Chamber and committees

We welcome this decision by the UK Government as a result of the recent judicial review. We will make similar changes to the eligibility criteria for Best Start Foods as soon as it is practicable to do so.

This information is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. Data on missing children can be sought from Police Scotland.

Tim Hair, Turnaround Director of Ferguson Marine, updated the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee on the delivery timetable and budget for vessels 801 and 802 on 24 June 2021. The report is available on the Scottish Parliament website at Update on progress and impact of COVID19 on programme for vessels 801 and 802 | Scottish Parliament Website

The Scottish Government provides a wide range of Covid-19 recovery funding support for town centres in the Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley area.

To support sustained longer term renewal for our towns, villages and cities we have established a Place Based Investment Programme, backed with £325 million capital investment over five years from 2021-22. The allocation for 2021-22 to East Ayrshire Council is £1.31m. The programme will help to link and align place based funding initiatives and progress our ambitions for town centres, community led regeneration and 20 minute neighbourhoods. It builds on the £34 million economic stimulus for regeneration and towns and other funding specifically for town centres, smaller settlements and Business Improvement Districts delivered in 2020-21.

To further support local businesses and promote keeping local spend local we launched the next phase of the Scotland Loves Local (SLL) campaign on 5 July. The £10m SLL Programme includes a new national platform for the SLL loyalty card scheme that will help revitalise town centres and high streets hit by the pandemic.

Since the start of the pandemic, businesses including those in town centres have directly benefitted from £3.6 billion in support. This includes over £13 million, through the Strategic Framework Business Fund and Restart Grant, to businesses in East Ayrshire (as at 25 June 2021) and we continue to work closely with councils to ensure businesses subject to restrictions for a longer period of time remain supported.

Grants of up to £7,500 for retailers and up to £19,500 for hospitality and leisure businesses were paid in April to help businesses, including town centre businesses, re-open. These one-off re-start grants replaced the Strategic Framework Business Fund payments made between November and March and provided more money up front to help with the costs of re-opening. Data on business support funding and other local authority support schemes are available here .

Local authorities were also empowered to support local businesses through the Discretionary Fund, with over £1.7 million awarded to businesses in East Ayrshire from that Fund.

We have extended 100% Non-Domestic Rates relief for all retail, leisure and hospitality premises for all of 2021-22 – this is a more generous package than the equivalent rates reliefs available in other UK nations. This relief benefited over 500 businesses in East Ayrshire saving them over £11 million in 2020-21, according to the latest data available.

We are delighted with the progress on the reopening of the DigitalBoost Fund and will meet the 100 days deadline that we have set. This will be a national fund supporting businesses to increase their digital capacity and capabilities and we would encourage businesses in the Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley area to apply once it reopens. We will work with our enterprise support partner, Business Gateway, and delivery partners, LESL (Lancashire Enterprise Services Limited), to successfully administer and deliver this fund.

The Scottish Social Housing Tender Price Index measures the movement in the prices paid by clients to contractors for the construction of affordable housing in Scotland. The index is based on analysing the costs in accepted tenders or agreed prices for housing projects. Price increases will be reflected in the tendered costs of developments and will therefore be accounted for in the Index.

The Affordable Housing Supply Programme housing subsidy is flexible and is able to respond to the challenges reported recently by the Federation of Master Builders. In this respect, the amount of grant funding that individual projects require continues to be a decision for Registered Social Landlords and local authorities which – as part of the application process – are required to self-certify that the grant that they are requesting is the minimum necessary to allow a project to proceed once homes are designed and tender prices have been received. The amount of grant requested is then compared with the applicable Affordable Housing Investment Benchmark to determine how the funding application will be assessed. Projects that can be delivered with grant funding at or below the relevant benchmark follow a streamlined application and approval process, with projects which are seeking grant funding in excess of the relevant benchmark following a more detailed value for money assessment.

The delivery of 801 is planned for the range July 2022 to September 2022 and for 802 delivery is planned for the range April 2023 to July 2023. Following completion of the vessels and successful delivery, CalMac as the operator will require to undertake extensive sea trials and crew and operational service familiarisation before the vessels enter service.

Legislation was laid on 27 May 2021 to extend the temporary exceptions of the Unsuitable Accommodation Order for a further three months until 30 September 2021. Local authorities have been advised that they should prepare for the temporary exceptions to expire on that date.

Our priority is to keep people safe so we extended these measures while the path of the pandemic remains uncertain, and we will keep the situation under review.

We are doing all we can to ensure that people experiencing homelessness are not housed in unsuitable accommodation for any longer than is necessary. However, it is crucial that we help local authorities to keep people safe during the pandemic.

Our ambition is for all households to have a decent temporary home and to move into settled accommodation as quickly as possible. We will continue to work with councils to help them overcome any barriers as we shift to a new way of dealing with homelessness.

The HMICS Assurance review of Police Scotland demand analysis and management offers a positive outlook on Police Scotland’s efforts to develop its understanding of demand put on its resources. Its recommendations are for the Scottish Police Authority and Police Scotland to consider.

The HMICS Assurance Review - Policing of COP26, published on 26 June 2021, provides a high level of confidence in the preparation and planning to date for COP26 and I have no doubt this work will continue at pace. The single recommendation in that report and the areas for continued development are for Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority to consider and where appropriate, act upon.