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Developing a National Flood Advisory Service to improve Scotland’s flood resilience and embed best practice on a nationwide scale is one of the actions in Scotland’s first National Flood Resilience Strategy. The Service will provide support and advice on building flood resilience to delivery partners and communities and provide the governance framework for progressing high value flood actions such as flood protection schemes.

The implementation plan for the Strategy will focus on the six priority action areas, starting with the establishment of the Flood Advisory Service. That plan will be developed with partners over the coming months.

In addition to existing Scottish Government funding commitments to support Local Authorities with flood resilience, £15 million has been provided in the draft 2025-2026 Scottish Budget to support the delivery of the Strategy’s actions, wider flooding resilience and coastal adaptation work.

The National Flood Resilience Strategy does not make reference to ‘pilot programmes’.

When opening an international office, we consider a range of options to best represent Scotland’s interests while ensuring we are delivering value for money.

Working with the UK Government as part of the FCDO platform currently provides the preferred overall solution for our requirements and seven of our eight overseas offices are based within a British Embassy or High Commission.

The Strategy will be delivered via an implementation plan that will focus on the six priority action areas, including a range of core deliverables and outcomes, starting with the establishment of the Flood Advisory Service. That implementation plan will be developed with partners over the coming months.

Electrification work is delivered by Network Rail, which works with ScotRail and other train operators to take various steps in order to reduce disruption to passengers. The optimal approach to reduce disruption varies from scheme to scheme and, wherever possible work is conducted when no trains are planned to run.

Rail services make a significant positive contribution to Scotland’s economy and communities. The provision of rail services is also a requirement under railways legislation.

Transport Scotland is working closely with Scottish Rail Holdings, who is responsible for overseeing ScotRail, to ensure that ScotRail services are delivered efficiently. This includes discussions on the regular monitoring of trends in ScotRail financial performance and delivery.

I refer the member to the answer to the question S6W-32572 on 9 January 2025. 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

Decarbonisation of Scotland’s Railway is undertaken on a phased basis. The line to Barrhead was decarbonised in December 2023. The line to East Kilbride is next, completing in December 2025. Other lines will follow.

The Scottish Government fleet is made up of 187 vehicles, all vehicles are outright purchased and we don’t currently lease any vehicles.

The total cost of operating the fleet from 1 April 2024 to 31 December 2024 was £334,706.

Rail is already a very low carbon form of transport for passengers and freight, accounting for in the region of 1.2% of all transport emissions in Scotland.

Therefore the principal contribution of rail to decarbonisation is secured through modal shift to rail from less sustainable transport modes.