Seòmar agus comataidhean

Collaboration and engagement is a cornerstone of all transport activity and there is community engagement at all levels of transport decision making. My predecessors and I, and Transport Scotland officials have engaged and will continue to engage with communities in developing and implementing strategies and on specific projects, such as the Islands Connectivity Plan and Project Neptune, and will continue to do so in the future.

For example, Transport Scotland recently chaired an Uig Resilience meeting on my behalf on 27 March 2023.

Whilst local transport issues are the responsibility of local authorities, Transport Scotland, my predecessors and I, have engaged and will continue to engage constructively with local authorities where proposals or projects are considered to have a potential impact on transport assets and services owned and/or provided by Scottish Ministers.

The Scottish Government has no plans to establish an independent review of governance of its portfolio of strategic commercial assets.

The Scottish Government is working in partnership with Ferguson Marine Port Glasgow (Holdings) Ltd to review the Framework Document, which sets out governance arrangements between the parties.

Preparing for Sustainable Farming (PSF) provides funding to farmers to undertake soil testing and analysis. Preparing and implementing a nutrient management plan on the basis of results encourages balanced fertiliser use for all plant nutrients. In addition, the Scottish Government-funded Farm Advisory Service (FAS ) offers a significant amount of high quality advice and support on a range of topics, the vast majority of which is free to the user. This includes the Soil and Nutrient Network, which is considering how to protect and improve farm soils and make the best use of both organic and inorganic fertilisers, saving money, benefitting yields and improving farm efficiency and resilience.

The relevant statutory requirements for land managers fall under the Action Programme for Nitrate Vulnerable Zones (Scotland) Regulations 2008 and the Water Environment (Controlled Activities) (Scotland) Regulations 2011 (CAR) General Binding Rule 18 – Storage and application of fertilisers.

Objectives/ targets for improving the water environment in relation to phosphorus and nitrogen impacts are set through River Basin Management Planning.

SEPA is responsible for monitoring phosphorus and nitrogen in the water environment. RPID audits farms for compliance with Nitrate Vulnerable Zone (NVZ) requirements and there are penalties through the cross compliance scheme for non-compliance. SEPA enforces CAR through its priority catchment work and other regulatory activities and can serve fixed penalty notices on land managers for non-compliance or in severe cases take a case to the Procurator Fiscal for prosecution. There can potentially be cross compliance penalties for breaches of CAR GBRs as well.

The following table provides how many deposits have been held with SafeDeposits Scotland in each year for which data is available.

The Scottish Government have been working with Scottish Swimming, Education Scotland, sport scotland and Scottish Water to develop interventions and approaches to provide opportunities for children to become confident, safer and competent swimmers.

sport scotland’s investment into Scottish Swimming includes support to enable delivery of 4 school swimming pilot projects for evaluation and to develop a School Swimming Framework that can be used by partners.

The Delivery Model Pilots will take place across 2022-23 to support schools to understand and consider different approaches and models of delivery to help educate and provide opportunities for children across Scotland to experience the water in a fun, safe and inclusive approach. This reflects the many different scenarios faced by schools when deciding how best to support young people to access school swimming.

Whilst there is no eligibility criteria for primary school children to receive swimming lessons, inclusion is central to our approach and there will be a specific focus on targeting areas within quintile 1 of the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation.

Active Schools has a key role to play in complementing PE in schools by developing opportunities for physical activity and sport. Specific activities, such as swimming, provided through Active Schools is at the discretion of each local authority/Active Schools team.

In addition Active Schools plays a role in supporting local swimming clubs to link to schools, making pupils aware of the opportunities that exist to participate in swimming in the club setting and we would encourage local authorities to provide Active Schools activity free of charge to ensure activity is accessible to all.

The Ministerial-led working group last convened on 26 th October 2022 and the minutes of this meeting will be published within the coming weeks. The working group was formed to consider short, medium and long term actions to address anti-abortion activities which take place outside of healthcare facilities providing abortion services.

A significant proportion of the group’s work was to consider the use of Local Authority bye-laws to potentially deliver the zones. The Scottish Government was committed to supporting councils to use bye-laws to implement safe access zones, but Local Authorities concluded that national legislation would be a more appropriate route, and the work to consider bye-laws has now concluded.

We are now clear that delivering national legislation is the best and most secure route to ensure buffer zones are delivered and sustained. We are therefore fully focused on supporting the drafting and development of Gillian Mackay MSP’s national Abortion Service Safe Access Zones (Scotland) Bill. We will continue to take forward discussions with stakeholders to ensure that robust and effective legislation is introduced as soon as possible.

Although there are no plans for a final report of the working group’s findings to be published, the group agreed that the Scottish Government should commission research into the impact of protests and vigils in Scotland. This research is ongoing, and a final report on this will be published following its completion.

Information regarding superfast broadband coverage in Scotland can be accessed on Ofcom’s website. Ofcom’s most recent figures, published in December 2022 , show that as of September 2022 the percentage of residential and commercial premises able to access superfast broadband (30 Megabits per second or above) in the island local authority areas was as follows:

Research has shown that employee-owned businesses and other inclusive ownership models are fairer, more inclusive places to work and as a result enjoy greater financial and social resilience.

The Scottish Government’s commitment to increase the number of employee owned businesses seeks to widen the benefits of employee ownership to as many businesses and as many employee-owners as possible across Scotland. For this reason the number relates to businesses operating in and based in Scotland.

The Scottish Government does not currently have guidance for people who may be trapped in a cult, or for those who believe their loved ones are trapped in a cult.

We are aware of the recently published UK Government Faith review “Does Government do God” which recommends that Government should fund a programme that supports vulnerable people to leave high demand groups or high-control movements (often referred to as Cults) or religious groups. We will continue to build our understanding on how the Scottish Government can best support vulnerable people and communities.

However, if any criminal activity is suspected in relation to a cult this should be reported to Police Scotland immediately. Any form of exploitation or criminal coercion is completely unacceptable, and we condemn it in the strongest terms.

The Scottish Government plans to publish a draft of the next Climate Change Plan in November 2023, with a final version due by March 2025.