Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-28745 on 12 May 2020. 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 .

The Scottish Government has committed to a four-step economic plan, comprising response, reset, restart and recover. The package of support so far has focused on the response stage, including the delivery of business support measures. We are regularly reviewing the physical distancing restrictions and, as we move from the immediate response phase of the crisis, through the stages of reset, restart, recover, we will be working with businesses, on a sector by sector basis, to establish the best way that businesses can reopen, taking account of the very real ongoing public health priorities.

The package of support we have delivered includes a fund to provide grants for businesses experiencing hardship as a result of COVID-19. A £10,000 grant is available to small businesses in receipt of Small Business Bonus Scheme (SBBS) or Rural Relief on 17 March 2020; or properties eligible for SBBS and in receipt of either Nursery Relief, Business Growth Accelerator, Fresh Start or Disabled Relief on 17 March 2020. Retail, Leisure and Hospitality properties with a rateable value from £18,001 and up to and including £51,000 may apply for a £25,000 grant.

On 15 April, the Scottish Government announced a Phase 2 of the Business Grants Funding Scheme, which commenced on 5 May.

This is specifically aimed at ratepayers with more than one property. In addition to a 100% grant on their first eligible property, ratepayers with additional qualifying properties will be eligible to apply for a 75% grant on each additional property. This will make available Small Business Grants of £7,500 and Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grants of £18,750 on any additional qualifying properties that a ratepayer may have, subject to compliance with EU State Aid Rules.

The announcement also extended the eligibility for the £10,000 Small Business Grant to additional ratepayers that hold one or more properties within retail, hospitality or leisure, with individual rateable values not exceeding £18,000, and a cumulative rateable value between £35,001 and £51,000.

The Scottish Government recently announced that it will double the Pivotal Enterprise Resilience Fund from £45 million to £90 million. The fund will be managed by the Enterprise Agencies and will support vulnerable SME firms who are vital to the local or national economic foundations of Scotland.

We recognise that wholesalers service the needs of public sector procurement contracts with schools, care homes, hospitals and prison service.

Ms Campbell announced a £350 million package of support for vulnerable families on Wed 18 March. This included a £70 million Food Fund to support households worried about accessing food. We have provided our local authority partners with £30 million of new investment from the SG Food Fund to support families unable to access food as a result of COVID-19. As part of the £30 million investment we agreed a distribution to local authorities of £15 million specifically for free school meals, however local authorities have flexibility to use the overall additional £30 million resource in ways that best meet emerging local needs and circumstances.

Many local authorities offer a range of approaches with around half offering food delivery or food collection. Whilst the level of procurement is substantially lower than before Covid-19, there is still some activity in this area with Local Authorities tending to work with existing suppliers.

The Scottish Government is going to great lengths to support businesses and have offered a package of support worth £2.2 billion for businesses. As part of this £2.2 billion there is the £45 million allocated to the Pivotal Enterprise Resilience Fund, managed by the Enterprise Agencies for vulnerable SME firms who are vital to the local or national economic foundations of Scotland. Eligible wholesalers are encouraged to apply to the Pivotal Enterprise Resilience Fund which opened on the 30th of April.

In addition to the Pivotal Enterprise Resilience Fund the wholesale sector have been able to make use of the Job Retention Scheme and can furlough staff which covers 80% of staff salary for a period of up to four months from the 1 st of March 2020.

All non-domestic properties in Scotland, including wholesalers, will qualify for the 1.6% discount on 2020-21 rates bills.

Aside from financial support Ministers and Officials have engaged with the industry and as a result I wrote to over 60 manufacturers to call on them to ensure equity of supply across customer bases including the wholesale sector.

We continue to engage with businesses on a regular basis to understand their needs.

We are determined to help keep companies in business and our financial support now exceeds the £2.3 billion passed on from the UK Government. In designing the relief and grant system we had to balance helping as many businesses as possible against what was affordable.

The rates reliefs are set out in The Non-Domestic Rates (Coronavirus Reliefs) (Scotland) Regulations 2020. This includes a universal 1.6% relief available to all non-domestic properties, and a 100% relief for businesses in the Retail, Hospitality, Leisure and Airport sectors. Non-domestic rates are administered by local authorities, and the interpretation of the relevant legislation and the awarding of reliefs is a matter for them.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-27437 on 12 March 2020. 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 .

 The requested information is not centrally held.

The primary purpose of the Royal College of GP (RCGP) curriculum is to train future GPs with the types of generalist medical skills and capabilities to work competently and safely within general practice settings, part of which is to recognise when a patient’s need requires more specialist intervention or assessment. Throughout their training, GP trainees will encounter a broad variety of patients of all ages, and with various needs and conditions. The curriculum is not intended to equip them with detailed medical specialist knowledge and skills, although upon completion of their training GPs may go onto attain additional skills through Continuous Professional Development opportunities.

Within the GP curriculum, gender dysphoria is covered more fully in the ‘Sexual Health’ and ‘Equality, Diversity and Inclusion’ topic guides, whereas Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) is covered in the ‘Gynaecology and Breast’ topic guide.

HRT for transgender patients is a specialised area which is Health Board dependant and may be provided by a combination of medical consultants in Gynaecology and Sexual and Reproductive Health. GP’s would prescribe/monitor treatments as per national guidelines and consultant input.

The Scottish Government operates a robust and fair planning system. Scottish Planning policy is clear that development plans prepared by planning authorities should identify those areas that are likely to be most appropriate for onshore wind farms, as a guide for developers and communities. It is also clear that development plans should set out the criteria that will be considered in deciding applications for wind farms and that there should not be moratoria on onshore wind development. Each wind farm presented to the planning system is, by law, considered in accordance with the development plan unless material considerations indicate otherwise. When considering applications for wind farm developments, Scottish Ministers are required to take into account information regarding the likely significant effects of a proposed development, such as, the cumulation of effects with other existing and/or approved developments.

The Scottish Government's Energy Consents Unit is responsible for the consideration of applications for large-scale generating stations over 50MW. Any applications for less than 50MW would be considered under the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1997 by the relevant planning authority. As such, the Scottish Government does not hold aggregated information on wind turbine consents. However, we have included a breakdown of section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989 determinations by planning authority:

Onshore wind is the lowest cost electricity generation at scale and remains vitally important to our decarbonisation ambitions. Paragraph 166 of Scottish Planning Policy states that proposals for onshore wind turbine developments should continue to be determined while spatial frameworks and local policies are being prepared and updated.

Tariff policy is reserved to the UK Government. However, tariff-free trade with Europe, the elimination of non-tariff barriers and quick and efficient customs procedures are indispensable to the functioning of Scotland’s energy system and its supply chains. Any tariff barriers arising from hurried, sub-optimal trade deals negotiated by the UK Government could increase the administrative and compliance costs of the energy sector exporting to, or importing from, the European Single Market.

The Scottish Government embraces the values of solidarity, cooperation and democracy which underpin the European Union, and we believe they are critically important for the great global challenge of our time – tackling climate change. The EU’s international and growing influence in driving climate ambition means that Scotland’s best interest lies in negotiating as close a relationship as possible with the EU, and to do that before any other nation or trading bloc. This does not, however, preclude the use of trade as a policy lever to drive climate change ambition and action with other partners, including high-emitting countries; our first preference, however, would be to use trade to open up new markets for Scottish low carbon goods and services, helping trade partners to decarbonise their economies.

The UK Government recently published its objectives for a free trade agreement with the USA. It is unacceptable that the UK Government is seeking to compound the harm of leaving the EU by signing up to a US trade deal that will increase emissions. Any trade displacement from the EU to more distant partners will inevitably raise emissions and make our respective net zero targets more difficult to achieve.