending the practice of landfilling biodegradable municipal waste (BMW) in line with recommendations from the Climate Change Committee.

While we have not made an assessment of the isolated employment impact of the ban on sending BMW to landfill, landfill will continue to be an important treatment method for some waste types. Moreover, there is no restriction preventing landfills currently accepting BMW from continuing to accept other waste types, for which landfill presents the best environmental outcome, following implementation of the ban on landfilling BMW.

We have an opportunity for renewed impetus in building a fully circular economy in Scotland which will drive materials up the waste hierarchy and keep them in high value use for as long as possible. Many businesses are already promoting the adoption of circular economy practices, for example to actively increase waste prevention and reuse by rethinking operations, diversifying businesses and supporting innovation. Research suggests that the same amount of waste can create far more jobs through recycling, re-use or repair than landfill. The report is available here: Final-briefing-on-reuse-jobs-website-2.pdf (rreuse.org) . In addition, ZWS have also carried out research to identify how many current jobs are associated with the circular economy as well as the future roles and skills required: New research from Zero Waste Scotland and Circle Economy reveals scale of sustainable jobs | Zero Waste Scotland .