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The Scottish Government has had ongoing engagement with the wave and tidal energy sectors during the development of the Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan, including a Marine Energy Industry Roundtable event hosted by Scottish Renewables alongside key industry representatives. In addition, we received 346 responses from stakeholders to the consultation questions on marine energy in the draft ESJTP, which are being considered as we produce the final strategy.

In November 2022 the Ministerial Population Taskforce published the research report ‘Attitudes to Family Formation in Scotland’ to update the evidence base about fertility, family planning, and ideal family size in Scotland.

Building on international engagement with other countries experiencing low birth rates, the Scottish Government is taking forward comparative work about family friendly policies in other European countries, to establish if successful interventions elsewhere could be applicable in Scotland.

The outputs of this work will be considered alongside recent Census data in order to develop next steps which reflect Scottish Ministers’ ambition for Scotland to be the best possible place for all families.

ScotRail has been recruiting more staff to minimise reliance on staff working on rest days or overtime. ScotRail now employs 250 more train drivers than it did prior to public sector ownership. In addition, 160 Train Drivers are currently being recruited, the highest number ever, and ScotRail plans to continue its recruitment for Train Drivers in the coming years.

All ScotRail staffing costs including the funding for the planned recruitment are reflected in the current Transport Scotland rail budget for the financial year‎ 2024-2025.

The Scottish Government is committed to developing a voluntary code of practice on dismissing and replacing land-owning land maintenance companies (“the Code”).

Whilst work on the development of the Code continues, other work pressures have impacted the rate of progress.

The Scottish Government supports several small bodies that provide Scots language teaching resources for use in schools. Education Scotland and the Open University also make an important contribution to this. In addition, the Scottish Languages Bill, currently making its way through Parliament includes Scots provisions which will strengthen this support. In relation to Scots provisions, the Bill will also require Scottish Ministers to consult with those that have an interest in both the promotion of Scots and in the publication of Scots books and resources. We are confident that these measures will improve the resources available for teaching Scots in the classroom.

The Scottish Government does not undertake assessment of the accessibility of streets nationally.

National Performance Framework (NPF) 4 policy 14, highlights the six qualities of successful places which development proposals should demonstrate. The qualities of safety, attractiveness, connectedness and adaptability can improve the accessibility of a place to all users. NPF4 is part of the development plan, which means that planning decisions should be made in line with NPF4 policy unless material considerations indicate otherwise.

Designing Streets is a policy statement that promotes the consideration of street design towards placemaking and away from the system focus upon the dominance of motor vehicles. It emphasises the need to consider accessibility and inclusive design for people over vehicular movements. It is not a standards based guidance but promotes a balanced decision making on designing for place and movement, and relates to both planning and transport policies.

NPF4 policy 13 is clear that development proposals will be supported where they have taken into account, at the earliest stages of design, the transport needs of diverse groups including users with protected characteristics to ensure the safety, ease and needs of all users.

The National Marine Plan 2 (NMP2) aims to support sustainable development of our seas, protect our marine environment, and deliver for Scotland’s communities, in particular those living by, relying on, and visiting Scotland’s seas. The NMP2 will support our blue economy vision, helping to tackle the twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change and realising the opportunities from the transition to net zero.

The NMP2 is already in development and stakeholder engagement has commenced on the plan policies, objectives and supporting assessments. Stakeholder involvement at every stage is essential to ensure that Scotland’s marine planning framework can continue to support sound decision-making to guide the future use of our seas. To maximise opportunities to meaningfully engage with stakeholders in the design of the Plan, the delivery timeline for the NMP2 and the accompanying Statement of Public Participation (SPP) have been updated.

Later in 2024, consultation on a marine Planning Position Statement will take place. This is a new stage of the NMP2’s development and will provide an invaluable and earlier opportunity for meaningful discourse. The Statement will set out the views gathered from stakeholders to date, and the Scottish Government’s commitments and aspirations for the new Plan. This will align the development of NMP2 with the approach taken for the National Planning Framework (NPF4), where consultation on the NPF4 position statement was carried out in 2021 and used to inform the development of the draft NPF4.

The feedback gathered from consultation on the statement and from the ongoing programme of stakeholder engagement will be used to produce a draft plan. The draft NMP2 will then be subject to public consultation in 2025.

These documents and further information are available at:

•  Statutory Statement of Public Participation

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.

Parental engagement is vital when there are decisions to be made about the care and education of children, particularly those with additional support needs.

The Scottish Government seeks to create opportunities to enable parents and carers to be consistently involved and fully listened to as key partners in the development of additional support for learning (ASL) policy, and more broadly in education policy. Parents and carers are represented in all our key stakeholder groups on ASL.

Parents are involved in the planning process for the delivery of care and educational support provided by local authorities, through Getting it Right for Every Child (GIRFEC) and ASL policy implementation.

The Children’s Service, My Rights, My Say is a Scottish Government funded national service which supports children who have attained the age of 12 years and their parents and carers who wish to exercise, or are considering exercising, relevant rights to help them access the advice and support that they need to be fully involved in decisions about their education.

The Scottish Government also funds Let’s Talk ASN Scotland, a national advocacy and legal representation service for young people (over 16 years old) and the parents and carers of children with additional support needs, who may require support in relation to a dispute or potential dispute with an education authority regarding support under the Additional Support for Learning Act 2004.