Chamber and committees

The Forestry Grant Scheme already supports planting native broadleaved riparian woodland in a range of situations and it can be used to provide cooling shade and improve the habitat along rivers.

The Forestry Grant Scheme will continue to be developed and improved throughout the Stability and Simplicity rural funding transition period and as part of this there will be opportunities to review how it supports tree planting in different circumstances.

Since 2016 the Forestry Grant Scheme has supported the planting of over 500 native broadleaved riparian woodlands.

Furthermore, all tree planting and restocking proposals must comply with the UK Forestry Standard, which promotes an integrated catchment management approach and places particular emphasis on riparian woodland and its role in protecting and restoring the freshwater environment.

Rail Accessibility is a UK Government reserved matter. The UK Government has not identified Carstairs as a priority for allocation of the rail accessibility budget which it controls.

However, when possible the Scottish Government always looks to improve accessibility where they may be incorporated as part of wider rail investments. Network Rail in Scotland is currently planning to make provision for accessibility improvements as part of a package of major renewals through Carstairs railway station. This rail renewals project is fully funded by the Scottish Government.

Section 11(7A) to (7E) of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 makes provision in this area. These subsections provide that the court must have regard to the need to protect the child at the centre of the case from abuse when considering cases such as contact and residence. Abuse is defined as including domestic abuse and also violence, harassment, threatening conduct and any other conduct giving rise, or likely to give rise to physical or mental injury, fear, alarm or distress.

The Children (Scotland) Act 2020 which gained Royal Assent on 1 October 2020 introduces a new special measure into the Vulnerable Witnesses (Scotland) Act 2004. This gives the court the power to prohibit a party from personally conducting the remainder of their contact or residence case where a party has been convicted or accused of a specific criminal offence against a witness in the case. The list of criminal offences that would trigger this prohibition include where a person has a conviction for a domestic abuse offence. This section will take time to commence as we will need to establish a register of solicitors who would be willing to act for parties who have been prohibited from conducting their case.

The Scottish Government recognises the additional pressure that the pandemic and restrictions place upon individuals and families and is committed to providing clear, comprehensive and accessible support for mental health. The needs of rural areas are taken into account in our response to the pandemic and our plan for recovery.

For example, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic we have provided a range of funding to support mental health, including :

• Expansion of the NHS24 Mental Health Hub phoneline so that it is now available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week;
• increasing the capacity of the Breathing Space telephone helpline and web support service;
• increasing capacity for Computerised Cognitive Behavioural Therapy;
• supporting territorial health boards to scale up the use of ‘Near Me’ video consultation: mental health services have seen some of the biggest uptake of this service.

We have also expanded the Distress Brief Intervention (DBI) programme into a nationwide response for people in distress.

Further advice and support for mental health is available through the NHSInform and Clear Your Head websites, which have information on practical tips, resources, and services to support mental health and wellbeing.

In October we launched our COVID-19 Mental Health Transition and Recovery Plan which outlines our continuing response to the mental health impacts of COVID-19. It lays out key areas of mental health need that have arisen as a result of coronavirus and necessary restrictions to limit the spread of the virus. It sets out the actions that we will take with partner organisations to respond to those needs.

The Plan recognises the challenges of rural isolation, and includes an action to work with the National Rural mental Health Forum to develop an approach to ensure that these communities have equal and timely access to mental health support and services, including consideration of whether dedicated pathways are needed. The Plan also recognises the need to support territorial boards to maximise the benefits of digital services for rural communities. We have been working closely with all territorial boards during this period to plan the recovery of services across Scotland.

The Scottish Government is pleased to note the ambition of those State Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to commit to taking positive action to halt and reverse biodiversity loss, and to recognise the links between biodiversity loss and the global climate emergency, as set out in the Leaders’ Pledge for Nature. The UN Summit on Biodiversity in September is part of the lead in to the CBD Conference of the Parties 15 to be held in China in 2021, when a new, post-2020, global framework for biodiversity, and associated targets, is due to be agreed.

Biodiversity is a devolved matter and, while we will continue to discuss biodiversity objectives and targets, including those agreed internationally, and work collaboratively with colleagues in the other devolved administrations and the UK Government where that is sensible, it is for the Scottish Ministers to determine Scotland’s biodiversity strategy, plans and priorities. This will include Scotland’s national response to the new global biodiversity framework.

The Leaders’ Pledge for Nature strongly aligns with Scottish Government priorities and policies, including commitments to deliver the new global framework, to deliver a green recovery and to address climate change.

Biodiversity loss and the climate emergency cannot be addressed in a fully transformative way without state parties and sub-national governments, cities and local authorities working together and, ideally, with that collaboration formally recognised in international agreements such as the post-2020 global biodiversity framework. Throughout this year, the Scottish Government has led the ‘Edinburgh Process’ on behalf of the CBD and with a global network of partners across subnational and local governments, to build a coalition of supportive State Parties to the CBD to call for the Convention to increase its recognition of the role of sub-national governments, cities and local authorities within the post-2020 global biodiversity framework. The ‘Edinburgh Declaration’ published in August 2020 calls upon State Parties to recognise this and sets out the commitments of the Scottish Government and international partners to work for nature over the coming decade.

The Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2019 requires Scotland’s Climate Assembly to lay its report before the Scottish Parliament by 28 February 2021. The Coronavirus (Scotland) (No. 2) Act 2020 amended this requirement, stating if the Assembly is unable to lay the report by this date for a reason relating to coronavirus, they must lay the report as soon as reasonably practicable after that date.

We will carefully consider all recommendations made in Assembly’s final report. The Act requires the Scottish Government to publish a statement within six months of receiving a copy of the report, setting out how we intend to respond to the recommendations made in it.

The Scottish Government’s response of 23 March 2020 to the Public Petitions Committee regarding Petition 1671 on the sale and use of glue traps set out that our preference is to introduce legislation to ban the sale and use of glue traps except by professional pest controllers and that, unfortunately, there has not been a suitable legislative opportunity to take this legislation forward to-date. The response can be found at the following link: http://www.parliament.scot/S5_PublicPetitionsCommittee/
Submissions%202020/PE1671_T.pdf

The newly formed Scottish Animal Welfare Commission (SAWC) has a Glue Traps Working Group. Details of the SAWC can be found at the following link: https://www.gov.scot/groups/
scottish-animal-welfare-commission/ . The remit of the Glue Traps Working Group is to: ‘Provide an opinion on the use and impact of these forms of wildlife management. This may include, but not be restricted to, suggesting future regulations and control e.g. restricting use to professional pest managers only or others.' The group is currently gathering evidence and opinions from experts and interested parties in order to inform their consideration of this issue.

The Scottish Government will take into account the findings of the Glue Traps Working Group when bringing forward any future legislation in this area.

The Scottish Government is committed to ending our contribution to the causes of climate change by 2045, in line with the independent expert advice of the UK Committee on Climate Change on a high ambition Scottish response to the aims of the UN Paris Agreement. Nonetheless, climate change is a global issue and we must also prepare for the changes which are already locked in. We are already seeing warming here in Scotland, with more extreme weather events and rising sea levels and as a nation we must adapt to these changes.

The approach to strategic planning on climate change adaptation in Scotland is governed by the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009. This approach ensures that Scotland is preparing for the impacts of a range of potential global warming outcomes, based on independent assessment of the risks and scientific evidence. In September 2019 the Scottish Government published the second 5-yearly statutory Climate Change Adaptation Programme, which sets out policies and proposals in response to the priority risks for Scotland identified in the 2017 UK Climate Change Risk Assessment. The evidence for that Risk Assessment was provided by the UK Committee on Climate Change and draws upon the Met Office’s UK Climate Projections - which cover a range of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scenarios for future global emissions pathways (including 3 degrees warming outcomes).

In addition to the circa 170 policies and proposals set out in the 2019 Adaptation Programme, the 2020-21 Programme for Government includes further support for enhanced climate change adaptation and resilience as part of a green recovery from COVID-19 - with an extra £150 million of investment in flood risk management in addition to the £42 million being provided annually to local authorities and a further £12 million for coastal change adaptation.

The UK Committee on Climate Change is due to provide an update to its independent assessment of climate risks in 2021. The next statutory Scottish Climate Change Adaptation Programme, due in 2024, will respond to that updated assessment.