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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.

The Scottish Government committed in our most recent Programme for Government to launch a public consultation on legal services regulation reform, to consider what changes may be required to the statutory framework to protect consumer interests and promote a flourishing legal sector.

Delivering on that commitment, the consultation was published in 1 October 2021 and closed on 24 December 2021. The proposals consulted were developed collaboratively with stakeholders representing the legal sector and the consumer view.

The Scottish Government is carefully considering the responses to the consultation, and a consultation analysis report will be published later this year.

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 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.

Resilience of the Electricity Sector is reserved and therefore the responsibility of the UK Government.

Both BEIS and Ofgem have published their post-incident reviews/interim reports on Storm Arwen. The UK Government interim report on Storm Arwen review considers the issue of underground cables on p.10 and Ofgems Review into the networks’ response to Storm Arwen – Interim Report on page 16.

The Scottish Government contributed to both these reviews and will carefully consider the findings to understand where improvements could be made. We will continue to track progress against these recommendations.

We will also continue to press the UK Government, industry and the regulator for assurance that increased resilience of the electricity networks in Scotland is a priority.

The Scottish Government is not a signatory to Openreach’s Fibre Community Partnership programme. The Fibre Community Partnership is a commercial offering, and has no direct link to the £384 million R100 North contract. As a registered supplier for the R100 Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme, Openreach could choose to use the programme to deliver a solution for a community through aggregation of vouchers. However, I understand that they have currently paused registrations for the programme as a result of high demand.

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.

Prior to the Scottish Government taking control of the yard leading to Nationalisation, it was not possible to undertake a detailed analysis of the work required to complete the vessels. The detailed design and planning was the responsibility of the former owners of the yard.

It was only once the yard was in Scottish Government control that the full information was available and the full extent of issues with the design and approval of the ship become known. On 18 December 2019, the Turnaround Director submitted a report on the conditions of the two ferries, together with a revised programme and cost to complete the vessels. A copy of the report can be found on the Scottish Government website – Ferguson Marine: report on cost and programme for vessels 801 and 802 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

Modelling work completed prior to omicron suggested it would be March 2023 before all screening centres in Scotland would reach the point of being able to offer breast screening rounds of 39 months. There are however a number of factors at play including the ongoing pandemic, the steps we are continuing to take to increase capacity in the screening programme, as well as options that are being considered to accelerate the recommencement of self-referrals for women over-70.

Figures for vouchers requested, vouchers issued and installations completed to date through the use of the R100 Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme are provided in the following table: