- Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 31 July 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Mairi McAllan on 15 August 2023
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will commit to ensuring that all storm overflows are monitored and reported on by 2026.
Answer
Comprehensive and rigorous monitoring of Scotland’s water environment is already undertaken by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA). This monitoring shows that 66% of Scotland’s water environment as a whole is assessed as having ‘good’ status and that 87% of Scotland’s entire water environment is assessed by SEPA as having a ‘high’ or ‘good’ classification for water quality.
In its improving urban waters routemap, Scottish Water committed to installing 1,000 new CSO monitors by the end of 2024.
- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 July 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Mairi McAllan on 15 August 2023
To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the academic environmental research, Delivering net zero in the UK: twelve conditions for success, which was published on 10 July 2023, in particular in relation to any implications for net zero policy in Scotland of the research’s findings that (a) deploying low-regret solutions on a large scale, (b) engaging with communities, (c) taking an interdisciplinary and whole systems approach and (d) upskilling and capacity building in the workforce and government are among the conditions for success.
Answer
The Scottish Government welcomes this research and agrees with the need for Net Zero to be implemented in a manner that achieves maximum benefit for all of society. Through our Just Transition Planning and publication of the next Climate Change Plan we will ensure that we act quickly to achieve our Net Zero ambitions in a manner that assures inequalities are tackled in partnership with Scotland’s local communities.
- Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 31 July 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Gillian Martin on 15 August 2023
To ask the Scottish Government whether it can detail its strategy for peatlands restoration.
Answer
Publicly funded peatland restoration is delivered by Peatland ACTION – a flagship partnership programme established by the Scottish Government with five public sector delivery partners – NatureScot, Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority, Scottish Water, Cairngorms National Park Authority and Forestry and Land Scotland.
We published our National Peatland Plan in 2015 which can be found here: https://www.nature.scot/doc/scotlands-national-peatland-plan-working-our-future In 2020 we announced an investment of £250 million to restore 250,000 hectares of peatlands over a 10 year period to 2030, and reiterated this commitment in the First Minister’s new policy prospectus ( https://www.gov.scot/publications/equality-opportunity-community-new-leadership-fresh-start ), aiming to deliver up to 110,000 hectares of restored peatland by 2026.
In addition to currently providing up to 100% funding for peatland restoration, we are working on a variety of parallel fronts by leveraging activity across the Scottish Government and through Peatland ACTION to increase restoration rates, this includes:
- developing new models for private finance;
- improving our scientific knowledge base to ensure we target restoration where it can be most beneficial;
- encouraging landowners and managers to participate in restoration through our land and agriculture reform programmes as well as exploring opportunities for restoration on public land;
- signposting to the new National Planning Framework ( https://www.gov.scot/publications/national-planning-framework-4/pages/6/ ), which strengthens controls on future extraction and on other types of development on peat;
- our consultation on ending the sale of peat in Scotland (closed 12 May 2023) which will support further policy development;
- addressing the skills shortages through the Peatland Skills, Capacity and Training Group which brings together partners from Peatland ACTION, Skills Development Scotland, LANTRA, Confor, Scotland’s Rural Collage and the James Hutton Institute;
- developing a Technical Compendium (published November 2022) ( https://www.nature.scot/doc/peatland-action-technical-compendium ) which is providing robust and standardised guidance on how to restore peatland and is helping contractors to specify and plan works more efficiently.
- Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 31 July 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Mairi McAllan on 15 August 2023
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on what action it is taking to reduce sewage spills and ensure that storm overflows only operate during heavy rainfall.
Answer
As highlighted in the answer to S6O-02060 on 23 March 2023, the river basin management plans set out our long-term aims for improving our water environment. The plans are supported by Scottish Water’s Improving urban waters route map, which commits up to £500 million of investment to improve wastewater treatment works, address unsatisfactory discharges and increase monitoring. Scottish Water published its first annual report on progress against the route map in December 2022 at https://www.scottishwater.co.uk/help-and-resources/document-hub/key-publications/urban-waters-improvements .
All answers to Oral parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the Offical Report can be found at Meeting of the Parliament: 23/03/2023 | Scottish Parliament Website
- Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 25 July 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Michael Matheson on 15 August 2023
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of reports that the Scottish Primary Care Information Resource is being decommissioned with effect from 31 August 2023, what plans are currently in place to replace this resource and ensure that there continues to be accessible data on Scottish primary care practices.
Answer
As part of wider improvements to General Practice (GP) IT, testing found that Scottish Primary Care Information Resource (SPIRE) could not continue to be fully supported without considerable redevelopment. This means that by the end of August 2023 SPIRE would be unable to provide a representative national data extract from GP systems.
A transition is underway in NHS Scotland from SPIRE to a new data extraction tool. This tool, recently procured by National Services Scotland (NSS), provides similar functionality to SPIRE but has greater national coverage. The tool is trusted and highly valued having successfully been used for vaccination data purposes during the pandemic, and subsequently in obtaining other GP data
Public Health Scotland (PHS) analysts are working closely with NSS to replicate local reports currently used by some practices, using the data provided by the new tool.
- Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Monday, 31 July 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 15 August 2023
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-19595 by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 28 July 2023, whether it will provide a breakdown of the types of cyber attack to which Social Security Scotland has been subjected.
Answer
It is not possible to give specific details of the types of cyber-attack Social Security Scotland has been subjected to. Doing so may provide information on the defences which protect the Agency’s systems. This information could then be leveraged in future attacks.
The vast majority of the cyber events monitored consist of attackers scanning Internet-facing benefit systems to discover potential weaknesses in the defences. Should any be identified, this can lead to further activity from the attacker to leverage this weakness. To date, the security defences have prevented all attacks from succeeding.
- Asked by: Beatrice Wishart, MSP for Shetland Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 July 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Richard Lochhead on 15 August 2023
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-19328 by Richard Lochhead on 3 July 2023, whether every home and business in Scotland will have access to superfast broadband by March 2028, and, if this is not the case, whether the R100 Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme (SBVS) will continue beyond the completion of the R100 contracts and by what date it expects to meet its goal of 100% superfast broadband coverage across all of Scotland.
Answer
Through a combination of the R100 contracts, the R100 Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme and the commercial broadband market – including the emergence of technologies such as Low Earth Orbit satellite - every home and business across Scotland can access superfast broadband speeds of 30 Megabits per second (Mbps). The R100 contracts are continuing to deliver future-proofed, full fibre connections – capable of gigabit speeds; more than 30 times faster than our original superfast target.
- Asked by: Monica Lennon, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 31 July 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Gillian Martin on 15 August 2023
To ask the Scottish Government whether it has met with any private sector organisations to discuss peatlands restoration.
Answer
The Scottish Government regularly discusses peatland restoration with private sector organisations mainly through the Peatland ACTION partnership.
For example, as part of our Peatland ACTION programme NatureScot works with land management representative organisations like Scottish Land & Estates (SLE), National Farmers Union, Scotland (NFUS) and Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) to communicate the benefits of peatland restoration and financial support available to their members. Peatland ACTION delivery partners have also engaged with many Land Agents, Solicitors and Accountants/Green Finance specialists through demonstration days and attendance at national and local events.
The network of Peatland ACTION officers work with a range of private landowners and land managers to help them consider restoration projects. Peatland Action have also provided training and support for private sector companies who are contracted to design and deliver restoration on the ground including, but not limited to, a regular contractors forum where emerging opportunities and issues are considered and resolved collectively.
- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 July 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Mairi McAllan on 15 August 2023
To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the letter from the Chair of the Just Transition Commission to the then Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Just Transition and the Cabinet Secretary for Wellbeing Economy, Fair Work and Energy, entitled Further Advice on the Draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan, which was published on 17 April 2023, and when it will publish a response to the Commission.
Answer
In response to the Just Transition Commission’s letter providing further advice on the Draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan (ESJTP) published on 17 April 2023, the Scottish Government issued a reply on 9 May 2023. This can be found online: Just Transition: letter to Just Transition Commission 9 May 2023 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)
We are currently awaiting independent analysis of the large volume of responses received from the public consultation held on the draft ESJTP. We are fully considering stakeholder views including those of the Just Transition Commission and will engage with them further as we finalise the ESJTP.
- Asked by: Sarah Boyack, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 26 July 2023
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Current Status:
Answered by Mairi McAllan on 15 August 2023
To ask the Scottish Government for what reason it has not responded to the letter from the Chair of the Just Transition Commission to the then Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Just Transition and the Cabinet Secretary for Wellbeing Economy, Fair Work and Energy, entitled Further Advice on the Draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan, which was published on 17 April 2023, in light of its aim to respond within 12 weeks from the date of the publication, as stated in the Memorandum of Understanding, which was published on 24 March 2023.
Answer
In response to the Just Transition Commission’s letter providing further advice on the Draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan published on 17 April 2023, the Scottish Government issued a reply on the 9 May 2023. The letter acknowledged the Commission’s extensive recommendations and committed to a more detailed response to these, alongside consideration of responses to the formal consultation.
The reply adhered to the 12-week timeframe as outlined in the Memorandum of Understanding and can now be found online here: Just Transition: letter to Just Transition Commission 9 May 2023 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .
