Seòmar agus comataidhean

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-15841 on 24 March 2023. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

The partnership will seek to deliver direct community benefit as a result of the investment, in line with the expectations of the Scottish Government’s Interim Principles for Responsible Investment in Natural Capital. This will include full consideration of community wealth building opportunities and exploring potential ways the investment could support more diverse land ownership, drawing on current and emerging advice from the Scottish Land Commission. No assessment has been completed at this stage as the project partners are in ongoing dialogue about how the investment model will work. However, assessments will be published after completion of the project design phase.

The Scottish Government has increased public investment and support in our natural capital through a variety of methods. This includes the £65 million Nature Restoration Fund, and the Facility for Investment Ready Nature in Scotland (FIRNS) that was launched in February this year. However, the Global Biodiversity Framework that was agreed at COP15 last year identified leveraging responsible private finance as a key target, and in Scotland alone it is estimated that there is a finance gap of £20 billion to meet nature-related outcomes.

For the purposes of this agreement, NatureScot entered into discussions with Hampden & Co., Lombard Odier Investment Managers and Palladium and mutually agreed that a Memorandum of Understanding would best define the ways of working and respective roles of parties, as is commonplace.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) does not confer any guarantees or preferred status to the partners and allows NatureScot to work and enter agreements with other parties, both in the locations identified in the MOU and across Scotland. MOU signatories will not have exclusive access to land managers and external parties will still be able to submit applications for public funds and grants. The usual processes and policies for public grants will apply.

This is a partnership project and not a procurement project. It is not exclusive to the partners involved and NatureScot would be delighted to work with other responsible private investors looking to invest in nature restoration in Scotland.

Private investment resulting from the Memorandum of Understanding will support woodland expansion, peatland restoration and enhancement of other habitats. It will pay for all capital costs, though we anticipate that land managers involved will also apply to existing grant schemes such as the Forestry Grant Scheme.

The Care Inspectorate are members of the working group which is exploring how to address issues facing local authorities in relation to secure transport.

The service specification for secure transport is still in development. Multi-agency discussions are ongoing about how that will be used in local authority commissioning arrangements.

We will consider the implications of changing the legislative and regulatory framework to make it possible to bring scrutiny of secure transport arrangements within the remit of the Care Inspectorate.

The NHS Capital Investment Group discussed the Outline Business Case at their meeting on 22 February 2023. The Group discussed a wide range of issues with representatives from NHS Lanarkshire including the service model, the economic appraisal, capital costs, revenue affordability and the workforce model.

Scottish Government officials are currently identifying representatives according to the draft terms of reference and will proactively publish the agreed membership in due course. There may also be opportunity to extend the participants list further as the meetings progress if required.

Where there is a product recall, we would expect current procedures to apply with the product being recovered intact to the producer who would manage the destruction as production waste or recycling.

Deposits and product costs would be reimbursed by the producer to the retailer and the producer will adjust their 'placed on market' report to Circularity Scotland Limited (CSL) by reporting the volume of product they have ‘placed on market’ via a self service portal. This allows CSL to calculate deposits and producer fees resulting in a refund of deposits and producer fees to the producer.