Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is keen to encourage wide-ranging and inclusive dialogue on this subject, particularly concerning how to best manage and present elements of our contested or hidden heritage. While local authorities are responsible for public statues, reflecting their accountability to local residents, the Scottish Government will continue to champion a fresh consideration of how we understand and present Scotland’s history to ensure the full story is told. We are aware of City of Edinburgh Council's ongoing review and would encourage all local authorities to consider similar action.

The Scottish Government recognises Scotland’s part in historic injustices like the transatlantic slave trade and Empire and is determined to acknowledge and learn from the our past. Recent activity includes our partnership with Museums Galleries Scotland alongside race equality and museum sector stakeholders to identify ways to reinterpret aspects of Scotland’s hidden or contested heritage to present a more accurate, complete picture of the past. This includes a commitment to establish a museum to address Scotland’s historical links to the slave trade, alongside celebrating the many and varied positive contributions that minority ethnic communities have made and continue to make to Scotland.

The Scottish Government has committed to promote and support the teaching of Black and Minority Ethnic history and the importance of tackling racism in society today. As part of a programme of work on Race Equality and Anti-Racism in Education, the teaching of Scotland’s colonial history in schools - and how it, and anti-racism education, can be better delivered as part of the curriculum - is a core focus. We are working with the race equality sector, education practitioners and young people to consider how best to address this commitment.

In addition, during the last year, we reviewed our approach to international development and announced the outcomes in March this year. Our new Principles – co-developed with input from civil society and academics in our partner countries and Scotland – will lie at the heart of how Scotland seeks to set an example in addressing the issue of systematic racism and inequality in international development. As part of this, discussions have focussed on how to support a shift in power to partner countries, towards increased localisation of development.

The Scottish Government is continuing to work with Creative Scotland to ensure that further rounds of the Culture Organisations and Venues Recovery Fund and the Performing Arts Venues Relief Fund can launch as soon as possible and that awards are made swiftly. The schemes launched on 10 June, with the first payments being made in early July. The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Economy announced on 2 June that the budget for these funds will be £25 million.

No decisions have yet been made on the allocation of the remainder of the expected £40 million culture consequentials, because this funding has not yet been confirmed fully by the UK Government. However, the Scottish Government is continuing to engage with businesses within the Creative Industries and wider cultural sector, meeting regularly with stakeholders from all parts of the culture sector, to understand their challenges with a view to ensuring that further funding is as effective as possible.

The creative industries, culture and arts sectors have been among some of the hardest hit by the pandemic and will continue to face difficult issues as restrictions ease. The Scottish Government has provided more than £140 million of additional funding for culture and heritage since the start of the pandemic and we are absolutely committed to working with the sector to ensure we deliver a cultural recovery.

It is not possible to retrieve all carcasses in suspected predation incidents as sea eagles generally take prey back to their nests.

Between 2015 and 2019, 12 lamb carcasses were sent by NatureScot for post-mortem analysis by Scotland’s Rural College vets in Inverness, of those 6 were found to likely have been predated by either sea or golden eagles. Further details of the analysis can be found on NatureScot’s website at WTE Action Plan Review .

In recent years NatureScot has moved away from a policy of verifying individual predation incidents as it is accepted, as a result of a range of evidence from different sources, that sea eagles can predate lambs and attack adult sheep.

One of the new measures included in the revised SEMS is enhanced shepherding which aims to provide more detailed information on WTE interactions with sheep flocks to be recorded and reported back to NatureScot from the shepherded areas, as well as providing a scaring element through the additional presence of shepherds on areas of the hill. NatureScot published its Summary Report on Enhanced Shepherding in 2020: Sea Eagle Management Scheme - Summary Report on Enhanced Shepherding 2020 | NatureScot .

Scottish Government funding for the OGTC as part of the Aberdeen City Region Deal was set out in 2016 in tripartite agreement with regional partners and UK Government. There are no plans to review the terms of the Deal within the current Parliamentary session.

The stated purpose of the OGTC is to support the oil and gas industry to develop and deploy technology to accelerate the transition to an affordable net zero North Sea.

The Oil and Gas industry is a significant component of Scotland’s economy and remains an important player in ensuring energy security for Scotland and the UK . It can contribute to a sustainable, secure and just and inclusive energy transition, ensuring that a green recovery and a just transition is created that supports good green jobs, skills and expertise and critically leaves no-one behind.

Amending Regulations were made to the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Restrictions and Requirements) (Local Levels) (Scotland) Regulations 2020 today.

These Regulations amend the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (Restrictions and Requirements) (Local Levels) (Scotland) Regulations 2020 to provide a person designated by a Local Authority with a power of entry to enforce restrictions relating to stadia and events. .

The Regulations also reduce the required distances to be maintained between persons in Hampden Park, Glasgow and the Glasgow Green Event Zone during the UEFA EURO 2020 Championship period.

The Regulations have been published at https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ssi/2021/238/contents/made

The coronavirus outbreak remains a real and sustained threat to human life in Scotland as well as to social and economic well-being. The Scottish Government has always relied on a range of indicators and criteria, combined with clinical advice and local intelligence about the state of epidemic, to construct a full, reliable, and robust picture of the threat posed by COVID-19 across the four harms.

On 14 May, we published Coronavirus (COVID-19) protective measures: indicators and data which sets out the indicators to assess the threat of Covid-19, and inform when and how we introduce, adapt, or ease protective measures. This includes core indicators, measuring both community transmission and healthcare capacity at a local level, and secondary indicators which provide critical information on viral concentration, prevalence and incidence of COVID-19 cases, testing (including access), vaccination, mortality, and hospitalisations at any given local level.

The scale and extent of our successful vaccination programme is enabling us to consider how we can respond to the virus moving forward. We are growing increasingly confident that vaccination is helping break the link between case numbers and hospitalisation and death. However, currently the evidence base remains insufficient, especially in light of the Delta variant, which we are currently attempting to better understand. That is why it is still important to keep cases as low as possible, to reduce the chances of transmission and new variants developing.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-00411 on 10 June 2021. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at: Written questions and answers | Scottish Parliament Website .

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-00411 on 10 June 2021. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at: Written questions and answers | Scottish Parliament Website .

On 26 May the First Minister confirmed that the Scottish Government will increase the school clothing grant. We are fully committed to providing all the necessary funding required to deliver this commitment and are now working with our local authority partners to introduce the new national minimum school clothing grant levels for primary and secondary children and to agree the levels of funding required.

The national minimum school clothing grant has been an essential measure of support for thousands of low income families across Scotland since its introduction in the summer of 2018. As we enter into the new Parliamentary session, the Scottish Government will continue to support schools in their efforts to ensure the same opportunities are afforded to all children and young people regardless of their background.