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As the information requested runs over several pages, a copy of the table listing those Lead Partners paid between September 2019 and 31 December 2023 has been placed in the Parliament's Reference Centre BIB number 65192 .

The Scottish Government’s Aviation Statement will be published on 24 July ( https://www.transport.gov.scot/publication/aviation-statement ) and will set out the actions we will take on national and international connectivity, and on decarbonisation.

The actions and outcomes described in the Aviation Statement have been shaped by our commitments and existing policies on aviation, and the feedback received in our public consultation. The Statement contains a mixture of short, medium and longer term commitments. It covers the period to 2045, in line with our commitment to attaining overall net zero emissions.

The Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 is a multi-topic Act with an extensive number of statutory instruments needed to implement the various parts. Given the scale of this piece of legislation we have taken a measured and considered approach in implementing the Act.

Large sections of the Act have been fully implemented including workplace parking, low emission zones, and parking prohibitions. Significant progress is being made in relation to the remaining areas including bus services (with franchising and partnership powers commenced in December 2023), and ticketing arrangements and schemes.

In relation to your specific questions:

1. We are exploring opportunities to enhance open data so more public transport information is available to users and third parties. Legislation is not the sole route, our Bus Open Data provisions in the Transport (Scotland) Act are high level to allow us to work through what can be done without legislation; recognising technology advancements and operators’ positive participation already through services such as Traveline Scotland. However we are actively considering secondary legislation requirements in light of Department for Transport advances and our current data provision services in Scotland and will seek further feedback from local authorities and Regional Transport Partnerships.

2. We will be laying regulations before the end of 2024 on the appointment, removal and replacement of panel members; the remuneration of panel members; and the process to be followed by the panel in making decisions.

3. The National Smart Ticketing Advisory Board (NSTAB), established in 2023, will advise on national ticketing standards, as well as delivery of measures from the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019. Timescales and costs of delivering a national integrated ticketing system will be supported by the advice of NSTAB.

I met the Chinese Consul General Zhang Biao on 12 June at the Consul General’s request. The Consul General raised the prospect of a friendship arrangement between the City of Edinburgh Council and Kaohsiung. I made clear that the Scottish Government could not instruct, nor influence local authority decision making, regardless of the topic or issue. He re-iterated that the Scottish Government policy regarding Taiwan had not changed.

Within a backdrop of wider real term funding cuts we provisionally allocated £27m Financial Transactions for FY 2024-25 to re-open OMSE on 20 June 2024.

Based on the previous financial years spend and units, we have estimated that this allocation could provide an estimated 466 units.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-28494 on 19 July 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 .

I met the Chinese Consul General Zhang Biao on 12 June at the Consul General’s request. The Consul General raised the prospect of a friendship arrangement between the City of Edinburgh Council and Kaohsiung. I made clear that the Scottish Government could not instruct, nor influence local authority decision making, regardless of the topic or issue and re-iterated that the Scottish Government policy regarding Taiwan had not changed.

The business case work is of vital importance, and we are continuing to progress this with input from the project partners. There are outstanding matters, both financial and technical which require completion before the business case review can be concluded and presented to Ministers. All partners are focused on resolving these issues and finalising the business case.

The Open Market Shared Equity Scheme (OMSE) is available to first-time buyers and priority access groups. OMSE is a demand led scheme and as such The Scottish Government does not estimate how many priority access applications there will be per financial year.

Applicants to OMSE have the choice to declare on their application which route they are applying under, whether that be as a first-time buyer or a priority access group. This means that some first-time buyers may also be disabled, a veteran etc however this information will not be captured as part of their application.

Due to the demand led nature of the scheme we also do not project estimates for geographical or Local Authority areas.

Published information on OMSE home purchases in each Local Authority area for previous financial years can be found here: Affordable Housing Supply Programme - More homes - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

Our evaluation reports are available via this link: Shared equity schemes: evaluation reports - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . The evaluation concluded that OMSE provides significant additionality, and is effective in enabling lower income households to overcome price and deposit constraints to become a homeowner.

The Scottish Government has continued to monitor the performance of OMSE which delivered over 900 affordable homes for priority groups and first time buyers in 2023-24. In 2022 we also made several evidence based adjustments to the scheme to further support priority groups into affordable home ownership.

Based on previous years’ financial spend we expect that the current budget could provide up to an additional 466 units.