Monday 2 November 2015 SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT Enterprise and Environment John Finnie (Highlands and Islands) (Independent): To ask the Scottish Government how its land use strategy will be taken forward following the pilot projects in Aberdeenshire and the Borders. Holding answer issued: 27 October 2015 (S4W-27739) Aileen McLeod: The land use strategy is currently being reviewed, including taking account of the experience and lessons from the two pilot projects in Aberdeenshire and the Scottish Borders. A public consultation on a draft revised land use strategy will be held later in 2015. An independent evaluation of the pilot projects is currently being concluded and will be published in due course. This will help inform how the revised strategy is taken forward. Liam McArthur (Orkney Islands) (Scottish Liberal Democrats): To ask the Government what action it has taken to promote its Statement of principles for parcel deliveries. Holding answer issued: 27 October 2015 (S4W-27777) Fergus Ewing: In February 2013 I chaired a Parcel Delivery Summit which involved a range of stakeholders and built on a previous one held in November 2012. This led to the establishment of a short-life working group to develop a Statement of principles for parcel deliveries. The Scottish Government has regularly highlighted the statement in our own news releases, which have been taken up by news outlets. In addition, I wrote jointly with the Director for Scotland at Consumer Futures to the main internet retailers about the statement. The Scottish Government was pleased in 2014 when the UK Government announced that the principles had been adopted across the UK, and will continue to encourage the UK Government to do more to increase buy-in of the principles, as recommended by the Citizens Advice Scotland report of 8 September 2015 on parcel deliveries. This is vital as many internet retailers are based outside Scotland. The costs were absorbed in normal running costs. Liam McArthur (Orkney Islands) (Scottish Liberal Democrats): To ask the Government how much it has spent on promoting its Statement of principles for parcel deliveries. Holding answer issued: 27 October 2015 (S4W-27778) Fergus Ewing: I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-27777 on 2 November 2015. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx Liam McArthur (Orkney Islands) (Scottish Liberal Democrats): To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on what action has been taken to reduce the cost of parcel delivery to Scottish islands through delivery consolidation in the final miles. Holding answer issued: 27 October 2015 (S4W-27779) Fergus Ewing: The Scottish Government is working closely with stakeholders to ensure that customers receive a better service for parcel deliveries, and in particular to consider what can be done to assist rural, remote and island communities to reduce the cost of parcel deliveries. One of the issues that will be looked at is whether there are opportunities to encourage final mile consolidation by delivery operators. Liam McArthur (Orkney Islands) (Scottish Liberal Democrats): To ask the Scottish Government what assistance it is giving to remote and island communities to reduce the cost of parcel deliveries. Holding answer issued: 27 October 2015 (S4W-27780) Fergus Ewing: I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-27779 on 2 November 2015. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx Liam McArthur (Orkney Islands) (Scottish Liberal Democrats): To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the take-up of domestic Renewable Heat Incentive installations up to July 2015 in each island local authority. Holding answer issued: 27 October 2015 (S4W-27794) Fergus Ewing: Uptake of domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) installations by local authority area is published monthly by UK Department of Energy and Climate Change. The most recent figures can be accessed from the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/renewable-heat-incentive-statistics The Scottish Government commends all local authorities, local communities and social housing providers that have made efforts to promote or provide energy efficient homes and low carbon affordable heat supplies to local residents. The Scottish Government encourages local authorities to take a strategic approach to supporting affordable low carbon heat in their area through their local development plan, local housing strategy and any carbon, energy or heat strategy they have. Through its grant funding of the Energy Saving Trust (EST), the Scottish Government has supported uptake of the domestic RHI in Scotland, through work on sustainable energy supply chain and specialist renewable energy advisors, both of which are contributing factors to the better than pro-rata uptake of the RHI. To date Scotland has done well from the RHI both for domestic and non-domestic installations, accounting for around 19% of accredited installations of both of these UK schemes. More detail of the uptake of renewable heat in Scotland for 2014 was recently published by EST. The report shows that there has been a step change in renewable heat output in 2014 and can be found at the following link: http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/renewable-heat-report-2014 In addition, if you are not already aware, please find attached a link to a recent Scottish Government press release on the above noted 2014 data: http://news.scotland.gov.uk/News/Record-increase-for- renewable-heat-1e22.aspx The Scottish Government would advise owner occupiers considering installing a renewable technology to contact the Scottish Government’s Home Energy Scotland advice centre (HESac) which is managed on our behalf by EST. Home Energy Scotland provides free and impartial advice on energy saving; renewable energy; sustainable transport; waste prevention; and more, to all householders in Scotland including advice on what schemes they may be eligible for. The HESac can be contacted on 0808 808 2282 and further information can be found at the following link: http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/improving-my-home Liam McArthur (Orkney Islands) (Scottish Liberal Democrats): To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on reports that the take-up of domestic Renewable Heat Incentive installations up to July 2015 was substantially higher in the Western Isles compared with Orkney and Shetland. Holding answer issued: 27 October 2015 (S4W-27795) Fergus Ewing: The Scottish Government would like to avoid comparisons of performance of local authorities based on the domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI). Whilst the publicly available statistics provided by the UK Government’s Department of Energy and Climate Change provide a breakdown of uptake of the domestic RHI by local authority, a number of factors influence uptake. Such factors include the number of households and the availability of other low carbon heat sources supported through mechanisms other than the domestic RHI, such as district heating. The Scottish Government is aware that one of the issues householders in both rural areas and the Scottish Islands face in participating in government schemes is the availability of accredited installers. In recognising that there can be barriers to uptake in remote rural and island areas the Scottish Government funded an analysis of the supply chain for such areas which included the Shetland Isles, Western Isles and Orkney Isles. A report of the findings, published in March 2015, can be found at the following link: http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/reports/supply-chain-analysis-remote-rural-and-island-areas- march-2015-full-report In addition, the Microgeneration Strategy for Scotland published in 2012 and the setting up of the Scottish Government’s Microgeneration Task Group aims to work with industry and other stakeholders to remove the barriers to uptake of microgeneration technologies and ensure we have a skilled workforce to deploy microgeneration in all areas of Scotland. The Microgeneration Strategy for Scotland can be found at the following link: http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2012/06/9678 The Scottish Government continues to fund work to address supply chain barriers and details of up and coming events can be found at the following link: http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/businesses/supply-chain-events Murdo Fraser (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party): To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S4W-27627 by Fergus Ewing on 1 October 2015, what Department of Energy and Climate Change electricity generation statistics it is referring to that demonstrate that the cost of providing sufficient electricity storage to deal with the intermittency issue arising from onshore wind power will be "far lower than nuclear". Holding answer issued: 30 October 2015 (S4W-27864) Fergus Ewing: The statistics referred to in the previous question are from the Department of Energy and Climate Change's document, Electricity Generation Costs (December 2013) and can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/269888/131217_Electric ity_Generation_costs_report_December_2013_Final.pdf Patrick Harvie (Glasgow) (Scottish Green Party): To ask the Scottish Government what action it takes to ensure that the transparency of the ownership of limited partnerships is sufficient, and what its position is on whether reform is necessary to (a) enhance this and (b) ensure that these partnerships cannot be used as vehicles for money laundering. (S4W-27936) Fergus Ewing: The creation, operation, regulation and dissolution of business, and money laundering are matters reserved to the UK Government. The Scottish Government believes corporate transparency has an important role to avoid the misuse of companies and to support good corporate governance, and is committed to disrupting and dismantling serious organised crime, wherever it is found in Scotland.