Chamber and committees

A public consultation exercise, Building standards (fire safety) - a consultation on external wall systems - Scottish Government - Citizen Space , is currently being undertaken which includes options on the role of BS 8414 (and associated BR 135).

Responses to the consultation will be used to inform the Building Standards (Fire Safety) Review Panel 2020-21 work and final policy that will be prepared in support of any legislative changes. Any legislative changes may have an effect on ‘building standards verifier requirements’. The consultation closes in October 2021.

As an interim measure, the Scottish Government Building Standards Division have requested notification from local authority verifiers under S34 of the Building (Scotland) Act 2003 where BS 8414 / BR 135 and BS 9414 extended field of application assessments have been used to demonstrate compliance with the mandatory building standards. These interim measure decisions to remove reference to BS 8414 and BR 135 were taken and implemented, respectively, as follows:

(a) March 2021

(b) March/ April 2021

Additionally, pending the outcome of the review, advice on avoiding the use of MCM (category 3) was introduced into Section 2 (fire) of the Technical Handbooks in April 2021 .

In the UK warranties for new-build residential homes typically consist of a two-year ‘developer warranty’, followed by a further eight years of structural cover. A warranty on a new build property is a type of insurance policy, meaning that any changes to the existing time periods for which such a warranty would apply falls within the remit of the UK Government as a reserved matter in line with Schedule 5 of the Scotland Act 1998.

The Scottish Government is dismayed by the reported rise in the theft of dogs and would encourage dog owners to report any concerns to Police Scotland, be extremely vigilant, ensure dogs are microchipped, and also report the loss/theft to the microchip database operators to ensure that if anyone attempts to re-register the microchip number, the rightful owner will be informed.

The primary responsibility for the prevention and investigation of theft lies with Police Scotland and the Chief Constable.

The Scottish Government assists Police Scotland by supporting in any legislative requirements they identify as necessary in their efforts to prevent and detect theft. The Microchipping of Dogs (Scotland) Regulations 2016 came into force on 29 January 2016, making it a statutory requirement for all dogs over the age of 8 weeks to be identifiable with an implanted microchip which is registered on a database from which Police and local authority officers can request information on owners.

The need for a review of the merits of a specific offence of pet theft is written into the recently enacted Animals and Wildlife (Penalties, Protections and Powers) (Scotland) Act 2020, to be completed no later than 1 st April 2025. It is the Scottish Government’s intention to review the issue of pet theft in due course as part of the wider review of animal health, welfare and wildlife legislation required by the Act.

The Scottish Government’s expectations of Scottish Enterprise are set out in a framework document which expands on the agency’s responsibilities and statutory functions under the Enterprise and New Towns (Scotland) Act 1990.

Scottish Enterprise has service level agreements in place with partners which require it to respond to customer enquiries within 5 working days, with more than 90% of enquiries in a normal year receiving a response within 2 working days.

Although no specific standards are in place in relation to the provision of advisory and grant support services, Scottish Enterprise monitors this and seeks regular feedback from businesses accessing the services.

Deployment of 5G in Scotland is being commercially led by the four main mobile network operators.

To support that rollout and accelerate adoption and use of 5G, we published a strategy in 2019 (available at 5G: strategy for Scotland - gov.scot ).

This states our commitment to embracing the possibilities of 5G and establishes what steps are needed to ensure Scotland seizes this social and economic opportunity.

As a core part of implementation of this strategy, in 2019 we established the Scotland 5G Centre to be a visible national platform supporting the development, deployment and commercialisation of 5G in Scotland.

The Scottish Government welcomes the key messages of the Dasgupta Review, which is highly relevant and demonstrates the central importance of biodiversity and environmental sustainability to economic policy. There are no plans to publish an assessment of the Review.

Our National Strategy for Economic Transformation will be published later this year and will focus on building an economy that will maximise Scotland’s economic, social and environmental wellbeing whilst delivering green economic recovery and green jobs, and building businesses and industries of the future. In 2022 we will publish our new post-2020 biodiversity strategy which will outline wider measures being taken to enhance Scotland’s biodiversity and natural environment.

The findings of the Dasgupta Review will inform the development of our National Strategy for Economic Transformation, to be published later this year, and our new biodiversity strategy, to be published in 2022.

The Dasgupta Review is comprehensive and takes a global perspective, and we are not planning to undertake a Scotland specific review. The Scottish Government is committed to enhancing research into biodiversity, as set out in our ‘Environment, natural resources and agriculture research: strategy 2022 to 2027’. This includes plans to establish a Scottish Centre of Expertise in Biodiversity, which will advise policymakers across central and local government and public bodies, on how best to address biodiversity loss.

We are developing a cross-government framework, the Wellbeing Economy Monitor, to be published later this year. This work is grounded in Scotland’s National Performance Framework, to track progress towards our outcomes beyond GDP. It includes developing the four capitals approach to ensure we take a longer-term view and are able to join up effectively across Government, noting the inter-dependencies across the social, economic, human and natural capitals.

The National Performance Framework also contains a diverse range of measures of success including a new biodiversity indicator.

We also need to take account of the impact of our economy on nature in other countries. Zero Waste Scotland’s material flow accounts ( https://zerowastescotland.org.uk/research-evaluation/material-flow-accounts-mfa ) is an example of this.