Chamber and committees

Our enterprise agencies have advised that they have not supported any project to develop or produce a laser guidance system for use in munitions.

Scottish Enterprise are the agency who are party to contractual arrangements with Raytheon for specific grants. I have asked their Chief Executive to respond to you directly.

Teachers in Scotland have a contractual entitlement to career-long professional learning. As their employer, local authorities play an important role in providing and facilitating access to professional learning. The Scottish Government provides Local Authorities with a block grant to deliver education which reflects this responsibility. The costs of such expenditure over the last 5 years is not held centrally.

In addition, the Scottish Government also funds a range of activity in support of teachers’ professional learning. A table of examples is available from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 60287).

Information on how much has been spent by schools on (a) professional learning and (b) professional learning on additional support for learning is not held centrally.

The tender competitions have always been open to bids from any company that has a licence to supply electricity in the UK; this includes companies that generate electricity from 100% renewable sources. The Scottish Government provides comprehensive support to companies interested in bidding for its contracts, including the Supplier Journey and through funding of the Supplier Development Programme.

All major electricity suppliers can access renewable power at scale, either directly via their own generation or via third parties. The new national electricity contract contains provision for the supply of electricity from 100% renewable sources. As there are additional costs involved compared to baseline contract costs, public bodies can choose whether they wish to avail themselves of this option.

The new national electricity contract makes provision to support public bodies generating their own power including exporting any excess to the National Grid, as well as supporting them to buy directly from renewable sources through Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs).

The outline business case for the public energy company is currently being developed. This will determine the future arrangements that would support the delivery of the Scottish Government’s ambition to work in partnership with local authorities to deliver a public energy company through a white label contract approach. Whilst we are not yet able to specify the precise terms of any white label energy supply contract, given the Scottish Government's strong commitment of renewable energy, as set out in Scotland's Energy Strategy, it is expected that the use of renewable sources will be a key component of any contract specification.

Laser guidance components have a broad range of uses which may include munitions.

This is an operational matter for Scottish Enterprise.

I have passed your query on to Steve Dunlop, the Chief Executive, and asked him to respond to you directly.

The guidance states that due diligence should be carried out on any activity which could lead to an investment relationship or agreement with a third party. This includes activity that happens in Scotland, regardless of where a company's headquarters is located.