Seòmar agus comataidhean

In light of the change to the scale and scope of the project and because there is now only one landowner involved, Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) will now conduct a further round of public engagements in 2023.

FLS will work together with Trees for Life to engage with the community with a view to this exercise evidencing the community and stakeholder support that gives FLS the assurance to then submit a licence application for a Spring 2024 release.

The Scottish Government welcomes the hard work of the National Tartan Day New York Committee in organising Tartan Week each year. They come together to honour their heritage and celebrate the impact of Scots in the US. Our office in Washington DC works closely with members of the Brand Scotland partnership, including Scottish Development International and Visit Scotland, to create a programme of engagement that harnesses the increased focus on Scotland during this time.

I am pleased to see Tartan Day also celebrated in Canada (where it originated) and the celebration of Scotland in other parts of the world throughout the year, including various Highland Games, Burns Suppers, Tartan Balls and Festivals. Our Scottish Connections Framework outlines our approach to supporting diaspora engagement with Scotland and people in other countries.

We are fully committed to delivering the ban on landfilling biodegradable municipal waste on 31 December 2025. As part of preparations for the ban, we are continuing to support and work with those local authorities without a solution for their residual waste when the ban comes into force, to ensure they can comply with the ban.

I met with Argyll and Bute Council on 26 July 2023 to discuss possible options to overcome challenges in complying with the forthcoming ban on landfilling biodegradable municipal waste associated with their public private partnership contract for waste services.

Discussions between Scottish Government, SEPA, and Argyll and Bute Council are ongoing and we will continue to work with the council in relation to these challenges.

The greenhouse gas impacts of all forest operations, including the effects of ground disturbance, are accounted for in the modelling used for the GHG Inventory, both for the UK and for Scotland. The Inventory is published annually although impacts of specific operations such as clear felling are not reported separately. Recent work by Forest Research shows that the production cycle associated with timber adds significantly to the net greenhouse gas benefits of woodlands.

The Scottish Government is committed to transitioning to a zero waste and circular economy and is taking steps to do so within the legislative options available. The Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill and extended producer responsibility for packaging are distinct reforms which together will contribute to support that transition. The Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill will establish a further legislative framework to support that transition, and will significantly increase reuse and recycling rates, and modernise and improve waste and recycling services.

Using existing powers under the Environment Act 2021, we are taking a four-nations approach to implement the extended producer responsibility scheme for packaging, ensuring that producers are responsible for the full net disposal costs of their household packaging and incentivising more environmentally-friendly product design. The impacts of these packaging reforms will be taken into account and inform a co-design process with households and operators for future household waste recycling and reuse service standards, and a future statutory code of practice made using powers in the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill. This will modernise recycling in Scotland, putting people at the heart of how services are designed and delivered, and support local authorities to meet future local statutory targets from 2030.

There are currently 10 commercial datacentres in Scotland that offer a wide range of data hosting services to both public and private sector organisations.

In addition there are datacentres built by private sector companies including banks to service their requirements which are operated discreetly by the company, as well as a significant number of smaller datacentres which will service a particular local authority and wider public sector which are often located within the organisation’s estate. We have not mapped the full extent of datacentres which service specific companies and organisations.

Datacentre development is driven by commercial investment and developers do not routinely share information on sites under development with the Scottish Government. We are, however, in active discussions with datacentre operators interested in developing further datacentre capacity in Scotland.

The Scottish Government remains committed to supporting the restoration of 250,000 hectares of degraded Scottish peatlands by 2030. Earlier this year the First Minister’s policy prospectus ‘New Leadership - A Fresh Start’, reaffirmed this commitment with an interim target -promising to deliver up to 110,000 hectares of restored peatland by 2026.

As well as our commitment of £250 million of funding over ten years, through our Private Investment in Natural Capital programme, we are working to attract increased private investment in peatland restoration as a nature-based solution for climate change and biodiversity loss.

Forestry and Land Scotland submitted an application for a translocation licence to NatureScot on the 3 August 2023 and currently await a formal response.

On 13 September 2023, at the initiation of the Scottish Government, Ministers and senior officials from across the UK met to discuss single use vapes. They discussed the available evidence, recognised shared challenges, and committed to work together on a range of options to tackle the impacts, up to and including a ban.

The Scottish Government has engaged on the issue of single use vapes from an early stage with governments across the UK, and indicated the potential future requirement to raise relevant issues for consideration within the Resources and Waste Common Framework.

Scotland’s Health Board’s operate their own escalation policy for the management of whole system capacity that includes well established processes with locally agreed trigger points. We believe Health Boards are best placed to judge what reasonable measures should be taken to maintain a safe service and ensuring patient safety.

The Winter Plan for 2023-24 seeks to provide a whole system approach to mitigate pressures that will be experienced over the course of winter. We know that this winter will present a sustained period of pressure for Health and Social Care services and we are committed to supporting local systems to ensure that appropriate levels of care are delivered at the right time.

It also reflects and recognises the complex landscape of Health and Social Care and articulates the actions that are being taken now to create capacity within the system and support resilience over the course of winter 2023-24.

The Scottish Government will continue to work with health boards and partners to support preparations for this coming winter.