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The Scottish Government has committed up to £500 million strategic investment over five years, to leverage private investment in critical offshore wind infrastructure and supply chain.

Additional support for energy transition in Aberdeen and the North East region is also being provided through:

• The Just Transition Fund, through which we have allocated up to £75 million across the North East region to support projects, including the Supply Chain Pathway and Energy Transition Challenge Fund helping supply chain companies to transition and access new net zero and global business opportunities, and the Offshore Energy Skills Passport aiding the cross sector transferability of the offshore energy workforce.
• The Energy Transition Fund, which is supporting four major projects in Aberdeen and the North East region. These include supporting development in Aberdeen of the Energy Transition Zone, providing the necessary facilities and investment opportunities to attract renewable energy manufacturing companies and the creation of the Global Underwater Hub, to provide sub sea supply chain companies with access to multiple sector markets worldwide.

The Scottish Government analyses a range of impacts, including on the economy, when considering Income Tax policy options during the annual budget process. We also closely monitor the impacts of our existing policies on revenues, taxpayers, and the economy. Scottish Income Tax performance remains strong – Scotland outperformed the rest of the UK in both tax and earnings growth for both 2022-23 and 2023-24. Scottish Income Tax policy for 2025-26 will be announced during the annual Budget process.

The independent Cowal and Rosneath Community Needs Assessment concluded that there is evidence of over-provision on the Gourock-Dunoon passenger ferry service in terms of sailings per day and in terms of the length of the operating day in winter. The Assessment does not calculate the cost of the over-provision. There are several options considered to address the findings and the preferred approach and associated costs will be determined in due course.

Income Tax data does not break down by public and private sector.

As set out in the Public sector: economic overview - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) publication, after tax, the average full-time public sector employee in Scotland earned around £1,500 more than the UK average in 2023, up from around £400 in 2019.

The most recent Instrumental Music Services Survey 2023 Instrumental Music Services: Results from the IMS Survey 2023 (improvementservice.org.uk) (published in December 2023) confirmed that the number of pupils accessing free instrumental music tuition was the highest on record since the survey began in 2012.

It is for individual councils to make decisions about their own provision. For those local authorities which do operate waiting lists, it is clearly important that they work to accommodate as many interested pupils as possible.

The draft Islands Connectivity Plan (ICP) Strategic Approach was published for public consultation from 1 February 2024 to 6 May 2024. The draft proposed that we would revisit the Freight Fares Review in the medium to longer term.

The purpose of the consultation was to gather feedback on our proposals and test our understanding of the priority issues facing island transport connectivity and ferry services in particular.

The outputs from the consultation and engagement will support the finalisation of the ICP which will set out our plans for taking forward ferry fares policy.

Scottish Government relies on estimates of the number of taxpayers by tax band using forecasts provided by the Scottish Fiscal Commission. The most recent estimate for 2024-25 was published in December 2023 and can be found here: Chapter 4 – Tax – Supplementary Figures. The Scottish Fiscal Commission will publish their five-year Economic and Fiscal forecasts alongside the draft Scottish Budget 2025-26 on 4 December which will include updated forecasts for 2025-26.

I have asked Gerard Hart, Chief Executive of Disclosure Scotland, to respond. His response is as follows:

The spend on employing temporary staff in the 9 month period of January to September 2024 was £7,504,000. The spend on employing temporary staff from 2012-2023 was provided in the answer to question S6W-25927 on 14 March 2024. 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.

To note, these figures relate to both agency staff and contractors.

The Scottish Government continues to work closely with DAERA NI officials and key agencies through the Paws for Thought Puppy Trafficking Group to disrupt and target those involved in the smuggling of puppies into Scotland from Northern Ireland. The collaborative actions of this Group are delivering significant reductions in the number of pups being trafficked into Scotland, mainly as a consequence of intelligence-led targeting of known or flagged transporters. The Group also continues to raise awareness among ferry passengers of puppy smuggling through the use of flyers, posters and social media, with anyone seeing suspicious activity encouraged to immediately report it.

More widely, the Scottish Government continues to work with the multi-agency Pet Trade Taskforce to share intelligence and target those involved in the illegal breeding and smuggling of puppies for sale in Scotland.

The visual checking of all dogs entering Scotland via Cairnryan, would require deployment of additional human resource when there are already significant demands being placed on local authority and other enforcement agency staff.

Many commercial movements of animals are already inspected at Border Control Posts, and pet dogs travelling with their owners on ferries will often be checked by APHA trained ferry staff. The movements of concern, i.e. puppies being smuggled, happens under the radar, and is best addressed through intelligence-led targeted enforcement action.