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Non-binding international agreements such as memoranda of understanding help support international collaboration between Scotland and our international partners across a range of policy areas. Sharing best practice with like-minded partners helps ensure that we develop and deliver effective policy at home. Details of active agreements with national and sub-national partners such as Ireland and Flanders can be found on the Scottish Government’s website. Any future agreements will be in line with the themes and objectives of our new international Strategy.

The Violence Against Women and Girls Sustainable Funding Project Board is currently being developed and I expect it to meet for the first time in March. It has been formed to take forward our commitment to develop a flexible and stable funding model that will ensure a focus on prevention and high quality, accessible, specialist violence against women and girls services.

‎ The Project Board, will be co-chaired by Scottish Government and CoSLA, and will include representatives of public sector and specialist stakeholders. The remit of the group will be agreed with the members and will include producing an accurate assessment of the current costs and spend of violence against women and girls, to help inform the development of a sustainable funding model.

The change in budget allocation to the Just Transition Fund is due to a reduction in capital and financial transactions funding allocations from the UK Government which the Fund relies on.

The UK Autumn Statement was the worst-case scenario for Scotland. The Chancellor had £27bn of fiscal headroom for the Autumn Statement, but rather than provide the funding needed in services and infrastructure, he cut taxes. These decisions have meant that the Scottish Government’s block grant has fallen in real terms by 1.2% since 2022-23 across resource and capital combined. Capital is due to contract by almost 10% in real terms over five years.

These decisions are not just an issue for the Scottish Budget. The UK Government’s ‘mini-budget’ in Autumn 2022 turbocharged the cost of living crisis, inflicting misery on individuals, communities and businesses. People have seen their living standards fall as a direct consequence of UK Government mismanagement of the economy over the past 13 years.

The Scottish Government remains committed to the 10-year Just Transition Fund programme and existing projects will continue to be funded in 2024-25. We will undertake an evaluation of phase one in this financial year aiming to commence the next phase in the following financial year.

Building regulations already require that, in residential buildings, a proportion of rooms intended to be used as bedrooms must be accessible to a wheelchair user. Guidance offered within the Building Standards Technical Handbooks promotes an inclusive approach to design, generally aligning with the good practice recommendations detailed in British Standard 8300. As such, the ratio of accessible accommodation sought in such buildings is one bedroom in 20, or part thereof, which directly aligns with the one room or five percent (whichever is greater) of the total number of bedrooms recommended within the British Standard.

However, building regulations do not apply to mobile homes or other structures which are capable of being moved from one place or another. Smaller types of accommodation, such as holiday pods, may not be subject to the above provisions. The Standard described above therefore cannot be directly applied to these structures.

Nevertheless, building owners and service providers should be aware of the duties imposed under the reserved legislation of the Equality Act 2010, including a duty to make reasonable adjustments to ensure disabled people can use a service as close as it can be reasonably possible to a standard usually offered to a non-disabled person. Other policy areas such as development or licensing may also have potential to address this issue.

While this issue goes much wider than the regulatory scope of building standards, I would welcome an opportunity to discuss the matter further to explore potential solutions.

High-quality, nutritious food which is sustainably produced is key to our wellbeing – in economic, environmental, social and health terms. The national Good Food Nation Plan sets out six over-arching Outcomes which indicate key areas to further develop our status as a Good Food Nation. These Outcomes have been developed with regard to a range of issues and principles set out in the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act 2022, including the fact that each part of the food system plays an important role in the provision of food. The importance of supporting food production is particularly reflected in Outcome 4: “Our food and drink sector is prosperous, diverse, innovative, and vital to national and local economic and social wellbeing. It is key to making Scotland food secure and food resilient, and creates and sustains jobs and businesses underpinned by fair work standards.”

As well as the national Plan itself, we are also currently consulting on the list of specified functions that will, once set out in secondary legislation, give practical effect to the Good Food Nation Plan. The consultation can be found at https://consult.gov.scot/agriculture-and-rural-economy/national-good-food-nation-plan/ .

Of the 36,100 premises connected so far through the R100 contracts, 1,600 have been connected through Fibre To The Cabinet broadband which can provide a minimum of a superfast service. The remaining 34,500 connections have been delivered utilising Fibre To The Premises which is capable of delivering a gigabit broadband service.

Of the 114,869 premises currently expected to be connected through the R100 contracts, only 1,600 will be connected through Fibre To The Cabinet broadband. The remaining 113,269 will be connected with Fibre To The Premises which is a gigabit-capable technology.

Ministers have decided that the £5.8m allocated to the Scottish Government, as consequentials arising from spending on the Regional Innovation in England, will be used to support university research and innovation in Scotland within the current financial year.

The Scottish Government has sought views regarding the implementation update on Short Term Let Licensing from the Short Term Let Industry Advisory Group (IAG). The group most recently met with all members in attendance on 19 January 2024 and subsequently shared further feedback, in addition to that already gathered throughout the development of the scheme. We will continue to work with stakeholders to monitor the operation of the scheme and that is why we have committed to providing an update to Parliament on licensing implementation early this year. I wrote to the Local Government Housing and Planning Committee on 30 Jan 2024 to set out progress we have made to date.

The SPCB provides a free school engagement programme. Our Education Services staff deliver sessions and tours at the Parliament, online, and visit schools across Scotland. Digital and outreach education sessions are popular and especially appreciated by those who don’t want to travel to Edinburgh or who find coming to Edinburgh to be too challenging. Last school year, we reached schools in 69 out of 73 constituencies, and expect to reach all constituencies by the end of June 2024.

The SPCB commissioned a review into how best to deliver our education services in the most effective and inclusive way post Covid. As part of this review, our education team has engaged with schools from across Scotland to fully understand their barriers to accessing our services.

We know from this that the cost of travel can be a significant barrier, and similarly so can time out of the classroom, support availability, and transport options.  There is no single solution that addresses all barriers and we have asked officials to undertake some further work. The SPCB will consider the matter again later in 2024.