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On 6 December I hosted the 42nd meeting of the British-Irish Council Summit on behalf of the Scottish Government. The Summit marked the 25th anniversary of the first Council meeting which was held in London in December 1999 following the historic Good Friday Agreement. The meeting was attended by the Heads of Government from all eight of the BIC Member Administrations, including the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer.

The theme of the Summit was ‘Financing a Just Transition’.

With global emissions continuing to rise, Council members discussed the importance of working in collaboration and shared the experience of their respective governments in supporting communities in the journey towards net zero – and about how best to attract global finance to maximise the social, economic and environmental benefits of the transition to net zero.

I highlighted Scotland’s leadership in this area by acting to underpin our net zero targets in a legislative commitment to achieving a just transition. I also highlighted the proactive, ‘investor-friendly’ approach that the Scottish Government is taking to attract investment in priority areas of net zero, housing and infrastructure.

The Council also reflected on the latest political developments such as international issues including the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Israel/Gaza as well as domestic issues such as the measures included in the Scottish budget to mitigate the two child benefit cap as an important step towards eradicating child poverty.

In addition to the formal Summit meeting, I had the opportunity to further build the Scottish Government’s relationship with the UK, Irish, Welsh Governments, the Northern Ireland Executive and the Crown Dependencies through bilateral meetings.

We have allocated over £66 million of funding to Sustrans this financial year. This includes funding and support to Local Authorities and others to deliver infrastructure to help people walk, wheel or cycle, as well as support to upgrade and expand the National Cycle Network throughout Scotland. This is delivered by Sustrans’ Scotland based staff from their office in Edinburgh.

As part of our transformation of active travel delivery, the funding of the main Transport Scotland infrastructure programme, Places for Everyone, managed by Sustrans, winds down to December 2025.

The new Active Travel Infrastructure Fund which will see Transport Scotland directly award funding to Local Authorities, Regional Transport Partnerships and National Park Authorities.

This is a matter for individual schools and local authorities. This level of information is not held centrally.

Members and the public are encouraged to use clips from Parliament TV on social media. This is an effective mechanism for sharing information about the work of Members and reaching new audiences.   

This material should not be used for party political purposes. This is set out in the Parliament’s copyright policy and license which governs the use of Parliament TV clips.  These restrictions apply to anyone using our clips, not only Members.    

The SPCB last considered this matter in April of this year when it agreed new guidance for Members and their staff on the use of clips for social media.    

The guidance was subsequently published in May 2024 and includes illustrative examples of what is and isn’t acceptable in line with both the copyright policy and the policy for MSPs’ on the use of parliamentary resources.  The material can be used to make a fair and accurate report of parliamentary proceedings and should not be edited, added to, distorted or digitally manipulated except to add accessibility features.  

SPCB policies and guidance are kept under review. Feedback is welcome so we can ensure they are as clear and useful to Members as possible.

The Scottish Government continues to improve the information around government spending and its climate impact and has successfully completed a pilot of our new Net Zero Assessment (NZA) methodology which is now undergoing independent expert review.

In designing the approach, assessments used by other countries were reviewed, including new Zealand, drawing on key features while adapting them to the Scottish context.

The Scottish NZA process is similar to the New Zealand Climate Implications of Policy Assessment (CIPA), with assessment at the early stage of policy development and proportionate screening. The scope of the Scottish NZA is wider as it covers all policy areas, not just climate and energy policies.

I will write to the Convenor of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee on the outcome of the pilot and next steps on the roll out of NZA in 2025.

We are committed to tackling all forms of violence against women and girls, including economic abuse, which as a tactic of coercive control and abuse can have lifelong impacts on victims.

Through our Delivering Equally Safe fund, we are providing approximately £600,000 over three and a half years to GEMAP, for their Financially Included project. This focuses on improving responses to economic abuse across the money advice and gender-based violence sectors, through development and delivery of training and resources. Additionally Financially Included use their learning to raise awareness of economic abuse and the economic impact of all forms of male violence against women and girls.

The following table provides the number of recorded injury road collisions where a police officer attended the scene and ‘poor or defective road surface’ was recorded as a contributory factor.

As this is recorded as a single contributory factor, it is not possible to distinguish between collisions involving defective road surfaces and collisions involving poor road surfaces.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) produces Claimant Count estimates at Local Authority and Ward level, and model-based unemployment at Local Authority level based on the Annual Population Survey and Claimant Count.

The claimant count rate for Dundee City local authority and 2021 electoral wards within Dundee City are shown in Table 1 for June 2021 to June 2024.

The model based unemployment rate for Dundee City local authority are shown in Table 2 for July 2021 to June 2022 through to July 2023 to June 2024. The ONS model based estimates of unemployment are the official source for unemployment rates by local authority. Unemployment rates by electoral ward are not available from this source.

Table 1: Claimants as a proportion of residents aged 16-64 years

ScotRail will partner with Clarus in a project taken forward on behalf of Scottish Government digital, Scottish Futures Trust, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, which will use ScotRail trains to test satellite connectivity in rural areas where existing 4/5G mobile connectivity is poor or does not exist. The trial will last 6 months and, amongst other benefits, offers an opportunity to provide reliable connection to passengers where digital gaps currently exist.

Separately from that, ScotRail currently utilises Starlink to fill in any gaps where internet connection is not strong enough to support its day to day activities, including maintaining safety and security. This is an operational matter for ScotRail.

The level of information requested in relation to participation in PE is not held centrally. For information on the schools which meet the PE target, I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-31840 on 12 December 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.