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The Sectoral Marine Plan for Offshore Wind Energy(SMP-OWE) has already carried out a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) and Habitats Regulations Appraisal (HRA). The SEA and HRA assessed the potential for impact on nursery and spawning locations from the SMP-OWE and at an individual Plan Option scale.

All aspects of marine planning include engagement with the fishing sector representatives, not least of all, the planning process for offshore wind. The Scottish Government’s sectoral marine planning process, the basis for ScotWind leasing, included fisheries representatives on both plan steering groups and provided responses to the scoping and draft plan consultations. Almost all Plan options were modified based on feedback from the fishing community.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-10967 on 23 September 2022. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

The external costs associated with the production and publication of the Building a new Scotland paper, ‘Renewing democracy through independence', are set out in the following table.

The Fuel Insecurity Fund was first established in the winter of 2020, as part of the wider Winter Support Fund, to help households struggling with their energy costs who were at risk of severely rationing, or self-disconnecting entirely because they could not afford their energy costs.

The external costs associated with the production and publication of the Building a new Scotland paper, 'Independence in the modern world. Wealthier, happier, fairer: why not Scotland?', are set out in the following table.

The Regulations underpinning Scotland’s DRS state what factors need to be considered when developing the retailer handling fee. The Scheme Administrator, Circularity Scotland Ltd, followed a robust, independent process that considered these factors to set handling fee structure.

There are no current plans to implement a Primary Authority system for devolved regulation. However, as part of the National Strategy for Economic Transformation we have set out that we are working with stakeholders to consider how regulation can be used to support economic and societal aims and use this work to continuously improve the approach to regulation in the future. This will include reviewing existing powers and processes to identify where changes could be made to support both businesses and regulators in achieving our strategic aims.

In the development phase of the Scottish 4G Infill Programme, we analysed future predicted coverage data supplied by mobile network operators. These indicated plans for commercial deployment on Barra. State Aid regulations then in force precluded S4GI deployment where there was planned commercial investment. On that basis, it was not possible to include candidate locations on Barra within the scope of the programme, and as consulted on as part of public consultations conducted by the programme in 2017 and in 2018.

Following the ScotWind and clearing announcements, the Scottish Government is undertaking a review and re-assessment of the Sectoral Marine Plan for Offshore Wind Energy (SMP-OWE). As part of this process, the draft review of the SMP-OWE and associated assessments will be consulted upon in Spring/Summer 2023. The consultation is planned to last 12 weeks. Fisheries representatives will also be asked to form part of the review steering group.