Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Scottish Government have been actively engaging with the UK Government and the Welsh Government on the Levy, including on how funds could be allocated and will continue to do so now that the formal consultation process has concluded, and we await publication of the consultation response.

The Scottish Government has asked that the level of the levy is kept under regular review and that Devolved Governments and Administrations are a statutory part of this review process.

Yes, soil is a provisioning service for farming as it provides the substrate on which crops (including forage) grow.

The next meeting of the Orkney Ferry Replacement Task Force will be held on 18 April 2024.

The Scottish Government is not aware of any local authority ceasing its funding for secondary school music tuition and relying solely on the additional funding provided by the Scottish Government. The most recent Instrumental Music Services: Results from the IMS Survey 2023 (improvementservice.org.uk) confirmed that 61,715 pupils participated in instrumental music lessons in academic year 2022-23, the highest number since the annual survey began 11 years ago.

The policy of free instrumental tuition has now firmly been established across all Local Authority Music Services. The Scottish Government continues to support local authorities to deliver free instrumental music tuition in schools, with £12 million allocated this financial year alone. The purpose of this funding is to enhance the instrumental music tuition offer that is provided through Local Authority budgets.

There is no evidence of an overall reduction in the provision of secondary school music tuition. In fact the most recent Instrumental Music Services: Results from the IMS Survey 2023 (improvementservice.org.uk) published in December 2023 confirmed that 61,715 pupils participated in instrumental music lessons in academic year 2022-23, the highest number since the annual survey began 11 years ago.

The policy of free instrumental tuition has now been firmly established across all Local Authority Music Services. The Scottish Government continues to support local authorities to deliver free instrumental music tuition in schools, removing financial barriers to learning an instrument.

The National Innovation Strategy included an action to publish an annual innovation scorecard. These key metrics will enable us to track our progress towards becoming one of the most innovative small nations over the next decade.

The framework for the scorecard, showing current performance, was published as part of the Strategy document in June 2023. The next iteration of the scorecard will be published later this year, when the full set of latest statistics and indicators become available.

There are 20 ScotWind projects with seabed option agreements. The first 17 successful projects were announced by Crown Estate Scotland in April 2022. These were joined in October 2022 by three further projects, granted agreements through the Clearing process. To date, one ScotWind project, N1 - West of Orkney Wind Farm, has submitted an application for consent under section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989 and associated marine licences under section 20 of the Marine (Scotland) Act 2010 and section 65 of the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009. All other ScotWind projects are at the pre-application stage, with 6 environmental impact assessment scoping opinions issued by Scottish Ministers to date.

Crown Estate Scotland currently expects to see rental income of £4Million per Gigawatt per annum, based on 2024 prices. Rent is indexed against the Consumer Prices Index so this figure could change. The rent will go to Crown Estate Scotland once projects are operational. While it is too early to know when that will happen, it is generally 10 years from option award. The nature of project development means Crown Estate Scotland cannot be certain at this time what total capacity will ultimately get built.

Building on the success of our Good Practice Principles and our Community and Renewable Energy Scheme, the Onshore Wind Sector Deal represents a significant step forward in ensuring our journey to net zero benefits people across Scotland, and is part of a just transition. We are learning from these successes and will continue to work with industry to explore other avenues within our devolved powers to maximise the benefits flowing into communities.

We are also pressing the UK Government to explore mandating community benefits from onshore renewables as well as electricity transmission network infrastructure. It is critical that the UK Government continues to work with us as these proposals are developed to ensure they deliver the maximum benefits for the people of Scotland, and support our transition to a green economy in which no one is left behind.

Scottish Government officials are due to hold further discussions in the coming weeks with the UK Government Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) to establish their current position with regards to microchip databases, and plans to progress work in this area.

As the national arts development body, Creative Scotland operate at arm’s length from the Scottish Government.

As per the legislation, this means that neither Scottish Government nor Scottish Ministers have a role in funding processes and decisions made by Creative Scotland for individual projects. Creative Scotland are rapidly reviewing their funding allocation to Rein as they have been clear that what has been reported simply does not meet what the funding was applied for.

I look forward to Creative Scotland sharing its conclusions with the Scottish Government.