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The Scottish Government monitors statistics collected by UK Finance on the number of buy-to-let mortgages in arrears across the UK. The latest trends are reported by the Scottish Government in the Scottish Housing Market Review, which is published each quarter as a resource for housing market stakeholders, including local authorities.

The Scottish Government is providing all local authorities with an annual share of £30.5 million in 2023-24 for homelessness prevention and response measures. We recognise that support to tenants being evicted is important and PRS landlords are under a duty to inform the local authority if their tenant is being evicted and at risk of homelessness. Anyone experiencing homelessness should contact their local authority as they have a legal duty to offer a minimum of temporary accommodation, advice and assistance to anyone at risk of homelessness. Organisations such as Shelter Scotland and Citizens Advice Scotland are also able to provide advice and guidance.

There are significant limits on any action that the Scottish Government can take in this area. Regulation of consumer protection is reserved to the UK Government, with responsibility for consumer enforcement, which is a pillar of consumer protection, split between trading standards officers and Trading Standards Scotland.

Trading Standards Scotland is funded directly by the UK Government with funding for trading standards officers delivered through Barnett formula consequentials. It is for local authorities to assess their individual local circumstances to inform their decisions on how they best support their trading standards departments.

Whether or not to grant a warrant for entry is a judicial decision.

Legislation places a duty on all government ministers; law officers; and members of the parliaments to uphold judicial independence, barring them from trying to exert influence over judicial decisions.

For the purpose of upholding that independence, there is a duty on the First Minister, the Lord Advocate and the Scottish Ministers not to seek to influence judicial decisions through any special access to the judiciary. "Special access" refers to any access which they may have which a member of the general public may not.

Additionally, if judicial training is considered necessary then this is entirely a matter for the Lord President as Head of the Judiciary.

For these reasons it would not be appropriate to meet with the Scottish Courts and Tribunals service to discuss the increase or otherwise of the number of warrants granted.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-14081 on 30 January 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

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-14081 on 30 January 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

Our draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan set out a series of actions, including the development of a refreshed Climate Emergency Skills Action Plan by the end of 2023.

Alongside this, as part of the ScotWind leasing round, developers were required to complete a Supply Chain Development Statement (SCDS). The SCDS outlines the supply chain activity that each project is committing to undertake within Scotland, the UK and overseas. These commitments amount to billions of pounds of investment in the Scottish supply chain and economy, with initial projections showing an average spend of £1.4bn across each of the 20 ScotWind projects.

Our Enterprise Agencies, including Scottish Development International, are engaged with a number of leading businesses that have the products, technology, skills and know-how to support robust supply chain development. We are encouraging developers to work with our Agencies and partners to identify how best to support and anticipate business needs as well as operational challenges to delivery of these projects.

We are already starting to see examples of companies establishing Operations and Maintenance (O&M) bases for their offshore wind farms in Scotland. In addition to the vast potential opened up by ScotWind, the Neart na Gaoithe O&M base was officially opened by the Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero, Energy and Transport on 25 January. This base will bring up to 50 high quality jobs to the Eyemouth area for the 25-year lifespan of the wind farm. The base is also large enough to handle potential staff expansion in summer months when the weather is calmer and maintenance can be increased.

The Digital Inclusion Fund was initiated in 2020 to enable students who, owing to low incomes, struggled to access online learning during the pandemic.

To date the fund has supported almost 11,000 learners across colleges, universities and within community learning settings. We expect this number to increase on receipt of final reporting on the £5 million investment for 2022-23; which is expected by the end of this academic year.

The care provided by Scotland’s independent secure providers is highly-regarded. We need to consider how the secure care system operates overall in the coming years, taking in to consideration the asks from the Independent Care Review’s Promise and the incorporation of UNCRC, before embarking on any redesign work.

In the short term, the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill will give effect to the necessary legislative changes to displace all under 18s from custody. Contractual and other non-statutory interventions to guarantee secure capacity and to minimise providers’ reliance on placements from elsewhere in the UK are already in train.

Over the coming years, preparing to keep the Promise by 2030 will likely entail a transformational change to the current secure provision for children in Scotland. A secure estate configured to meet Scotland’s future demands means we will need to undertake significant redesign activity with providers and purchasers. Resource shifts, system and practice change will also be required.

Alongside that, a national service specification for secure transport is being developed by the joint Scottish Government and COSLA led Secure Care Group. This specification aims to bring consistency to the expectations and requirements, wherever secure transport requires to be commissioned.

The tables required to present the information requested are available from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 63980).

ScotRail has provided the below data for its closed customer complaints since 1 April 2022, by four-weekly rail period, with the prior year (2021-22) and final pre-pandemic year (2019-20) included for comparison: