Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Farming and Food Production – Future Policy Group (FFP-FPG) last met on 23 September and agreed that they need to meet further in order to finalise their Report. As an independent Group, it will be for the Group to determine when it is ready to publish its Report, however we do expect that the Report will be published this year.

Guidance on organised children’s activities has been updated on 5 October to increase the number of adults allowed to attend parent and baby groups.

When all children in a group are less than 12 months old, and other health and safety criteria are met, groups will now allow up to ten adults to be present at one time. Where children are over 12 months, the maximum number of adults allowed will remain five.

Babies do not count for total numbers or households taking part. Siblings under 5 can also attend, where unavoidable, and do not also count towards household numbers.

Controlling the pandemic has necessitated difficult decisions to save lives, including the single household rule. Our total support package now exceeds £2.3 billion, more than £40.5m of which has gone to tourism and hospitality; and almost £900 million of non-domestic rates relief for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses. Self-catering businesses have benefitted from targeted funds, including Business Grants, the Tourism Hardship fund and most recently, the Visit Scotland administered £1.5 million Coronavirus Support scheme. We know more support will be needed into the future however the Scottish Government’s resources are limited – we do not have the borrowing powers required to fully support industries affected by the impact of Covid. Along with other Devolved Administrations we have consistently pressed the UK Government for increased powers to enable us to tailor our response and we will continue to make that case.

We will also continue to press the UK Government to continue the Job Retention Scheme which has been a vital means of support so far – removing it now when businesses need it most would be catastrophic, and so far proposed replacements schemes fall short of what is required.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-31918 on 30 September 2020. 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

COVID-19 has exacerbated and heightened existing tensions around short-term lets in certain areas. At the heart of our licensing scheme is a set of mandatory standards which will help to protect the safety of guests and neighbours in short-term lets across Scotland. Therefore, it is right that we are taking action in this session to move forward with these safety standards and address what is a pressing issue for some local communities.

Subject to the approval of the Scottish Parliament, the licensing scheme and control area regulations will be in force by April 2021. However, local authorities will have until April 2022 to establish a licensing scheme in their area and open it to receive applications. We are not placing additional requirements on hosts in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. In due course, hosts will need to make an application for a licence to their local authority. However, existing hosts will be able to continue operating whilst their licence application is processed.

The Scottish Government has been supporting the tourism and hospitality sector through the pandemic in every way possible, given the limits of devolved power. We are planning for a recovery of the tourism sector. Regulation of short-term lets is part of ensuring a responsible and sustainable approach to tourism, which better balances the benefits of tourism with wider community needs and concerns. This regulation is important irrespective of COVID-19, which is why the detailed proposals make no reference to it. We have been engaging with a wide range of tourism and other stakeholders on our detailed proposals so that we can ensure they are robust but proportionate and fair.

We are undertaking a Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA) which will be laid at the Scottish Parliament with the statutory instruments for the short-term lets licensing scheme and planning control areas.

We will not be piloting these proposals. We want to make progress in this Parliament to address a pressing issue for some of our communities and, to do this, we are aiming to lay secondary legislation in December. However, we will be encouraging and facilitating local authorities to learn from each other’s experiences in establishing control areas and operating a licensing scheme.

We will monitor and evaluate the impact of our proposals to ensure that they are effective and targeted. We are willing to bring a Bill to Parliament in the next session if we continue to see issues, but to do so now would result in unnecessary delay.

The Scottish Government has been working on proposals for the regulation of short-term lets since 2018. We first consulted in summer 2019 for twelve weeks, and published the results of both that consultation exercise and the independent research we commissioned in October 2019. We announced our proposals for a licensing scheme, planning control areas and a review of taxation in January 2020. Unfortunately, work on implementing these proposals had to be suspended from March to July 2020 to deal with the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic. We had originally planned for a longer period of engagement on our proposals in autumn 2020 but the timetable has had to be compressed in order to ensure that the secondary legislation could still be laid at the Scottish Parliament in this session.

We have set out detailed proposals for secondary legislation in this second consultation paper and, despite the restrictions imposed by COVID-19, officials are managing to hold effective virtual workshops with stakeholders representing all interests. These workshops are flushing out useful points for consideration and we had already received over 500 consultation responses on-line by close Monday 12 October.

We have to balance the need to have as fulsome consideration of the proposals as possible against the need to make progress, all in the context of a pandemic. On balance, we are not convinced that extra time is merited to consider the proposals further. We want to use the powers that we have to make progress in this Parliament to address this issue.

Responsibility for delivering the Seasonal Flu Vaccine in 2020-21 rests with Health Boards and Integration Authorities with support from GP practices. The administration of vaccinations provided in General Practices will depend on each Health Board’s individual delivery model. Boards will use the delivery model which is most suitable for their local circumstances, whilst maintaining a Covid-safe environment.

The Scottish Government is working closely with Health Boards and other delivery partners to achieve the aim that everyone eligible for a free flu vaccination will receive an appointment invitation for the programme, which commenced on 1 October.