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The Scottish Government is committed to dualling the A9 between Perth and Inverness. We have underlined this commitment by commencing procurement of construction the section of the A9 between Tomatin and Moy. The procurement for this £115M section commenced with publication of a contract notice on the Public Contracts Scotland Portal on 19 August 2021, and the contract for construction is expected to be awarded in the second half of 2022.

Design work is progressing well with the statutory process well underway for seven of the remaining eight schemes. Made orders for two adjoining schemes, Glen Garry to Dalwhinnie and Dalwhinnie to Crubenmore were published on 30 July 2021. An additional two schemes, Tay Crossing to Ballinluig and Pitlochry to Killiecrankie, are due to be published in the coming weeks. The only section not to have started the statutory process is between Pass of Birnam and Tay Crossing, which was the subject of a co-creative process with the local community. Work is currently underway to identify the preferred route for this section.

A market consultation exercise commenced earlier this year to inform assessment of procurement options for remaining sections when the statutory processes are complete. Determination of the optimal procurement option is a complex exercise which is considering a pipeline of work in a form that can be delivered by the industry, supports the economic recovery post COVID and minimises disruption to users if this lifeline route.

It is expected this analysis will be completed in the coming weeks and will inform decision making on our procurement approach and phasing.

The contract notice for the third section of the A9 to be dualled, Tomatin to Moy, was published on the Public Contracts Scotland portal on 19 August 2021. We anticipate the contract for this section to be awarded in the second half of 2022 with construction work starting thereafter.

It is also expected that the procurement process for the A737 Improvements at Beith project will commence later in 2021-22.

As set out in the Scottish Government’s Climate Change Plan update published in December 2020, a route-map will be produced by the end of 2021, assuming the pandemic has moved to a phase to allow this.

The combined sewer network is designed to spill during heavy rainfall to protect homes from flooding. The reported 40% increase in sewage spills in the last five years is primarily due to increases in total annual rainfall and rainfall intensity which are related to climate change. The Scottish Government is committed to reducing sewage spills into rivers and seas across Scotland.

We have introduced legislation through the Urban Waste Water Treatment (Scotland) Regulations 1994 and the Water Environment (Controlled Activities) (Scotland) Regulations 2011 to minimise the impact of sewage discharges on the water environment.

We are working closely with Scottish Water and SEPA to prioritise investment to reduce sewage spill frequency and impact on the water environment. As part of a long-term strategy, Scottish Water is aiming to transform its waste water services to meet the challenges presented by the impacts of climate change and population growth.

In line with our economic strategy, our aim for the Scottish tourism sector is to enable sustainable and inclusive growth. Whilst there has been no recent research into the effects of windfarm development on tourism in Scotland, VisitScotland research does however indicate that visitors are seeking to be more responsible, both in terms of their personal and environmental impact. VisitScotland's Trends 2020 Paper identified that travellers are now seeking to consciously off-set the carbon impact of their travel. The use of sustainable energy by local businesses may therefore appeal to this type of traveller and promote Scotland as an environmentally friendly and climate conscious country to visit.

The issue of the legal protection of crofts from local authority care charges was the subject of a petition for consideration by the Public Petitions Committee. In response to this petition the Scottish Government has stated that consideration on how best to apply the regulations lies with local authorities.

The National Assistance (Assessment of Resources) Regulations 1992 and associated Charging for Residential Accommodation Guidance (CRAG), provide the framework for local authorities to charge for the residential care that they provide or arrange. It is for local authorities to interpret the Regulations in applying their policies.

There were two specific reasons for the £4.1 million reduction. The 2021-22 budget maintained all existing funding commitments. The Other Arts budget continues to maintain support for important ongoing commitments such as Scottish Screen, the Youth Music Initiative, and our major Festivals.

The first reason was that no provision was made for loans under the Financial Transactions (FT) mechanism as there was no requirement for FTs to be administered by Creative Scotland in 2021-22. This has resulted in a £1.09m decrease.

The second change was in relation to the ‘Other Arts’ line where revenue funding fell by £3.17m year on year. The decrease of £3.1 million was due to a technical change agreed with Creative Scotland, whereby Scottish Government moved £3.1 million of grant funding for Regularly Funded Organisations into 2020-21 from 2021-22. This enabled Creative Scotland to carry over the National Lottery funding in to 2021-22, therefore over the two years Scottish Government is maintaining funding. Creative Scotland confirmed in a statement on 28 January 2021 that they would honour their Regularly Funded Organisations commitment to 2021-22.

As we have done in previous years, the Scottish Government flew the Red Ensign from its main buildings on 3 September as a sign of respect and recognition of the sacrifices made by our Merchant Navy Seafarers. In addition, we issued social media via the Scottish Government’s Veterans account to raise awareness of the key role played by the men and women of the Merchant Navy both today and throughout its illustrious history.

As part of the development of the refreshed National Litter and Flytipping Strategy, we will commission research on the scale and cost of litter and flytipping in Scotland shortly. This research will provide an update on the cost of litter and flytipping to public bodies and will be published before the final National Litter and Flytipping Strategy is published.

The first six-monthly update report on the progress of the pipeline of projects and programmes within the new five-year Infrastructure Investment Plan will be provided to Parliament in autumn 2021. The first full annual progress report of the Plan will be provided to Parliament in spring 2022.