Chamber and committees

All 26 fully refurbished High Speed Trains will have controlled emission tanks (CET) fitted. The first one will be introduced in October and when they are all operating on Scottish inter-city routes will provide 40% more seats than operate at present.

I refer the Member to the public version of the Abellio ScotRail Franchise Agreement which contains the targets for cancellation and capacity. Link is: https://www.transport.gov.scot/media/2302/abellio-scotrail-redacted-franchise-agreement-web-version-revised-november-2016.pdfj .

I am pleased that National Museums Scotland and Dumfries and Galloway Council have been able to agree the terms for a 25-year Partnership Agreement which outlines their long-term plans for the display of a significant and representative portion of the Hoard at Kirkcudbright Art Gallery, and future loans and touring exhibitions in Galloway.

The Scottish Government has worked with all partners involved to enable both parties to reach an agreement and to allow for the most important collections ever discovered in Scotland to be made available to the widest possible audience. VisitScotland will work with Dumfries and Galloway Council and National Museums Scotland to promote the Hoard and the wider region.

The New Entrants Capital Grant Scheme (NECGS) is part of the Scottish Rural Development Programme (SRDP) 2014-20, which assumed £22 million of support for Young Farmers and New Entrants across the programme life. Such has been the level of demand that this budget is now exhausted, though not before supporting over 250 new businesses and at least 600 business development projects. There are currently no plans to reopen schemes.

Looking beyond the current SRDP, the recent consultation - 'Stability and Simplicity' - marked the start of our process to develop a new rural support policy after the UK Government takes Scotland out of the European Union. The consultation made clear the importance that the Scottish Government places upon continuing to support new entrants and sought views and opinions as to how this might be achieved. While it is too early to anticipate exact future funding mechanisms, the Scottish Government will give due regard to the suggestions that have been made in the responses. The Cabinet Secretary for the Rural Economy will provide a report to Parliament in due course, once careful consideration has been given to the substantial response received.

Pillar One payments commenced in April and we achieved the target of making 95% of Pillar One payments by 30 June deadline. As in any year there are a number of complex cases that take longer than anticipated to resolve and may require additional confirmation from the farmer or crofter. We aim to resolve these more complex cases as quickly as possible.

We started making payments for pillar two schemes in May and June this year, three months ahead of last year. We are making steady progress across the different schemes with the aim of making the vast majority of payments by the end of the year.

If an application was received on, or prior to, the scheme closing date (31 August 2018) a small amount of additional time, 10 working days, is allowed to give the applicant the opportunity to submit the final pieces of supporting documentation. However, if the required details are not forthcoming within that time, the application will be rejected. No new applications will be accepted after 31 August 2018, regardless of circumstances.

ScotRail continues to achieve the franchise contractual target for capacity and is mid threshold between Target Performance Level and Improvement Plan Level for Cancellations. This is due to the reported decline in performance experienced last autumn and the recent infrastructure asset failures and extreme hot weather temperatures.

Significant investment is being made to deliver additional capacity and improve the resilience of infrastructure assets across the rail network. Additional capacity includes the introduction of more than 200 carriages to follow in the next 12 months providing a 50% increase in carriages since 2007. This includes the roll out of electric Class 385 trains and introduction of High Speed Trains (HSTs)s in the coming months. In terms of infrastructure resilience this includes delivery of the recommendations from the Donavan performance review, maintenance and operations through bridge repairs, lineside vegetation clearance, security fencing to reduce trespass and animal incursions, upgrade power supply equipment, along with a focus on key assets in the Glasgow area. Additionally, the ScotRail Alliance is undertaking a review of the hot temperatures and lessons to be learned of recent months.

The contractual targets and investment being delivered is monitored and discussed between Transport Scotland and ScotRail Alliance at regular forums.

The member will wish to be aware that the information on ScotRail’s performance related to capacity and cancellation in each reporting period since April 2015 is available from the Parliament’s Reference Centre (Bib number 60003).

Our national health and social care workforce plan details the commitments we are taking to promote the long term sustainability of health and social care services in Scotland. This includes explicit commitments to expand both undergraduate and specialist medical training.

NHS Scotland Boards are required to have the correct staff in place to meet the needs of the service and ensure high quality patient care.

Transport Scotland have been in informal discussions with Scottish Canals around the job evaluation and the harmonisation they are undertaking. Further discussions are scheduled to take place before a formal approach will be made to Scottish Government.