Seòmar agus comataidhean

The governance body of a Green Freeport, which will need to be approved by the Scottish and UK Governments, will be required to maintain a record of all businesses operating, or applying to operate, within the tax site. That record must be kept up-to-date, contain information about the beneficial owner of the business, and be readily accessible to law enforcement agencies, including HMRC and the National Crime Agency. Law enforcement will use this information to carry out checks on the businesses and their beneficial owners before businesses are authorised to operate within the tax site.

Hospitality businesses, like all other businesses, may seek advice on SME funding sources from the Business Gateway ( https://www.bgateway.com/ ) who have a network of offices across Scotland and will tailor the advice dependant on the particular business needs and location. This could include advice on possible grant support in areas such as Research and Development to help bring new ideas to market, on technical and commercial feasibility studies, or on knowledge transfer partnerships with educational institutions. Hospitality businesses can also search the ‘FindBusinessSupport’ portal ( https://findbusinesssupport.gov.scot/ ) which lists all the main sources of advice, training and funding – including the loans and equity funds under the Scottish Growth Scheme - for businesses in any sector.

The Scottish Government criminal proceedings database does not hold information on the specific type of powered transporters involved in charges prosecuted in Scottish Courts.

Please note: The Criminal Proceedings database is not a live system and the latest available information is for 2019-20 financial year. Information for 2020-21 will not be available until publication of the Criminal Proceedings in Scotland, 2020-21 Statistical Bulletin. This is planned to be published later in 2022.

The dates of all Scottish Government Official and National Statistics publications are pre-announced, and the up to date list of future publications can be found at: https://www2.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/ForthcomingPubs

The Scottish Government committed in our most recent Programme for Government to launch a public consultation on legal services regulation reform, to consider what changes may be required to the statutory framework to protect consumer interests and promote a flourishing legal sector.

Delivering on that commitment, the consultation was published in 1 October 2021 and closed on 24 December 2021. The proposals consulted were developed collaboratively with stakeholders representing the legal sector and the consumer view.

The Scottish Government is carefully considering the responses to the consultation, and a consultation analysis report will be published later this year.

The Zero Waste Plan sets out the 70% of all waste recycled target in the main section of the document. The suggestion of a 70% household specific waste recycling target in Annex A, section 5.5, is incorrect.

Scotland’s target to recycle 70% of all waste by 2025 is a key commitment, underlined in our ‘ Making Things Last ’ Circular Economy Strategy and Climate Change Plan update .

This information is not held centrally.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-06745 on 10 March 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 data the Scottish Government receives from Police Scotland is a general count of the number of crimes and offences recorded by the police, split by local authority. We do not receive further details on the characteristics of these cases and so are unable to provide a further breakdown for the offences recorded under Sections 1 and 2 of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 (which relate to unauthorised access to computers, with the intent to commit or facilitate the commissioning of further offences). In terms of Section 3 of the Computer Misuse Act 1990, police records for all cases in 2020-21 were manually reviewed as part of producing a new chapter on the estimated volume of recorded cyber-crime in Scotland (included within the 2020-21 recorded crime National Statistics). Section 3 relates to unauthorised acts which impair the operation of computers, including preventing or hindering access to programs, data etc. At the time these cases were reviewed, a majority of them did not have a confirmed country of origin for the perpetrator. For those that did, none of them originated from Russia.

The applicant prospectus states that Green Freeport operators must adhere to the OECD Code of Conduct for Clean Free Trade Zones – and the specific anti-illicit trade and security measures therein. In addition they must meet the current obligations set out in the UK’s Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017. Furthermore, operators of Green Freeports will be responsible for the security of the customs site. As part of this, they will be required to be authorised as a customs site operator and meet requirements set out by HMRC.

The Green Freeport governance body will be required to actively manage security risks across physical, personnel, and cyber domains, and to work with the Scottish Government, HMRC, Border Force, the National Crime Agency, Home Office and other relevant agencies and government departments to conduct an annual audit of the security measures in place and any breaches.

As part of the application process, applicants will be asked to set out what steps they will take to ensure that the customs sites and tax sites in their proposed Green Freeport will be secure against illicit activity, including organised criminal activity, money laundering, smuggling and people trafficking. Applicants that do not show adequate consideration of steps to prevent illicit activity will not be considered for Green Freeport status.

The Green Freeport governance body will need to maintain a record of all the businesses operating, or applying to operate, within the tax site. That record must be kept up-to-date, contain information about the beneficial owner of the business, and be readily accessible to law enforcement agencies, including HMRC and the National Crime Agency.

We are discussing the issue of publication of information by the Green Freeport governance bodies with the UK Government.