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The Town and Country (General Permitted Development) (Scotland) Amendment Order 2014 (the Order), Part 2 D, Class 9E and 9F already provides that planning permission is not required for the installation of an electrical outlet mounted on a wall or for an upstand with an electrical outlet mounted on it for recharging electric vehicles, as long as the area is lawfully used for off–street parking.

In addition, class 2B of the Order allows an amendment to a house which is not an enlargement, including charging outlets, as long as the development would not project more than one metre from the external surface of the house. Class 4A allows similar developments for flats.

None of the above permitted development rights apply in conservation areas, and they are subject to requirements set out in the Order.

A review of permitted development rights for electric vehicle charging infrastructure will form part of phase 2 of our wider programme to review and extend permitted development rights and is scheduled to commence in January 2021.

£3,384,042.53 of investment was made from the tackling food insecurity budget, also known as the Fair Food Fund, across the 2019-20 financial year. The Fair Food Fund includes a number of work streams and our investment is as follows.

Fair Food Transformation Fund – Interim Funding

In 2019 we launched the Investing in Communities Fund, a new single harmonised communities fund, to replace several funding mechanisms, including the Fair Food Transformation Fund.

In order to avoid potential breaks in income from a move to the new fund, the Scottish Government provided 32 legacy organisations with 6 months of interim funding, up to 50% of their 2018-19 awards, amounting to £372,061.50. These organisations are detailed in the response to parliamentary question S5W-21342 on 21 February 2019. In total, around £1.4m was provided to organisations tackling food insecurity, exclusive of school holiday food insecurity, through the Investing in Communities Fund in 2019-20.

Tackling Food Insecurity During the School Holidays

The Scottish Government invested £1,879,917.38 towards tackling food insecurity during the school holidays in 2019-20. This funding supported 35 organisations, at both local and national level, and was delivered both directly through the Fair Food Fund and through the Investing in Communities Fund.

Policy Development and Engagement

The Scottish Government invested £176,208 for policy development and engagement, including continuation of Nourish Scotland and Poverty Truth Community’s delivery of the Dignity in Practice programme and closer change analysis of several models of support for distinct at risk groups.

FareShare

In addition to their core grant, national food redistribution charity FareShare received funding to increase the capacity of the community food sector and extend their reach to cover the Highlands and Islands, totalling £455,855.65 in 2019-20.

EU Exit Mitigation Funding

Additional Scottish Government funding mitigated against the potential impact of the UK’s exit from the European Union. FareShare were provided with an additional £500,000 to purchase ambient, chilled and frozen food to support community food initiatives responding to food insecurity, bolstering community resilience to the impacts of a potential No Deal EU Exit.

Summary

Factors such as background sound that may lead to raised voices or cause people to lean-in close to others to be heard are a risk factor in the transmission of coronavirus. This is recognised by a wide body of publicly available scientific evidence in relation to the role of aerosols in the transmission of viruses. The current position of no background sound, including low level music and audio from television, is a measured and cautious approach to reduce risk. It is being kept under review and government has engaged with industry experts to consider how guidance can be developed to allow low level background sound to be managed safely when transmission rates are back to a manageable level.

The current position of no background sound in hospitality in Scotland, including low level music and audio from television, is a measured and cautious approach to reduce risk. There have been no discussions with other countries in relation to this measure. It is being kept under review and government has engaged with industry experts to consider how guidance can be developed to allow low level background sound to be managed safely when transmission rates are back to a manageable level.

a) The Scottish Government did not intervene in the production of Bell Bottom to halt filming work.

b/c)The information requested about Scottish Government agencies and other public bodies is not held centrally.

ai) and aii) The Scottish Government announced on 22 March that Scotland would be placed under lockdown. Although the Scottish Government did not have any direct contact with productions actively filming in Scotland at this time, any production filming in Scotland would have needed to halt, as all non-essential workplaces were required to shut. We do not have a list of productions affected. On 14 July guidance on the safe re-opening of film and TV production during the coronavirus pandemic in Scotland was published, enabling the resumption of production activity.

Further information on this guidance is available online at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-on-film-and-high-end-tv-production/ .

The Scottish Government has not otherwise intervened to halt any productions.

bi) and bii)The information requested on behalf of Scottish Government agencies and other public bodies is not held centrally.

I last met with a range of hospitality and tourism representatives on 07 October.

I meet regularly with the industry, often through representative bodies such as the Scottish Tourism Alliance, UK Hospitality and others and a wide range of issues are discussed such as funding support, marketing, test and protect, visitor management, business rates, VAT and other issues.

Scottish Government officials also have weekly contact with the same bodies and others through meetings, phone calls and emails and through strategic groups including the Scottish Tourism Emergency Response Group and the Scottish Tourism Recovery Taskforce.

The production company was able to make use of the quarantine exemption provided by the Health Protection (Coronavirus) (International Travel) (Scotland) Regulations 2020. Under this exemptions, crew members were able to travel from their accommodation to a production base during the 14-day quarantine period.

The Scottish Government has had no direct engagement with the producers of the Indian film, Bell Bottom. However, we are aware that Screen Scotland engaged with the production in the planning stages and when it arrived in Scotland.

The entire £70 million recycling fund announced in the 2020-21 Programme for Government is new funding.