- Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 09 September 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 22 September 2021
To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking as part of the economic recovery from COVID-19 to reduce any occupational segregation in sectors such as energy, transport, construction, agriculture and manufacturing in areas that are male-dominated.
Answer
Our 2021 manifesto committed to continuing to promote Fair Work in the Scottish Economy and help tackle occupational segregation, one of the main drivers of the gender pay gap and women’s workplace inequality.
Our Covid Recovery Strategy will bring together the actions we will take across government and with partners to address the impact of the pandemic on those hardest hit in our country. Our 10-year National Strategy for Economic Transformation will then help build a greener, fairer and more inclusive wellbeing economy, which has fair work, including tacking the gender pay gap, and a just transition to net zero at its heart, and which delivers sustainable and inclusive growth for Scotland’s people and places.
- Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 09 September 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 22 September 2021
To ask the Scottish Government when it will distribute the first funds under the ten-year £500 million Just Transition Fund for the North East and Moray.
Answer
We will work collaboratively with partners, communities and other stakeholders to take forward the ten-year £500m Just Transition Fund for the North East and Moray. The delivery of the Fund will exemplify our co-design and co-delivery approach that will be supported by a programme of broad engagement in the area. This Fund is a new commitment which will require detailed policy design work and implementation planning. We will provide further information on the process in due course.
The Just Transition Fund will support and accelerate energy transition, create good, green jobs and maximise the region’s future economic potential. We are determined to tackle climate emergency and mitigate the impacts of the transition on communities across Scotland, and we will work at pace to deliver our sectoral plans for a just transition.
- Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 09 September 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 22 September 2021
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide a timetable for the establishment of the ten-year £500 million Just Transition Fund for the North East and Moray.
Answer
We will work collaboratively with partners, communities and other stakeholders to take forward the ten-year £500m Just Transition Fund for the North East and Moray. The delivery of the Fund will exemplify our co-design and co-delivery approach that will be supported by a programme of broad engagement in the area. This Fund is a new commitment which will require detailed policy design work and implementation planning. We will provide further information on the process in due course.
The Just Transition Fund will support and accelerate energy transition, create good, green jobs and maximise the region’s future economic potential. We are determined to tackle climate emergency and mitigate the impacts of the transition on communities across Scotland, and we will work at pace to deliver our sectoral plans for a just transition.
- Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 09 September 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Tom Arthur on 22 September 2021
To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to comments by Homes for Scotland regarding the Programme for Government that planning and regulatory systems "are in need of increased resources to enable local councils to cope with the levels of demand for new homes".
Answer
In 2021-22 the Scottish Government allocated £11.7 billion to authorities and it is the responsibility of individual councils to manage their own budgets and to allocate the financial resources available to them on the basis of local needs and priorities.
The resourcing and performance of the planning system remain key priorities, and we are aware that authorities across the country are under financial pressure, and that this has impacted on planning departments. That is why in 2019 we published a consultation which proposed making changes to the planning fee regime to increase the financial resources available to authorities. That work was paused during the pandemic but has recently been recommenced and we will work with the High Level Group on Planning Performance to take it forward.
The performance of the system is not the sole responsibility of planning authorities and everyone involved in planning must play their part in ensuring that the system functions effectively and efficiently.
Some planning applications will have longer decision times due to their scale and complexity. Planning decision timescales have also inevitably been affected by the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2020-21, despite these impacts, authorities determined 4,293 planning applications for housing.
- Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 09 September 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 22 September 2021
To ask the Scottish Government which islands (a) within and (b) outside the UK it plans to consider good practices from as part of its Carbon Neutral Islands project.
Answer
The Scottish Government is carrying out an extensive mapping of good practices relating to climate change and islands both from within the UK and overseas.
- Asked by: Pauline McNeill, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 09 September 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 22 September 2021
To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has undertaken of the potential economic impact of introducing COVID-19 vaccine passports.
Answer
Certification provides a targeted and proportionate means to reduce risk while maximising our ability to keep open certain settings and events where transmission is a higher risk. If the choice is between sectors and settings being closed and a limited certification scheme being used to keep them open, we believe that it is right to make a choice in favour of a limited certification scheme. We are working closely and at pace with sectors to finalise a proportionate, effective and robust scheme for each setting before implementation. There are a number of operational and logistical issues which we are working through together. All software, apps and paper copies of certificates will be free to use. Businesses will be able to use an app free of charge to scan the codes used on all certificates and there will be options for venues to integrate the verifier functionality into their own systems, as the source code is open source. Relevant impact assessments, including a BRIA (Business & Regulatory Impact Assessment), will be published when we lay the regulations.
- Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 09 September 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 22 September 2021
To ask the Scottish Government how much funding will be allocated in each year of the ten-year £500 million Just Transition Fund for the North East and Moray, and what will happen to any funding that is left unspent at the end of each year.
Answer
We will work collaboratively with partners, communities and other stakeholders to take forward the ten-year £500m Just Transition Fund for the North East and Moray. The delivery of the Fund will exemplify our co-design and co-delivery approach that will be supported by a programme of broad engagement in the area. This Fund is a new commitment which will require detailed policy design work and implementation planning. We will provide further information on the process in due course.
The Just Transition Fund will support and accelerate energy transition, create good, green jobs and maximise the region’s future economic potential. We are determined to tackle climate emergency and mitigate the impacts of the transition on communities across Scotland, and we will work at pace to deliver our sectoral plans for a just transition.
- Asked by: Jeremy Balfour, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 09 September 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Humza Yousaf on 22 September 2021
To ask the Scottish Government whether it is following World Health Organization and European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control COVID-19 contact guidance that (a) contact tracing should include contacts in school, including classmates, teachers and other staff and (b) as well as testing all contacts with symptoms, there should be quarantining and testing of asymptomatic high-risk exposure contacts, and what the reasons are for its position on this matter.
Answer
The Scottish Government continues to follow the World Health Organization and European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control Covid-19 contact tracing guidance as well as recent evidence on the impact of vaccination in protecting the population from harm and latest evidence on infection and transmission in children and young people. Contact tracing continues to include all contacts in school with public health advice provided on the basis of whether a contact is ‘high-risk’ or ‘low-risk’ with low-risk contacts being identified by schools and receiving targeted ‘Information’ letters. People identified as asymptomatic high-risk exposure contacts, regardless of age, continue to be advised to isolate and to take a PCR test.
The changes made to contact tracing and isolation policy from 9 August continue to deliver an effective public health intervention whilst balancing the risk of health harms across the population with the harms caused by prolonged self-isolation of children and young people.
- Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 09 September 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 22 September 2021
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will confirm the budget stream(s) from which the ten-year £500 million Just
Transition Fund for the North East and Moray will be drawn.
Answer
We will work collaboratively with partners, communities and other stakeholders to take forward the ten-year £500m Just Transition Fund for the North East and Moray. The delivery of the Fund will exemplify our co-design and co-delivery approach that will be supported by a programme of broad engagement in the area. This Fund is a new commitment which will require detailed policy design work and implementation planning. We will provide further information on the process in due course.
The Just Transition Fund will support and accelerate energy transition, create good, green jobs and maximise the region’s future economic potential. We are determined to tackle climate emergency and mitigate the impacts of the transition on communities across Scotland, and we will work at pace to deliver our sectoral plans for a just transition.
- Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Thursday, 09 September 2021
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Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 22 September 2021
To ask the Scottish Government whether the ten-year £500 million Just Transition Fund for the North East and Moray will include funding for current projects and workforce commitments; if so, which ones, and what funding will be available for new projects.
Answer
We will work collaboratively with partners, communities and other stakeholders to take forward the ten-year £500m Just Transition Fund for the North East and Moray. The delivery of the Fund will exemplify our co-design and co-delivery approach that will be supported by a programme of broad engagement in the area. This Fund is a new commitment which will require detailed policy design work and implementation planning. We will provide further information on the process in due course.
The Just Transition Fund will support and accelerate energy transition, create good, green jobs and maximise the region’s future economic potential. We are determined to tackle climate emergency and mitigate the impacts of the transition on communities across Scotland, and we will work at pace to deliver our sectoral plans for a just transition.