Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government will publish the new Global Affairs Framework today.

The Global Affairs Framework sets out the values and principles underpinning the Scottish Government’s international work and the basis on which the Scottish Government will prioritise its international activity.

The framework aligns our international activities with our overall approach and priorities, notably: supporting progress to meet our child poverty targets, addressing climate change and securing a stronger, fairer, economy. We are also determined that Scotland should be a good global citizen, making a constructive contribution to addressing global challenges.

For any government, the global and regional context inevitably impacts on the achievement of domestic objectives. That is why it is imperative that Scotland becomes more active internationally.

The Scottish Government continue to actively monitor SEPA via agreed milestones within its Annual Operating Plan. This will be key to ensuring SEPA continue to maintain a high degree of environmental protection as referred to in S6W-07720 on 9 May 2022 .

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

The Scottish Child Payment is one of seven benefits that the Scottish Government has introduced which are not available elsewhere in the UK. We are committed to extending Scottish Child Payment to children under 16 and increasing to £25 per week, per child by the end of this calendar year.

To make payments it is essential we have data on qualification for reserved benefits that establish eligibility, which we will not have until later this year. We are reliant on the UK Government providing us with this data, because we do not have powers or controls over reserved benefit areas. Work is ongoing with the UK Government to ensure the necessary data is in place as quickly as possible, to deliver the extension of our Scottish Child Payment by the end of this calendar year.

We delivered at pace the Scottish Child Payment for under 6s in recognition that 60% of families with children in poverty have a child under 6. We also introduced our innovative Bridging Payments worth £520 across 2022, to support an estimated 144,000 children and young people of school age. This is an investment of more than £76 million.

We are taking a range of actions, within our devolved powers and with our limited resources, to help people facing the current cost of living crisis. Through our cost of living support measures, spend on Scottish social security payments that are not available elsewhere in the UK, and mitigating the UK Government’s bedroom tax, we are set to invest almost £770 million to help households tackle the cost of living pressures this year. This includes £290 million to give 1.85 million (73%) Scottish households £150 of extra support in April and we continue investment in our Fuel Insecurity Fund.

The Scottish Government is currently funding two research projects into land values, landownership, and land use change, through the Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture Strategic Research Programme (SRP) 2022-27. One is at the James Hutton Institute on supporting community engagement in land use decision-making. The second at Scotland’s Rural College, is on impacts of land-based funding mechanisms on land values, and related outcomes for landownership diversification and land use change. These are multi-year projects which will provide a range of outputs over the coming years to inform Scottish Government policy and the wider public debate. Details of all of the projects commissioned through the SRP will be published on the Scottish Government website by the end of June 2022.

In April 2022 the Scottish Land Commission also published research on Scotland's Rural Land Market which is available on their website https://www.landcommission.gov.scot/ .

Scotland's Household Recycling Charter currently lists acceptance of cartons within recycling services as an essential requirement of a consistent collection model.

Though the Scottish Government currently has no plans for a specific mandatory carton recycling target, as part of our Programme for Government commitments, we are reviewing Scotland’s Household Recycling Charter’s Code of Practice. The Charter and Code of Practice are designed to make it easier for people to recycle the right things, and the review will help develop a future model of recycling collections, aligning with Scotland’s new deposit return scheme to drive further consistency.

In May we will publish our consultations for a circular economy bill and waste route map, which will set out further proposals to facilitate Scotland’s transition to a zero waste and circular economy, and meet our waste, recycling and emissions targets.

In 2020, the Scottish Government made a promise to thousands of care experienced children and adults to Keep The Promise by 2030.

As part of this will be working with partners to review and improve adoption services across Scotland.

Opportunities for international travel between December 2019 and March 2022 were very much restricted by the pandemic. Accordingly there were no official visits made to countries outside the UK by Scottish Ministers and/or officials in this period.

Transport Scotland officials maintain awareness of developments in railways in other countries, including those which are in public ownership – for example in England. This appreciation is used to inform analysis of options for the development of Scotland’s Railways in line with the priorities of the Scottish Government.

Through No One Left behind, we are delivering an all age approach to employability that is flexible and person centred. It promotes a strengthened partnership approach where the spheres of government work together with partners across the public, private and third sector to make informed, evidence based decisions on required support, flexing these to meet emerging labour market demands.

Phase 2 of No One Left Behind commenced in April 2022 with funding previously allocated to the Employability Fund and Community Jobs Scotland transferring from national to local governance.

Those participants aged 16-17 years old, and those aged 18 who are not in receipt of benefits, who are participating for between 10-30 hours per week will continue to be eligible to be paid a training allowance while undertaking training through No One Left Behind. There are no plans to change the criteria in the near future.

Conduct amounting to ‘arson’ under Scots criminal law would be prosecuted under the criminal offences of wilful fire raising and culpable and reckless fire raising. As these are common law offences, the courts in Scotland have the ability to impose a wide range of sentences, up to and including life imprisonment.

As with all sentencing decisions, the level of sentence to issue in any given case is rightly a matter for the independent court, having regard to the individual facts and circumstances of each case and any factors the court may deem to be aggravating in nature. The Scottish Government supports courts having these wide-ranging powers in dealing with conduct amounting to arson.

The independent Scottish Sentencing Council also play a valuable role in guiding the court as to the core principles of sentencing and what sentences should be imposed in certain circumstances through the development of sentencing guidelines.