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Fair work means secure employment with fair pay and conditions, where workers are heard and represented, treated with respect and have opportunities to progress.

Our vision, shared with the Fair Work Convention, is for Scotland to be a leading Fair Work Nation by 2025, where fair work drives success, wellbeing and prosperity for individuals, businesses, organisations and society. We deeply value the ongoing collaboration with USDAW and their stakeholders, and we view our continued engagement through the Retail Industrial Leadership Group and Fair Work Working Group as essential in ensuring we reach our ambition for fair work.

While employment law remains reserved to the UK Government, we will use our Fair Work policy to promote fairer work practices across the labour market in Scotland.

The Minister previously stated that the Retail Strategy, specifically the action on fair work, was the route by which the Scottish Government wished to promote fair work practices across the whole retail sector. An approach to fair work is a priority action for the Retail Industry Leadership Group and this will pursue better conditions for all retail workers.

Therefore, New Year's Day trading can be discussed in relation to the approach on fair work if raised by members, and we welcome the continuing, constructive collaboration of the trade unions and other stakeholders in developing a fair work strategy through the Retail Industry Leadership Group and Fair Work Working Group to best realise our mutual ambition to deliver fair and rewarding jobs for retail workers.

South Lanarkshire Council was last directly contacted on 25 October, in regards to their road assessment for 20 mph speed limits. In addition a representative from South Lanarkshire Council was present at the 20 mph task group meeting, held on 2 November. They were updated by email on 11 December on the most effective route to implement national 20 mph speed limits by 2025.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all children across Scotland can access high quality play opportunities in a range of settings to support their growth, development and wellbeing.

We will build on Scotland’s world-leading 2013 Play Strategy, and the 2019 Play Scotland progress report, to develop a vision statement and action plan for play in 2024. We will do this by listening to the views of children and young people and working in collaboration with our stakeholders.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-23760 on 9 January 2024. 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 .

Scottish Government provided £8m in 2021-22 and £12m in 2022-23 and 2023-24 to local authorities in order to support the policy to remove all charges for instrumental music tuition in schools.

As confirmed in the budget published in December 2023, the Scottish Government and COSLA have agreed funding of £12 million for instrumental music tuition in 2024-25, continuing to remove barriers to participation.

Scotland is committed to a just transition to net-zero and decarbonisation of industry is ‘mission critical’. Scottish Government is continuing to deliver the Scottish Industrial Energy Transformation Fund, which leverages private sector investment from energy intensive industries to deliver energy efficiency improvements to decarbonise industrial processes.

Scottish Government is also strengthening engagement with research networks and energy intensive industries to build evidence-based policy to support industrial decarbonisation. Scottish Government continues to liaise with UK Government on the many reserved policy, fiscal or regulatory levers that influence current incentives for industry to invest in decarbonisation.

The Scottish Government will draw on a range of experiences in the development of refreshed Guidance on Developing Policies to Promote the Safe and Responsible Use of Mobile Technology in Schools. This will include the experiences of schools like Gordonstoun, and others, who have introduced limitations on the use of mobile phones in schools.

The current guidance which is available from Guidance on Developing Policies to Promote the Safe and Responsible Use of Mobile Technology in Schools (www.gov.scot) remains in place at this time.

The We Make Music schools initiative is led by the Music Education Partnership Group, which is an independent charity and network of music-based organisations.

Information on the We Make Music school initiative and progress with the programme is available via the MEPG website at: https://wemakemusicscotland.org/ or by contacting the Music Education Partnership Group at the following email address which is also available via their website: mae.murray@mepgscotland.org

The Music Education Partnership Group had a joint meeting with myself and the Minister for Culture, Europe And International Development on 29 June 2023.

This was an introductory meeting and covered school and community music in Scotland, the various MEPG initiatives including the “We Make Music” initiatives, recent MEPG engagement with research on music learning and an update on a MEPG paper on the Vision for Scotland’s music industry.

Scottish Government officials liaise with MEPG and a range of music education partners on an ongoing basis.