Seòmar agus comataidhean

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-06745 on 10 March 2022. 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
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The data the Scottish Government receives from Police Scotland is a general count of the number of crimes and offences recorded by the police, split by local authority. We do not receive further details on the characteristics of these cases and so are unable to provide a further breakdown for the offences recorded under Sections 1 and 2 of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 (which relate to unauthorised access to computers, with the intent to commit or facilitate the commissioning of further offences). In terms of Section 3 of the Computer Misuse Act 1990, police records for all cases in 2020-21 were manually reviewed as part of producing a new chapter on the estimated volume of recorded cyber-crime in Scotland (included within the 2020-21 recorded crime National Statistics). Section 3 relates to unauthorised acts which impair the operation of computers, including preventing or hindering access to programs, data etc. At the time these cases were reviewed, a majority of them did not have a confirmed country of origin for the perpetrator. For those that did, none of them originated from Russia.

The applicant prospectus states that Green Freeport operators must adhere to the OECD Code of Conduct for Clean Free Trade Zones – and the specific anti-illicit trade and security measures therein. In addition they must meet the current obligations set out in the UK’s Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017. Furthermore, operators of Green Freeports will be responsible for the security of the customs site. As part of this, they will be required to be authorised as a customs site operator and meet requirements set out by HMRC.

The Green Freeport governance body will be required to actively manage security risks across physical, personnel, and cyber domains, and to work with the Scottish Government, HMRC, Border Force, the National Crime Agency, Home Office and other relevant agencies and government departments to conduct an annual audit of the security measures in place and any breaches.

As part of the application process, applicants will be asked to set out what steps they will take to ensure that the customs sites and tax sites in their proposed Green Freeport will be secure against illicit activity, including organised criminal activity, money laundering, smuggling and people trafficking. Applicants that do not show adequate consideration of steps to prevent illicit activity will not be considered for Green Freeport status.

The Green Freeport governance body will need to maintain a record of all the businesses operating, or applying to operate, within the tax site. That record must be kept up-to-date, contain information about the beneficial owner of the business, and be readily accessible to law enforcement agencies, including HMRC and the National Crime Agency.

We are discussing the issue of publication of information by the Green Freeport governance bodies with the UK Government.

The Turnaround Director wrote to the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee on 9 February 2022, confirming that the cabling issue emerged in the week ending 24 December 2021. This remains the yards current understanding.

The Programme is actively supporting 25 blocks through key stages of assessment. As this is a representative-led process the time to completion of each Single Building Assessment cannot be accurately predicted.

Zero Waste Scotland’s report on the Climate Impacts of Burning Municipal Waste in Scotland, published in 2021, considered how converting to combined heat and power systems may change the carbon intensity of electricity only energy from waste (EfW) plants that were operating in Scotland in 2018 as part of a sensitivity analysis. This indicated that the average carbon intensity of EfW plants was reduced by an estimated 30%. The report is available here .

Evidence from a report published by ClimateXChange in 2022 on behalf of Scottish Government also suggests that retro fitting carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology to 6 existing energy from waste facilities and 3 facilities expected to be completed in the next year could deliver up to ~1MTCO2/year of negative emissions, although the potential for negative emissions will depend on the biogenic content in the processed waste. The report is available here.

The independent review of the role of incineration in the waste hierarchy in Scotland, being led by Dr Colin Church, is considering what the potential options are to decarbonise the residual waste infrastructure that is already in place in Scotland and work is being progressed to inform the Review’s considerations.

The existing national planning framework has ensured that all EfW facilities have prepared detailed heat and power plans which seek to identify opportunities for local use of heat from the plant. It also encourages local development plans to co-locate sources of heat demand and heat generation. There are examples of such heat use - currently or in development - at Lerwick, Grangemouth, Shawfair in Midlothian and Torry near Aberdeen.

Only the interim voucher portion of the R100 Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme (R100 SBVS) – worth up to £400 per connection – is closing on 31 March 2022, and there are no plans to extend it beyond this date. The main voucher portion of the R100 SBVS – worth up to £5,000 per connection – will remain open for applications beyond that date.

Telecoms is entirely reserved to the United Kingdom Government, which means that the Scottish Government does not have the powers to intervene in commercial matters. Therefore, in the absence of further action by the UK Government, it is ultimately up to suppliers themselves to decide how and where they choose to stimulate demand for connections and/or services. However, we do work closely with communications providers and encourage new entrants into Scotland’s fibre infrastructure market – for example, by extending non-domestic rates relief to fifteen years for newly laid and lit fibre, ten years more than the UK Government currently offers.

The value of the purchase order for the main engines and shaft alternators for vessels 801 and 802 totalled 5,270,000. The agreement for this scope of work was put in place prior to the yard coming into public ownership by Ferguson Marine Engineering Limited on 14 January 2016.