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There are three provisions in the Air Weapons and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2015 relating to taxis and private hire cars. The provision in relation to testing of private hire car drivers came into effect in November 2016; the provision to allow licensing authorities to refuse to grant private hire licences on grounds of overprovision will not come into effect until May 2017, and the provision in relation to exemptions from requirements of sections 10 to 21 of the 1982 Act is still to come into full effect. As such no assessment of the effects of these provisions has been undertaken.

The potential use of maglev as a means of linking Edinburgh and Glasgow was considered, but in the light of its costs, it was concluded that a more appropriate means would be to enhance existing railway assets, which are fully integrated within a wider rail network. Also to develop further options for high speed rail, to be compatible with the development of the HS2 network.

In relation to digital skills, the Government and its partner bodies are working to equip all young people with the digital skills they need to thrive in modern society and the workplace, from basic digital literacy through to more specialist computing science disciplines, including the computational thinking and technical skills required in software development and coding.

Launched in September 2016, our new Digital Learning and Teaching Strategy brings together a number of actions to embed the use of technology in learning and teaching right across the curriculum. These include a commitment to refresh the experiences and outcomes in the technologies area of the curriculum to make them more relevant, ambitious and forward looking.

We are increasing the support for the teaching and learning of digital skills and providing new opportunities for learners. The Barefoot Computing programme, for example, gives primary school teachers access to a range of on-line teaching resource materials and workshops to enable them to deliver computing science and computational thinking learning across range of subjects; particularly maths and science. Older pupils can benefit from access to the wider range of relevant vocational qualifications offered by SQA and pathways such as the new Foundation Apprenticeship in Software Development introduced by Skills Development Scotland.

More broadly, to support digital skills development in line with industry needs, the Government has made £8.5 million available through the Digital Scotland Business Excellence Partnership. Achievements have included: the Digital World marketing campaign which aims to raise awareness of the opportunities and benefits a career in IT can bring; and Digital Xtra which provides young people with an opportunity to develop their digital skills through extra-curricular opportunities such as coding clubs and competitions.

With regards to STEM subjects in schools, the Government is investing in practical support for STEM teachers at both primary and secondary schools through the Scottish Schools Education Research Centre and the National Numeracy and Mathematics Hub and through the support for teaching and learning of STEM subjects provided by Education Scotland.

Our STEM education and training strategy, which is currently out to consultation, sets out our current activities in detail. It also sets out our plans for additional action to ensure young people are enthused and inspired to study STEM subjects at school and to continue their studies to obtain more specialised skills in the senior phase, after school and throughout their lives.

In 2014, we published guidance on the Conduct of Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood (RSHP) education in schools. This clearly states how important it is that RSHP education addresses diversity and reflects issues relating to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex young people or those with LGBTI parents, such as same sex marriage and hate-crime reporting. Through the delivery of RSHP education, all children and young people are encouraged to understand the importance of consent, dignity and respect for themselves and the views of others.

The Scottish Government will continue to engage with Stonewall Scotland, LGBT Youth Scotland and the TIE Campaign to ensure schools address the important issues LGBT young people face and to meet the manifesto commitment to promote an inclusive approach to sex and relationships education.

The Scottish Government has not carried out any analysis on the impact of introducing a maximum earnings limit for people.

The Scottish Government undertakes on-going analysis on the distribution and variation of earnings in Scotland. Following the Office for National Statistics publication of the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings the Scottish Government prepares analysis which can be found at the following link. The most recent information for 2016 was published in October 2016.

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Labour-Market/Earnings

Scottish and UK Government Officials are currently working in partnership with Network Rail and HS2 Ltd to identify options that could be implemented between 2019 and 2029 to improve journey times, capacity, resilience and reliability on routes between England and Scotland. The Scottish Government's ambitions for high speed rail services in Scotland are being pursued as part of that North of HS2 to Scotland Working Group.

The Queensferry Crossing is expected to be fully open to traffic in May 2017, ahead of its June contractual completion date and is being delivered £245 million under budget since construction started in June 2011.

I requested that the ScotRail Alliance to put together an improvement plan. This plan was published on 29 November 2016 and can be accessed from the following link:https://www.scotrail.co.uk/about-scotrail/how-were-performing

Both myself and officials at Transport Scotland continue to work with ScotRail as it progresses the various elements of the improvement plan.

In November 2015, the Scottish Government launched “Safe, Secure and Prosperous: A Cyber Resilience Strategy for Scotland” which provides a framework for improving Scotland’s cyber resilience and helping to keep people, businesses and the public sector safe when using digital technology. The strategy sets out its vision to ensure Scotland can become a cyber resilient nation by 2020. A key outcome is to ensure our businesses and organisations recognise the risks of the digital world and are well-prepared to manage them.

Over the last four years, the Scottish Government has funded the Scottish Business Resilience Centre (SBRC) to enable it to work with SMEs to improve awareness of and resilience to cyber-attacks. The SBRC are one of many key stakeholders the Scottish Government is working with to improve Scotland’s cyber resilience. The Digital Scotland Business Excellence Partnership, a collaboration involving public and private sector bodies, is supporting various projects including the development of a Cyber Resilience Toolkit for Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and Business Gateway staff to ensure they are adequately skilled to offer information and guidance on cyber resilience when advising businesses. The toolkit is also being made available to the wider public.

The Scottish Government’s investment in Prestwick Airport is on a commercial basis, in the form of loan funding. Scotland's Budget: Draft Budget 2017-18 allocates loan support of £9.4 million for the airport in 2017-18.