Seòmar agus comataidhean

We are working closely with local authorities and with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) and doing all we can to speed up the matching process and increase the numbers of displaced people moving into host accommodation.

On 22 September, the Scottish Government published its first summary of the latest Scotland-level data and information on people displaced by the war in Ukraine coming to Scotland through the Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme visa schemes, including data on the number of displaced people in welcome accommodation: Key points - Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme in Scotland: statistics - gov.scot.

We have committed £250 million to restoring 250,000 hectares of degraded peatlands by 2030.

In 2021-22, the Scottish Government provided £15.58 million to our delivery partners to support peatland restoration across Scotland.

In our 2021-22 Programme for Government, the Scottish Government pledged to take forward work to develop and consult on a ban on the sale of peat-related gardening products as part of our wider commitment to phase out the use of peat in horticulture. This aligns with the Welsh and UK governments’ proposal, as stated in their joint consultation, to end the retail sale of peat and we support their approach. We chose to continue with our plans to launch our own consultation, designed to gather the information we need to form a plan honed to the specific needs of Scotland and its people.

In our 2021-22 Programme for Government, the Scottish Government pledged to take forward work to develop and consult on a ban on the sale of peat-related gardening products as part of our wider commitment to phase out the use of peat in horticulture. We are working with industry to understand exactly where transitional issues lie so that we can remove peat from horticulture. We will soon launch our consultation, which will inform ambitious timescales for phasing out the use of peat in horticulture.

The Scottish Government will soon launch our consultation, which will inform ambitious timescales for phasing out the use of peat in horticulture.

We continue to carefully consider the report and recommendations made by the previous Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee as regards regional marine planning and are working to finalise our formal response, which will be published this Autumn.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-09901 on‎ 15 August 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

There is an existing Ferries Plan in place until December 2022.

Deer management is currently carried out across land holdings of varying size from 10Ha to over 10,000Ha. The extent of the deer management and any required collaboration is more dependent on the species and land type rather than any minimum size. For ‘territorial’ species such as roe deer the scale of management will often be at the individual farm unit; whereas for open hill red deer, that range across multiple large properties, the management scale expands to Deer Management Groups that cover many thousands of hectares.

The Code of Practice on Deer Management prescribes to everybody who owns or manages wild deer on someone else’s land (irrespective of the size of that land holding), how they should deliver sustainable deer management. A review of compliance with the Deer Code published 2019 concluded that where it was relevant to them, a majority of owner-occupiers, across varying land holdings, had undertaken actions to meet each of the themes outlined in the Deer Code. NatureScot, in their role as Scotland’s deer authority, work with a range of partners, including the Association of Deer Management Groups, local deer management groups and individual land managers to develop effective planning and deliver deer management across Scotland.

Table 1 presents the gross estimated income from the higher property rate, by property class.

The figures presented are gross amounts and do not take account of reductions in liability due to reliefs awarded in 2022-23. This is due to the application of a £27,500 cap per ratepayer on retail, hospitality and leisure relief in 2022-23 which means that it is not possible for the Scottish Government to robustly estimate the breakdown of net figures by property class.

Figures in Table 1 are broken down by property class as the Scottish Government does not hold property-level data on industry sectors. Property class is a classification used by Scottish Assessors to describe the type of property, and may not necessarily accurately reflect the use of a property.

Table 1: Estimated gross HPR income, by property class in 2022-23

The Scottish Government recognises that Social Isolation and Loneliness is a public health issue, which has been exacerbated because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and will continue to be affected by the ongoing cost crisis.