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The South West Scotland Transport Study (SWSTS), published in January 2020, includes the option for re-opening of a railway station at Thornhill within a package of measures to deliver new stations on the Glasgow South Western Line, such as at Cumnock, Thornhill, Eastriggs, Pinwherry, Dunragit and South of Ayr. This package is subject to more detailed appraisal within the second Strategic Transport Projects Review.

The Scottish Government recognises the enormous challenges facing the retail sector, exacerbated by the direct impact of COVID-19 and the restrictions in place to inhibit its spread.

Since the start of the pandemic we have allocated more than £3 billion to support businesses – this is more than a third of overall COVID-19 spend, and includes a package of 100% non-domestic rates relief for eligible retail premises in 2020-21.

As the prevalence of the virus has increased, so has our support to business, which is why we increased support by £225 million in December to reflect the tighter restrictions in place.

The Strategic Framework Business Fund provides grants of up to £3,000 every four weeks for hospitality, retail and leisure businesses that are required by law to close or alter their operations in response to regulations introduced to control the spread of COVID-19. Retailers required to close in Level 4 are therefore eligible for support through this fund, as well as the one-off top-up grant of up to £9000 we announced in recognition of the particular challenges facing the sector.

For staff of retailers required to close by law, employers are able to record their employees as being on furlough and apply through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) for a grant to cover 80% of their usual monthly wage up to a cap of £2,500. While we welcome the extension until April 2021 we continue to press the UK Government of the need to extend the scheme generally, and to extend eligibility to employees who started after 1 November 2020.

Through our Local Authority Discretionary Fund, councils can target additional support wherever they consider it most effective in the context of their local economy and business community. As such they have the option to further support retail in their area if they consider it necessary. We recently doubled this fund to £120 million, and 21 local authority schemes have launched with more coming shortly.

Information on available support can be found on the Find Business Support website.

For pre-school aged children in day care and childminder settings, the Scottish Milk and Healthy Snack Scheme is intended to replace the current UK Nursery Milk Scheme in Scotland from 1 August 2021. The new Scheme does not cover children in school settings, where the food and drink nutritional requirements for school food are covered by separate regulations. The Scottish Government has committed £993,000 to allow local authorities to continue to subsidise their local school milk schemes following the loss of access to the EU School milk scheme as a result of EU Exit.

Monitoring and reporting systems are being designed in collaboration with COSLA and the wider sector to ensure the proportionate evaluation of expenditure and delivery. Regulations will be introduced for the Scheme which will support local authorities to collect information from settings to audit spend, and monitor delivery of the Scheme. Questions around delivery of the Scheme will also form part of the Care Inspectorate’s existing annual returns. Scottish Government will continue to work closely with COSLA as a key delivery partner to consider this information to evaluate the implementation of the Scheme and understand any refinements required.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of supporting local suppliers and the opportunity to encourage the consumption of Scottish food and drink. Guidance for local authorities and settings will be developed to support delivery of the Scheme, and will encourage the sourcing of local produce wherever possible.

Yes. We have written to the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) seeking assurances that receipt of Covid 19 business grant support from the Scottish Government will not impact individuals’ state benefits entitlement. In the absence of a reply on that issue we are advising individuals to confirm with the DWP how any grant support awarded could impact their state benefits entitlement before making an application to the Newly Self Employed Hardship Fund or other Scottish Government business grant support schemes.

Scottish Government officials meet with Children’s Hearings Scotland (CHS) colleagues on a weekly basis as part of the multiagency Children’s Hearings Covid Recovery Group. The Group last met on 2 February 2021, focusing on winter 2020-21 proposals to add pace and quality to service recovery.

Sponsor officials are in near-daily contact with CHS staff on a range of issues of common interest and concern. Regular public body accountability and finance meetings are also held 3-4 times per year.

342 Panel Members left CHS in 2020. This is broadly in line with expected retention rates since Children’s Hearings Scotland’s inception in 2013. Maintaining panel membership at these levels in the face of the challenges and uncertainties posed by the Covid 19 pandemic is testament both to the outstanding dedication and commitment of these volunteers and the good wellbeing and other support measures put in place by CHS. The following table covers panel member leaver numbers since Children’s Hearings Scotland were established.

8 new posts in total, 3 substantive and 5 fixed term.

6 substantive staff and 4 on fixed term appointments.

The Scottish Government funds businesses through various programmes, some of which are administered by non-departmental public bodies or by Scottish local authorities. As such, data on total funding to individual companies is not held centrally.

The award of non-domestic rates reliefs is a matter for local authorities. The Scottish Government is committed to working with Scottish local authorities to publish lists of non-domestic rates relief recipients in accordance with the recommendations of the Barclay review, and has issued guidance to assist local authorities in doing so.

I understand that there are ongoing commercial discussions between C J Lang & Son Ltd and Post Office Ltd.

As postal services are reserved there is no locus for the Scottish Government to be directly involved in those discussions but I have written to Post Office Ltd to seek assurances about continuity of post office services to any community affected by closure and to CJ Lang & Son Ltd asking to meet with them at the earliest opportunity to discuss the matter.