Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Scottish Government has announced investment of £580m in ports and vessels to support and improve Scotland’s ferry services over the next five years, as part of our wider Infrastructure Investment Plan, unveiled in February 2021. This builds on this Government’s commitment to our island and remote communities which, since 2007, has seen us invest more than £2bn in the Clyde and Hebrides Ferry Service, the Northern Isles Ferry Service and the supporting vessel and harbour infrastructure.

As part of these investment plans, the MV Utne arrived in Scotland last week from Norway and transferred to CMAL on Monday 22 November. MV Utne will undergo modification works and is expected to enter service during the summer 2022 timetable. The announcement (14 September) of the extension of the Islay vessel invitation to tender for a second vessel is welcome and these major additions to the fleet and the resulting cascade effects will bring real benefits across our island and remote communities and businesses in the coming years.

The proposed May 2022 timetable, which is subject to review of consultation responses, would provide more seats on every day of the week compared to the current timetable.

Figures for December 2019, current capacity and the proposed May 2022 timetable are shown below.

The proposed May 2022 timetable will (a) result in approximately 26,000 tonnes less CO2 emissions from ScotRail’s fleet per year than the pre-pandemic December 2019 timetable, representing a 12.5% reduction.

The proposed timetable will (b) provide around 593,000 seats per weekday and has been designed to accommodate more than 100 million passenger journeys per year. For context, when the current franchise began, the timetable provided 505,000 seats per weekday and 93.8 million passenger journeys were carried.

ScotRail has confirmed that, (c) as a business, it is currently sized to operate the planned Fit for the Future timetable. As with all businesses, it will need to manage the challenges of a post-pandemic economy, and ScotRail will ensure sufficient staff will be available to meet the Fit for the Future timetable, which will see more trains operating than now.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-04124 on 24 November 2021. 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 Scottish Government does not hold this information.

I have written to the political group leaders of North Lanarkshire Council to advise them of the existing flexibilities and additional support that we provide as part of our Area Based Schemes. These include a higher intensity of grant-in-aid for households in extreme fuel poverty or where there are other relevant factors, for example where there are additional delivery costs due to a non-standard construction type.

I have also encouraged the Council to contribute to the review of our Area Based Scheme (ABS) guidance for 2022-23. We have asked every council in Scotland to provide evidence about any changes in delivery costs in their area. We will continue to seek the views of local authorities and COSLA about the funding and delivery of our Area Based Schemes.

I am not aware of further Ministerial correspondence from local authorities about this scheme during October or November. However Scottish Government officials routinely discuss and where necessary agree a higher intensity of grant-in-aid for some ABS projects facing additional delivery costs.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-04198 on 25 November 2021. 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

a & b) As you will be aware, the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019, (the act), introduces new national provisions, prohibiting pavement parking, double parking and parking at dropped kerbs. A suite of secondary legislation is required for this prohibition to work in practice and give local authorities the power to implement and enforce the prohibitions.

In relation to the points regarding bringing forward dropped kerbs and double parking first, Scottish Ministers need to ensure that local authorities have an effective enforcement regime in place and that local authorities are able to issue Penalty Charge Notices correctly. As such, the enforcement regimes cannot be split and need to remain constituent parts of the same package of enforcement measures. For example, in order to issue all types of ticket, the means to provide a right of appeal needs to be in place and the changes to legislation which govern this need to be made at the same time once all of the other parts of legislation are in place.

We are continuing to consult with Local Authorities, following our initial pivot to deal with the Covid 19 pandemic, to develop both the secondary legislation required to allow them to enforce the National pavement parking prohibition as well as the Parking Standards Guidance which will underpin the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019.

Additionally, we need to consult with the public on some areas contained within the secondary legislation. Local authorities will be required to undertake an assessment to identify and progress any exemptions to the pavement parking prohibition they consider necessary. We are actively working with Local Authorities to undertake this work and Scottish Ministers have provided the requested £2.4 million of funding to enable this to be progressed in a timeous manner.

The majority of the secondary legislation is likely to be in place by 2022. Some aspects however, such as the appeals process for those who wish to appeal a ticket issued for pavement parking, as mentioned above, may not be in place until 2023.

c) Transport Scotland will be undertaking an in-depth publicity campaign before implementation to make the public aware of the date that the new provisions come into force. We have previously discussed this with disability groups and within our Parking Standards Group of which Living Streets are a stakeholder. We will be progressing this in due course as per the legislative program . In addition to this we are currently exploring other ways of proactively promoting the unacceptability of parking on the pavement and highlighting the risk it causes others. We intend to undertake this as soon as possible and indeed well before mid-2022.

d) The Scottish Government recognises the detrimental impact that obstructive and irresponsible parking can have on vulnerable groups, as well as Emergency vehicles and other road users in general. Scottish Ministers have already undertaken an extensive consultation on this matter, (Improving Parking in Scotland Consultation 2017). Feedback obtained from this consultation is available at the following link:
‎ https://www.transport.gov.scot/media/42239/improving-parking-in-scotland-may-2018.pdf
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‎ Prior to the pavement parking provisions coming into force under the Act, Local Authorities will be required to assess their footways for the purposes of determining which, if any, may be appropriate to be exempt from the pavement parking prohibition. Local Authorities will be required to consider their obligations under the Equality Act 2010 throughout this determination process and prior to an Exemption Order being proposed. Ministerial Directions and Pre-Implementation Guidance will be published to assist Local Authorities in undertaking this determination process.

Ensuring electric charge points are accessible and user friendly for all is a core part of the Scottish Government’s approach to building out Scotland’s charging infrastructure. All chargers supported by Scottish Government funding must meet the requirements and recommendations set out in Transport Scotland’s good practice guide. This makes clear that installations by local authorities and other chargepoint owners should take account of duties set out in the Equalities Act 2010, noting specific accessibility considerations including in areas such as hatched markings and dropped kerbs.

Transport Scotland is also working in partnership with Scottish Enterprise through the Can Do Innovation Challenge framework to improve the design of electric vehicle charge points to make them even more accessible. This project is being advanced with input from the disabled community and organisations including Motability, the Mobility and Access Committee, The Roads for all forum, Perth and Kinross Inclusive Living Centre and Disabled Equality Scotland.

To ensure outcomes of our current innovation challenges and user engagement is captured, Transport Scotland is working with The Department for Transport, the charity Motability, and the British Standards Institution on the development of Accessible Electric Vehicle Chargepoint standards. The set of advisory standards are due to be developed by Summer 2022, once developed, they will provide specifications for the installers and operators of public charging infrastructure to ensure a more accessible and inclusive charging system across Scotland, and the UK as a whole.

The Scottish Government criminal proceedings database does not hold information based on Police Scotland operational divisions.

The latest available information on the number of people convicted for ‘driving under the influence’ is published in the ‘Criminal Proceedings in Scotland – 2019-20’ statistical bulletin, table 4(b).  A breakdown of the various crime types that make up this category is provided in the following table, please note that we are unable to separate alcohol related offences from drug related offences in some crime groups.  

People convicted of offences related to driving under the influence¹, by crime type, 2018-19 to 2019-20

1. Where main charge.

Source: Scottish Government criminal proceedings database

Information on the number of people convicted for ‘causing death by careless driving when under the influence of drink/drugs’ can be found under the 'Supporting documents' to the aforementioned bulletin at this link Criminal Proceedings in Scotland, 2019-20 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).