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The Scottish Government welcomed the briefing from Audit Scotland and remains firmly committed to infrastructure investment as a key factor in securing inclusive economic growth and delivering high-quality public services. The UK Government did not inflation-proof their Capital budget which has resulted in the Scottish Government facing a 7.0% real-terms fall in our Barnett funding over the medium-term. This has significantly impacted our ability to deliver all our capital infrastructure commitments.

We have been consistently open about the challenges facing the Capital budget and tough decisions will need to be taken at the 2024-25 Budget to ensure we remain fiscally sustainable. Therefore, we committed to refreshing the multi-year capital spending envelopes up to 2026-27 and resetting the infrastructure project pipeline, alongside the 2024-25 Budget. To achieve this, Scottish Ministers are focused on targeting the available capital funding to deliver the right mix of infrastructure that will deliver value-for-money and contribute to the three core missions set out in the Policy Prospectus: tacking poverty and protecting people from harm; a fair, green and growing economy; and the provision of high-quality public services across the whole of Scotland. In taking decisions, the full impact of investment against national outcomes will be considered, including geographical need. Any decisions regarding the reprioritisation of capital spending will be presented to Parliament in due course.

NHS Boards are allocated approximately £150 million of formula capital funding which is used to maintain their estate and refresh and replace their equipment base.

The remainder of the portfolio’s capital allocation is mainly directed towards delivering the capital projects that were included in the Scottish Government’s five year Infrastructure Investment Plan which was published in February 2021.

The Scottish House Condition Survey (SHCS) provides a snapshot of the Scottish housing stock in each survey year including the construction age and built form of Scottish domestic buildings. The SHCS records double glazing for occupied dwellings, however this is recorded as installed pre or post 2003, when higher requirements for double glazing were introduced. The SHCS does not record data on all public sector buildings, just Local Authority owned homes, therefore complete information requested is not available in this form.

The most recent estimates of households with double glazing installed pre 2003 broken down by privately owned, local authority and housing association is presented in the table below.

Table 1: Number of households with pre 2003 double glazing in 2019

I have not had any discussions with ministerial colleagues regarding the potential impact of the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill on the Scottish Government's international development work.

Following the appointment of the First Minister and formation of government in March 2023, 12 Ministers accepted a government issued mobile device. Please see the following list.

NHS Lothian resubmitted the OBC for the Reprovision of the Princess Alexandra Eye Pavilion in July 2021.

The document Redesign of Eye Services in NHS Lothian formed part of that submission.

There is an estimated 908 MW of community and locally owned renewable energy capacity operational in Scotland, as of the most recent annual update in December 2022. This represents 45% of our target of 2 GW capacity of community and locally owned renewable energy by 2030.

In the Onshore Wind Sector Deal, the Scottish Government and onshore wind sector have jointly committed to develop approaches to support and encourage community shared ownership models, and will publish a framework on this by the end of 2024.

The Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES) supports communities across Scotland to participate in, and benefit from, the energy transition to net zero emissions. Since its inception, CARES has offered funding of over £61 million to over 800 projects and helped support the installation of 58.6 MW of renewable energy.

CARES funding is allocated across financial years. The breakdown of funding offered to groups for financial years 2018-19, 2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23 by local authority area is set out in the following table.

CARES is a demand-led scheme, and so relies on organisations submitting successful applications for funding. This means that there is often a difference between the CARES budget and the funding offered to projects.

The figures provided below relate to the date when funding was offered, and so do not necessarily correlate to when the funding was drawn down or spent by communities.

The Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES) supports communities across Scotland to participate in, and benefit from, the energy transition. CARES has advised over 1,000 organisations, offered funding of over £61 million to over 800 projects, and helped support the installation of 58.6 MW of renewable energy.

311 organisations are currently progressing live projects through CARES. A breakdown by local authority area is provided in the following table.

These figures relate to the date when CARES funding was offered, and so do not necessarily correlate to when the funding is drawn down or spent by organisations.

We have undertaken the full suite of assessments required for the introduction of the Circular Economy (Scotland) Bill and these were published on the Scottish Government website on 14 June 2023. There is no requirement to assess the potential impact of Bills on developing countries. We are, however, committed to ensuring Scotland remains a global leader in equality, inclusion and human rights, and recently I met representatives of Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace Justice & Peace Scotland > Home (justiceandpeacescotland.org.uk) , from Malawi, who gave a very informative and moving presentation on Human Rights and Mining.