Questions and answers

Question reference: S6W-09953

Asked by: Carol Mochan, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 25 July 2022
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 18 August 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reported concerns by football fans in south Scotland that current public transport services do not run frequently enough to attend an evening football match and return home afterwards.

Question reference: S6W-09920

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Friday, 22 July 2022
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 18 August 2022

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-07089 by Mairi Gougeon on 15 March 2022, whether it can provide an update on how much funding (a) it allocated to and (b) was distributed to successful grant applicants from the Croft House Grant scheme in (a) 2021-22 and (b) 2022-23.

Financial Year	Budget Allocation	Actual Grant Paid (£)
2021-22	£1.9m	924,060.30
2022-23 *	£1.9m	160,505.95

* As at 1 August 2022

Funding under the Croft House Grant is provided retrospectively in up to three stages. For this reason, funding committed in any financial year can be claimed by applicants and paid in both the current and following two to three financial years.
A high proportion of house builds are being delayed due to material and labour supply issues, which has resulted in fewer claims being submitted in 2021-22 and in the early part of 2022-23.
No CHG application has been refused due to a lack of budget.

Question reference: S6W-10032

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 July 2022
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 18 August 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how much of the Just Transition Fund it plans to allocate to the training and upskilling of installers of renewable technologies.

The Just Transition Fund was established to support and accelerate the transition of the region and support the role of Aberdeen and the wider North East as one of Scotland’s centres of excellence for the transition to a net zero economy. The call for year one projects closed on 15 July 2022 and expressions of interest are currently being assessed against the published Fund criteria. It will not be possible to indicate what portion of the Fund will be allocated specifically to upskilling activity until final decisions on awards have concluded. An announcement of successful bids will be made in due course.

Question reference: S6W-10027

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 July 2022
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 18 August 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what it and its agencies are doing to encourage private investment in the Just Transition in the north east region; how much private investment it has targeted to be spent, and by what date.

The Scottish Government recognises the private sector action required to deliver a just transition to net zero. Our Global Capital Investment Plan outlines these opportunities and we are expanding our Green Investment Portfolio to bring together market-ready projects worth £3 billion as well as establishing an investor panel to attract investment to a pipeline of projects.

In the North East, we engaged extensively over Spring 2022 on the design of the £500 million Just Transition Fund to understand how it can have maximum impact in the region. We are also a full partner in the Aberdeen City Region Deal, which is stimulating private investment through partnership with Opportunity North East and has already seen £59 million of private investment committed to the region for digital infrastructure.

Question reference: S6W-10036

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 July 2022
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 18 August 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to build manufacturing capacity in order to enable infrastructure for the ScotWind projects to be manufactured in Scotland; what proportion, if any, of the Just Transition Fund it will use to assist this development, and whether it plans for manufacturing capability to be situated in the north east region, or throughout Scotland.

The ScotWind projects committed to investment of up to £25 billion across the Scottish supply chain across the 17 ScotWind offshore wind projects as set out in their Supply Chain Development Statements. This work is further complemented by the Scottish Offshore Wind Energy Council’s (SOWEC) Collaborative Framework as a practical way for developers and Scottish ports to work together, helping to build a long-term pipeline of work, creating certainty that ports need to prioritise investment in higher value activities like fabrication. By working together developers can identify joint opportunities, mitigating risks in bringing together the infrastructure needed to build out the full pipeline of ScotWind projects. The call for year one projects of the Just Transition Fund closed on 15 July 2022 and expressions of interest are currently being assessed against the published Fund criteria. It will not be possible to indicate what portion of the Fund will be allocated specifically to manufacturing capability until final decisions on awards have concluded.

Question reference: S6W-10021

Asked by: Liam Kerr, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Wednesday, 27 July 2022
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 18 August 2022

To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to maintain the gross value added (GVA) of the north east throughout and following a fair and managed Just Transition.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting and accelerating the transition of the North East as a centre of excellence for the transition to a net zero economy, as evidenced by our £500 million Just Transition Fund. The Scottish Government is also a full partner in the Aberdeen City Region Deal, contributing £125 million over 10 years alongside an additional £254 million, which will help ensure economic transformation for the North East with inclusive growth, increased wellbeing and a just transition to net zero. We are investing a separate £32.5 million through the Moray Growth Deal to support a number of projects that will grow the region’s economy.

Question reference: S6W-09911

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Thursday, 21 July 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 18 August 2022

To ask the Scottish Government how much (a) it has allocated to and (b) has been allocated to projects from the (i) Rural Housing Fund and (ii) Islands Housing Fund in each year since 2020-21.

The Rural and Islands Housing Fund (RIHF) provides an additional funding route for organisations, such as community trusts, who are not able to access traditional affordable housing funding to further increase the long term availability of affordable housing in rural Scotland.

The RIHF has been described as a ‘game changer’ for community-led housing development helping increase the supply of affordable housing in rural and island areas. Taken together with our Affordable Housing Supply Programme, this Fund helped deliver more than 6,000 affordable homes in these areas between 2016-17 and 2020-21.

In November 2020, we announced that the RIHF would be extended beyond March 2021, with up to £30 million made available to support the development of affordable homes in rural and island areas across Scotland in the current Parliamentary term. Given this is a demand led fund, the monies made available in each year reflect the level of activity requiring to be funded in that year.

The following table shows the monies allocated by year to the fund and the actual spend:

Financial Year	Budget Allocated £m	Actual Spend £m
2020-21	5.000	4.796
2021-22	6.000	4.793
2022-23	6.250	*0.706
Total	17.250	10.295

*Actual spend in first quarter (to end June 2022)

In terms of funding commitments made to projects, we have approved grant for individual projects as follows. Please note that this grant allocation will be expended over a number of years depending on the rate of progress on individual projects:

Financial Year	Grant Approved £m
2020-21	8.222
2021-22	5.101
2022-23 (part)	1.512
Total	14.835

Question reference: S6W-09914

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Date lodged: Thursday, 21 July 2022
Current Status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 18 August 2022

To ask the Scottish Government for what reasons Argyll and Bute Health and Social Care Partnership is not included in Healthcare Improvement Scotland’s Hospital at Home scheme.

The announcement of funding to support the development of Hospital at Home followed a round of engagement between Scottish Government and Healthcare Improvement Scotland with all Health Boards and Health and Social Care Partnerships. Initially Argyll and Bute and NHS Highland were one of a number of areas that did not submit an expression of interest in relation to national support and funding.

Following a further demonstration on Hospital at Home at the recent NHS Scotland Conference, Argyll & Bute’s Health and Social Care Partnership have expressed their interest in developing Hospital at Home, and Healthcare Improvement Scotland are facilitating a workshop to explore this opportunity further.

Question reference: S6W-09903

Asked by: Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney Islands, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Date lodged: Thursday, 21 July 2022
Current Status: Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 18 August 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on when the Fair Fares Review will be published,

The Fair Fares Review was established to ensure a sustainable and integrated approach to public transport fares as we recover from the pandemic.

The review is being undertaken in a phased approach, to enable options to be considered and announced/ trialled or delivered throughout the course of the review. I expect interim options to be presented by Transport Scotland this year, given the cost of living crisis. The full review will conclude in early 2023.

Question reference: S6W-09912

Asked by: Donald Cameron, MSP for Highlands and Islands, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
Submitting member has a registered interest.
Date lodged: Thursday, 21 July 2022
Current Status: Answered by Shona Robison on 18 August 2022

To ask the Scottish Government whether it can commit to (a) extending and (b) increasing the (i) Rural Housing Fund and (ii) Islands Housing Fund for each year of the current parliamentary session.

The Rural and Islands Housing Fund (RHIF) has been described as a ‘game changer’ for community-led housing development helping increase the supply of affordable housing in rural and island areas. Taken together with our Affordable Housing Supply Programme, this Fund helped deliver more than 6,000 affordable homes in these areas between 2016-17 and 2020-21.

In November 2020, we announced that the RIHF would be extended beyond March 2021, with up to £30 million made available to support the development of affordable homes in rural and island areas across Scotland in the current Parliamentary term. Given this is a demand led fund, the monies made available in each year reflect the level of activity requiring to be funded in that year.

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