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Scottish Government officials met with representatives of the independent brewing sector on 2 July 2021. We will consider their views alongside the findings of the Gateway Review into Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme.

Housing Options Scotland receives funding from the Scottish Government to provide housing advice and advocacy services to older and disabled people in Scotland. This includes support for the Military Matters project aimed specifically to help veterans and which also attracts funding from other sources.

Scottish Government funding is set in a framework of annual budgets. The Scottish budget is an annual Act of the Scottish Parliament. Annual budgets are set under the terms of the Fiscal Framework agreed between the UK and Scottish Governments to implement the Scotland Act 2016 powers. The size of the Scottish Budget is determined by a number of elements, including the block grant allocation from the UK Budget, which is also set in single year budgets.

Due to this framework being set in single year budgets, SG funding is allocated to Housing Options Scotland on a yearly basis. SG has provided funding to Housing Options Scotland over many years and we are fully supportive of ensuring this unique and important service continues.

Ministers will consider the Scottish Veteran’s Commissioner report, Housing: Making a Home in Civilian Society as a whole and formally respond in due course.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-01036 on
13 July 2021. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

We recognise the importance of good, safe, secure and warm homes for people’s wellbeing and our vision is that everyone should have a home that meets their needs.

Priority for social housing in Scotland is based on housing need and an assessment of an applicant’s individual circumstances. Scottish housing law requires social landlords to give reasonable preference to specific categories of applicant. This means that anyone including Service leavers, ex-Service personnel, their spouses and partners who find themselves homeless, threatened with homelessness or with a high level of housing need, for example where they are leaving tied accommodation, need family support or have medical needs, will receive priority for social housing.

Following the publication of the Scottish Veterans Commissioners report “Housing: Making a Home in Civilian Society,” we will consider the recommendation to encourage all social landlords to include ex-Service personnel as a priority group in their Allocations policies and will develop an action plan to take this forward.

The use of the local authority discretionary funding was entirely at the discretion of local authorities and we do not currently hold data on applications by or allocations to individual type of business.

The Scottish Government regularly publishes statistics and management information relating to its Covid-19 business grants on its website which can be found at Coronavirus (COVID-19): business support funding statistics - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

The Scottish Government does not hold any specific data on the number of kennel and cattery businesses operating in Scotland and so is unable to provide an estimate of how much it would cost to target additional support at this sector.

The last year has been extremely difficult for many of Scotland’s businesses and we have engaged widely with businesses and representative organisations throughout this crisis to ensure we understood all the impacts and how best to support businesses.

It has not been possible to meet directly with every sector impacted by the pandemic and whilst we have not met directly with their representative organisations, we have engaged extensively with the cattery and kennels sector through correspondence.

Additionally, a regular programme of engagement continues with organisations that represent businesses including the Confederation of British Industry, Federation of Small Businesses, the Institute of Directors, Scottish Chambers of Commerce, SCDI, Scottish Financial Enterprise, Scottish Retail Consortium, Scottish Tourism Alliance and Scotland Food and Drink to discuss a range of priority issues, including economic recovery as restrictions are lifted and business support.

To date, over 75 expressions of interest have been submitted by local authorities. Zero Waste Scotland is currently working with local authorities to develop detailed bids. These will be reviewed in line with the fund’s governance arrangements before a decision is made on initial funding awards.

The Scottish Government has worked in partnership with COSLA, SOLACE and Zero Waste Scotland to develop arrangements for the fund. More information on the aims, scope and distribution of the fund is available at: https://www.zerowastescotland.org.uk/local-authorities/recycling-improvement-fund

In line with Investing for jobs: Capital Spending Review , the table outlines the distribution of the £70 million fund over the 5 year period:

The Scottish Government microplastics monitoring programme began in 2013, and has undertaken annual surveys since that time. There have been nearly 400 locations sampled between 2013 and 2020. There is currently an insufficient data series to determine if a trend exists or to be able to say when a baseline may be determined. However annual surveys continue to gather data, in order to work toward determining a baseline and/or trends.

The Scottish Government is taking action across the board to reduce marine litter including via preventative as well as removal initiatives, legislation and policies under our Marine Litter Strategy.

Preventative measures to reduce plastic pollution sources have included introducing bans on rinse-off personal care products containing plastic microbeads in 2018, and on plastic-stemmed cotton buds in 2019. We have also drafted regulations to restrict many other problematic single-use plastic items such as expanded polystyrene cups and containers, cutlery, plates, stirrers, straws, balloon sticks and all oxo-degradable products. Legislation is expected to be introduced at the end of 2021.

Many behaviour change initiatives have also been supported to reduce marine litter sources. In May 2020, regulations were passed by parliament for our ambitious Deposit Return Scheme (DRS), covering drinks in glass, PET plastic, and metal containers. We are the first UK administration to develop a Deposit Return Scheme and we believe that DRS will help raise recycling rates, cut emissions, and reduce littering.

In addition, we supported the Trial Period Campaign in 2019 promoting reusable sanitary products over single-use items. We have also supported behaviour change within industry to reduce the second largest direct source of microplastic pollution which is in the form of plastic pellets, powders and flakes, commonly known as nurdles. This has been achieved with the development of a Publicly Available Specification with the British Standards Institution to prevent loss at sites handling or managing pellets and will be published in July 2021. Future work includes building on pellet loss prevention measures and improving waste management in our fishing industry to reduce this source of litter and increase recycling rates.

To support removal, we have funded KIMO’s Fishing for Litter project which helps fishers to responsibly dispose of waste passively caught during fishing operations. We have funded the annual bulk removal of waste at Arrochar, a marine litter sink case study area where the local shore area is subject to a disproportionate level of plastic pollution. To target riverine litter which contributes to the marine plastic pollution problem, we also fund Keep Scotland Beautiful’s Upstream Battle project. The Scottish Government also recognises the important role of volunteers in removing beach litter before it is washed back to sea, and funds Local Coastal Partnerships to support local communities in organising beach cleans. The refreshed Marine Litter Strategy will increase focus on marine litter removal and target rivers which are major pathways for plastics into our seas.