Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is committed to implementing the National Neurodevelopmental Specification: Principles and Standards of Care for Children and Young People, published in September 2021, which specifies service standards that all children’s services should follow, to ensure access to support is effective and consistent across Scotland. Scottish Government have also commissioned Directors of eHealth, working with others including Public Health Scotland, to work to improve digital infrastructure, applications and data to report on all standards within the National Neurodevelopmental Specification.

In addition to these actions, and to support this work, £3.06 million has been allocated to NHS Boards, for the remainder of this year, to build professional capacity within Boards to support children and young people with neurodevelopmental support needs.

The Scottish Government has also established the National Autism Implementation Team, in partnership with Queen Margaret University, to support Health and Social Care Partnerships to consider best practice and improve service in adult autism diagnostic services. The National Implementation Team is supporting NHS Boards to examine diagnostic pathways for autism and establish regional experts to assist with improving tiered autism specialisms across health boards.

The Scottish Government accepted recommendation 22 of the independent Barclay Review of Non-Domestic Rates, which proposed a condition to tackle a known tax avoidance measure that all owners or occupiers of self-catering properties must provide evidence of 70 days of actual letting per year in order to qualify as non-domestic.

The Scottish Budget 2021-22 stated: “Due to COVID-19, the implementation of the requirement that self-catering properties be let for 70 days or more in order to be classed as non-domestic, as recommended by the independent Barclay Review of non-domestic rates, was initially delayed and will now be in place for 2021-22.” The Scottish Government will shortly lay secondary legislation with the Scottish Parliament to deliver this change although how the changes will be administered is a matter for independent Local Assessors.

The valuation of all non-domestic property is a matter for Scottish Assessors, including requests for information pertaining to the non-domestic property. Assessors may request information from a proprietor, tenant or occupier of a property as well as any other relevant person for the purposes of valuation and a response is required by legislation to be returned within 28 days. These information provision obligations are applied to all non-domestic properties, including self-catering properties. As set out in the Non-Domestic Rates (Scotland) Act, failure to respond within that period may result in a civil penalty.

In 2020-21 and 2021-22, Assessors received additional resources to support the implementation of the Barclay Review.

The Scottish Government recognise that the recent rises in energy prices, and the increase in the price cap authorised by Ofgem, can only have a negative impact on fuel poor households.

While energy markets are a reserved matter, we are taking action, within our powers, to support people who are struggling with their heating bills through the winter. On Friday 29 October we announced a £10 million Fuel Insecurity Fund to provide direct support with fuel costs for low income households. This funding will be delivered through a range of organisations including registered social landlords, Advice Direct Scotland and the Fuel Bank Foundation. It is part of a wider £41 million package of funding designed to help people on low incomes who are facing financial insecurity over the winter.

The Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 regulates the use of animals in scientific procedures in the UK. This is a reserved area of legislation.

The Scottish Government asks the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) to liaise with research institutes and outline their responsibilities.

The SFC have advised that they require institutions to comply with the Concordat to Support Research Integrity. The Concordat sets out principles and commitments to ensure that research produced by or in collaboration with UK universities is underpinned by the highest standards of rigour and integrity and that the public, government, business, and international partners can continue to have confidence in that research.

The Scottish Government has committed to bringing Free Personal and Nursing Care rates for those self-funding residential care into line with the National Care Home Contract. We are currently consulting on this as part of the National Care Service consultation, which runs until 2 November 2021.

The available information is provided in the following table which has been produced from the Scottish Government’s criminal proceedings database .

People proceeded against with a Domestic Abuse identifier or statutory aggravation recorded against the main charge, by type of court, 2019-20.

Glasgow already benefits from an extensive rail network. With a total of 155 stations in the Glasgow City Region it is the busiest suburban rail network in Britain outside London. Therefore the focus of investment has very properly been on the development of that network, which has benefited from substantial improvements as part of the more than £9bn invested in rail infrastructure in Scotland since 2007.

These investments have included extensive electrification of routes into Glasgow and substantial new, emission free train fleets serving those routes. Glasgow Queen Street has been rebuilt and transformed, Glasgow Central capacity has benefited from an additional platform, and in 2019, a new station opened at Robroyston to provide local residents with a sustainable travel option.

Further rail enhancements, in Glasgow and more widely across the country, are planned as part of the Decarbonisation Action Plan ( Rail Services Decarbonisation Action Plan (transport.gov.scot) ) with our future transport investment decisions directed by the second Strategic Transport Projects Review (STPR2). That review will conclude this winter, with publication of recommendations for investment and will be followed by the appropriate statutory consultation period.

The M8 Woodside Viaducts are essential links in the M8 central Scotland urban motorway, vital for the economy and connectivity of Scotland. Therefore, the repair of the viaducts and removal of restrictions is high priority. A number of potential remedies were considered but the propping solution was assessed as the best option in terms of timescale and value for the public purse. The viaducts carry 150,000 vehicles per day in normal times, which would be difficult to accommodate by other routes or modes. Part of the Underline Project, an active travel corridor route from Cambridge Street to St George’s Road extending below the viaducts, has been deferred to allow the viaducts repair work to be completed. Several excavations are required in this area and it would be abortive to construct this part only for it to be disrupted by the repair works. This has been fully discussed and agreed with Glasgow City Council. On completion, the Underline project will deliver a key cross-Glasgow active travel corridor in line with the commitments given in the motion and contribute to the net zero aims of COP26.

Further to the answers provided to S6W-00200 on 3 June 2021 and S6W-00776 on 1 July 2021, Scottish Ministers have to work within current UK rail legislation, principally the Railways Act 1993 (the 1993 Act), which neither the Scottish Ministers nor the Scottish Parliament have powers to change.

The Scottish Ministers already have a duty under section 30 of the 1993 Act to provide or secure the provision of passenger rail services where a franchise agreement comes to an end and no further franchise agreement had been entered into in respect of the services. It is this duty that will enable the Scottish Ministers to arrange for a company wholly owned by the Scottish Government (ScotRail Trains Ltd) to provide ScotRail services when the current ScotRail franchise expires. The Scottish Ministers do not need to introduce additional legislation to put this into effect.

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

We have made no specific assessment of the number of hospital appointments that have been missed on the mainland as a result of delays or cancellations on the Ardrossan-Brodick ferry route.

We recognise the impact that ferry disruption has on island communities, and are taking steps to address resilience across the network. The MV Glen Sannox is due to be delivered next year which will improve vessel resilience on this route.

Whenever there is disruption, CalMac Ferries Ltd (CFL) do their best to assist passengers with a need to travel, particularly those with medical appointments, and will always do everything possible to accommodate passengers on alternative sailings.

In order to address capacity issues, a new policy has been put in place to ensure anyone with a short notice medical appointment who cannot book a vehicle can travel as a foot passenger and CFL will arrange a taxi.