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Ministerial engagements, overseas visits and travel are proactively published on the Scottish Government website. This can be found at https://www.gov.scot/publications/?term=travel&publicationTypes=transparency-data&page=1 .

The consultation paper “Investing in and paying for your water services from 2021” outlined the Scottish Government’s broad charging principles for the 2021-27 regulatory period. As previously explained, any significant changes to the current principles, such as amending discounts, would be subject to additional consultation before implementation.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-23063 on 22 May 2019. Property drainage charges are calculated by reference to the rateable value a property, not volume of water. Properties with higher rateable values will also have a higher bill. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

The Scottish Government contacts key stakeholders directly to notify them of consultations and encourages them to assist in raising awareness. Scottish Water does not bill households directly as water and sewerage charges are included within the yearly council tax bill. The Scottish Government is always happy to have input into ways of raising awareness of consultations.

In Scotland, non-domestic water and sewerage charges are made up of 6 elements: a fixed charge for water, a volumetric charge for water, a fixed charge for wastewater, a volumetric charge for wastewater, property drainage and roads drainage. Property and roads drainage charges are calculated based on the rateable value of a property.

The Scottish Government does not hold this data.

At 31 March 2019, Scottish Water’s total debt was £3.754 billion. The total value of repayments are provided in the following table.

This information is provided on page 12 of the Citizens Advice Scotland report “Charting a new course: a study in developing affordability policy for water and sewerage charges”. Most households spending more than 3% of their weekly income on their water and sewerage charges are in in Council Tax bands A (17%) and B (18%). This reflects that there are greater numbers of households within these bands than in any other band in Scotland.

The Commission will provide an updated decision paper during Summer 2019. That decision paper will allow comparisons to be drawn with previous papers.

The Scottish Government is unable to estimate the level of debt Scottish Water will have accumulated by 2036-37. The level of borrowing made available to Scottish Water will depend on future Scottish Government budgets that have yet to be determined.