Seòmar agus comataidhean

Scotland faces the most challenging budget settlement since devolution. Despite this Scottish Government remains committed to maximising the important contribution forestry makes in tackling the climate emergency. Unfortunately, with the available funding it will not be possible to achieve this year’s Climate Change Plan planting target of 18,000 hectares.

Woodland creation is funded through the Forestry Grant Scheme (FGS) which has made £39.4 million available to support woodland creation in 2024/25 and earlier this year Scottish Forestry introduced new measures to increase the area of woodland creation supported. These include:-

• working with applicants and landowners to maximise planting over multiple years, including bringing forward planting from 2024 into 2023, in order to fully utilise the available funding in 2023-24 and approve as much tree planting as possible in 2024-25;
• approving projects for future years, to maintain momentum and ensure we utilise all the available funding in 2024-25. This involves creating a bank of projects that are ready to implement and can be brought forward in the event that other projects are delayed or more funding becomes available;
• reducing grant payments where woodland creation projects have alternative sources of funding. By reducing grant rates for some projects, FGS funds will support a greater area of planting in 2024-25.

The above measures will allow Scotland to create 10,000 ha of new woodland this year. Putting this in context, we would expect this to make up the majority of tree planting across the UK and it will maintain the level tree planting close to the average achieved over the last 5 years.

Action to prepare and plan for this transition began prior to the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Act 2024 receiving Royal Assent, and is ongoing. To support the relevant commencement and transitional provisions laid in the Scottish Parliament yesterday, intensive engagement with relevant partners across the sector has taken place. This to ensure readiness and capacity within secure care and wider children’s services, so that the children being moved are safe and well supported. The action included officials recently visiting each of Scotland’s four secure centres to ensure any additional support could be identified and put in place, and regular ongoing engagement with key delivery partners, including the Scottish Prison Service, secure accommodation providers, the Care Inspectorate, Social Work Scotland, COPFS, and the Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service.

Each of the children currently in Polmont YOI has a bespoke “Child’s Plan”, grounded in the principles of Getting it Right for Every Child (GIRFEC), Curriculum for Excellence and the SPS Vision for Young People in Custody (refreshed in 2021). A tailored transfer, matching and orientation process is being prepared for each child to transition to secure accommodation, along with action to inform and reassure their families.

The previous UK Government consulted on further development of the non-domestic minimum energy efficiency standard scheme for England and Wales but their response was not published before the UK General Election. We look forward to understanding what the new UK Government’s policy will be in this area in due course.

The Scottish Government recently consulted on proposals for a Heat in Buildings Bill including new energy efficiency and heating standards for all buildings. We are currently analysing the responses to the consultation.

The Scottish Government works closely with third sector partners and all other agencies involved in supporting children and young people who are involved with the criminal justice system, their parents and carers.

We fund the Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice (CYCJ), who work with a number of third sector organisations providing a range of support services to both children and their parents. This includes Action for Children, Includem and Barnardos.

As part of their Promise implementation work, CYCJ is leading a project to engage directly with parents of children in conflict with the law. The aim of this is to develop a network of parents who can participate in the development of policy and practice. In order to reach these parents CYCJ is actively engaging with existing parenting networks such as Parenting Across Scotland and Families Outside.

We collaborate with third sector partners which seek to prevent at-risk young people from coming into conflict with the law by offering more targeted support to children and families. Preventing children and young people from going down a path where they are in conflict with the law and supporting them appropriately and effectively when they do – to help address their underlying needs – has been integral to Scotland’s youth justice agenda for over a decade.

This includes organisations such as Cyrenians and Aberlour, which receive funding through the Cashback for Communities programme. Cyrenians’ Keeping Families Together project works across Scotland in partnership with Scotland’s four secure centres, offering mediation, whole family support and conflict resolution workshops. The approach enables young people and families to improve communication, address underlying issues and build stronger, more positive relationships.

Aberlour’s project, Alternative Routes #CashBack, supports young people aged 10-25 and their families most at risk of being involved in antisocial behaviour, offending or reoffending. They use a whole system approach involving the whole family and community, which improves confidence in young people and provides them with opportunities to connect, flourish and achieve at home, school, and in the community.

Includem’s ADAPT project – funded through the Scottish Government’s Whole Family Wellbeing Fund – also focuses on young people who are in conflict or at risk of being in conflict with the law. The project works with young people and their families to help them navigate a way out of a variety of difficult circumstances by diverting them from criminal behaviour and a resultant trajectory into the criminal justice system.

We also ensure that child victims and their families are offered trauma-informed and person-centred support and advocacy through the Victim-Centred Approach Fund and the development of a Bairns’ Hoose model in Scotland. The Victim-Centred Approach Fund enables victim organisations to support provision of practice and emotional support to victims, survivors and witnesses of crime across Scotland, while Bairns’ Hoose provides trauma informed recovery, support and justice services for children who have been victims or witnesses of abuse or violence, as well as children under the age of criminal responsibility whose behaviour may have caused significant harm or abuse.

The Government is open to giving local authorities the power to introduce a cruise ship levy. We will therefore be engaging with local authorities, the cruise ship industry, and others over the coming months to explore this issue further and develop more detailed proposals. We plan to launch a public consultation on a potential cruise ship levy before the end of the year.

Since 2019, NHS Tayside has been focusing on developing and stabilising breast cancer services. They have successfully recruited new Breast Oncologists to their local service, including two Breast Clinical Oncologists who work solely for NHS Tayside alongside a joint Breast Medical Oncologist post with NHS Lothian.

NHS Tayside is replacing a radiotherapy linac machine, which has generated some constraints in physical radiotherapy capacity. To ensure patients can access radiotherapy in a timely manner, NHS Tayside has collaborated with NHS Highland to offer faster access to radiotherapy for a small number of patients with breast cancer. Once the linac is fully replaced, and with the new breast oncologists now in place, NHS Tayside will deliver the full pathway of Breast Cancer Care locally with a continued drive to improve patient experiences and outcomes.

The Scottish Government continue to work at pace with COSLA to develop a Fiscal Framework underpinned by an Accountability and Assurance Framework. The concept of a power of general competence for local government is a consideration in those discussions.

This work is being supported by working groups consisting of Scottish Government officials, COSLA officers and representatives of CIPFA Directors of Finance and SOLACE.

Staff rotas and timetabling planning are operational matters for ScotRail. After coming into public ownership ScotRail was required to increase the number of Train Drivers to a level which would facilitate a reduction to reliance on staff working rest days and overtime.

The Scottish Government has funded the subsidy required to cover the net cost of ScotRail’s operations, including staffing.

ScotRail informs that its planning to recruit 160 train drivers each year from 2024-25 going forward.

I understand and share the Member's frustrations on the Ardrossan Harbour redevelopment, as do my Officials working on the project. The business case work and overall delivery of the project needs to be supported by the financial packages from each of the main funding partners. It is imperative therefore that these and the legal agreements are clearly defined, affordable and ensure value to the public purse.

During recent discussions with funding partners there have been some emerging issues in relation to the funding packages and costs to Government that require further investigation and to be concluded before the business case can be finalised.

Officials are progressing these matters as quickly as possible and will look to provide respective updates when notable progress is made.

Legislation sets out a wide range of permitted development rights. These allow certain types of development to be carried out without a planning application. In doing so, they help provide certainty and save the time and expense associated with applying for planning permission.

In the first phase of the Scottish Government’s review of permitted development rights, we introduced new PDR for the conversion of certain agricultural and forestry buildings to residential and flexible commercial uses (including shops, food and drink and business uses). We also increased the scale of agricultural buildings that may be built without a planning application. Rural businesses can also make use of and benefit from a range of other PDR.