As part of our New Deal for Local Government, we are working with COSLA to agree a Fiscal Framework for Local Government, with the aim of delivering greater flexibility over financial arrangements, improving accountability for the delivery of national priorities, including net zero objectives, whilst ensuring maximum value for money. We anticipate the new Fiscal Framework will facilitate opportunities for greater local fiscal empowerment in the future, and aim to give councils more flexibility with greater scope for discretionary local revenue-raising. This will include exploring new ways to raise revenue and reviewing existing local taxes and powers, to make best use of all available and potential sources of local funding.

The Scottish Government is committed to a fair, inclusive and fiscally sustainable form of local taxation. We convened a Joint Working Group co-chaired by Scottish Ministers and COSLA which is actively considering targeted changes to reflect the current circumstances created by the cost crisis, including delivering a joint consultation on measures which would allow local authorities to increase the rate of Council Tax on second and empty homes. The group will also consider approaches to longer term reform, utilising effective deliberative engagement. I will ensure that Parliament is kept appraised of this work at suitable junctures.

Last year the Scottish Government announced the £60 million Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Fund that aims to draw commercial investment in the public charging network across all parts of Scotland. Transport Scotland has already provided funding to Scotland’s local authorities to help them to work together to establish electric vehicle charging strategies and infrastructure expansion plans. These plans are identifying local and regional charge point needs and locations, the investment requirements, as well as the best approaches to delivering collaborative investments with commercial charge point operators. Opportunities to consider the installation of lamppost charge points, or other appropriate solutions, as part of their approach, will fall to local authorities.

Tackling poverty and protecting people from harm is one of three critical and interdependent missions for the government – alongside our focus on the economy and strengthening public services.

The Scottish Government is taking a wide range of action to tackle and reduce poverty, with almost £3 billion allocated both last year and this to support policies which tackle poverty and protect people as far as possible during the ongoing cost of living crisis.

Key actions, which will benefit people from a minority ethnic background, include continued investment in the delivery of more affordable homes, providing free transport for over two million people in Scotland and delivering five family payments including the Scottish Child Payment, which was increased in value to £25 per child per week as of November 2022.

In addition to these key anti-poverty actions, we are also taking action targeted to supporting people from a minority ethnic background. This includes f unding local community organisations such as BEMIS, CEMVO and SAREC, who work predominantly with minority ethnic householders, and have been able to offer targeted support to vulnerable households. This includes issuing direct hardship payments and ensuring they are supported to access welfare support they are entitled to.

The Scottish Government also published ‘A Fairer Scotland for All: An anti-racist strategy’, in December 2022, which includes guidance, advice, and examples of good practice for employers in order to address the issues and disadvantages experienced by people from racialised minorities. The strategy is a key component to reaching the ambition of a becoming a leading Fair Work Nation by 2025.

The Scottish Government cannot comment on live legal proceedings. As usual in relation to legal action, the Scottish Government has taken legal advice and considered the position in connection with the Section 35 Order. It is too early generally to determine any impact of possible changes the UK Government might be considering to the Equality Act.

On 18 April 2023, the First Minister announced that Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme will now launch on 1 March 2024.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that businesses of all sizes can participate in our DRS. As a part of this the Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy, and Biodiversity announced on Thursday 20 April 2023 in Parliament that changes are to be made to the DRS Regulations so that any product which sells less than 5,000 articles a year in Scotland will no longer have to place a deposit on the product and that drinks containers which are smaller than 100ml will be removed from the scheme.

These changes were asked for by business and will apply to producers of all sizes. However, they will particularly help small producers and hospitality businesses.

Tackling poverty and protecting people from harm is one of three critical and interdependent missions for the government along with our focus on the economy and strengthening public services. Our Public Sector Pay Strategy for 2023-24 continues to have explicit measures to protect the lowest paid. Employers are required to pay at least the real Living Wage rate of £10.90 per hour for all staff including internships and Modern Apprentices. The strategy also includes a suggested cash underpin of £1,500 for public sector workers who earn £25,000 or less. Link: Public Sector Pay Strategy 2023-24

While we do not monitor the incidence of in-work poverty and financial hardship among public sector workers this Government also continues to use all the powers and resources available to us to provide support to people on low incomes and to tackle the underlying causes of poverty.

We allocated almost £3 billion last year, and again this year, to tackle poverty and protect people as far as possible during the ongoing cost of living crisis. We are also committing £5.2 billion for social security benefits in 2023-24, providing support to more than one million people in Scotland.

In 2021 we established the Anti-Racism in Education Programme (AREP), with the purpose of developing and delivering an education system in Scotland that is fundamentally anti-racist. As part of the work on the AREP that addresses curriculum reform there has been discussion and engagement with a range of anti-racism and education stakeholders, academics with expertise on history including the British Empire, and Black and other minority children and young people.

Within the broad general education there is the opportunity to teach the topic of the British Empire within the people, past events and societies section of social studies, and in the senior phase. This includes opportunities to teach the topic of the British Empire within the History qualifications, for example through the ‘Migration and Empire’ and ‘Atlantic Slave Trade’ topics (at National 5 and Higher).

Although the Scottish Government has not made an assessment of historical artefacts within Scottish educational institutions obtained as a result of colonialism, it has encouraged public collections to consider the method of acquisition of all objects in their care, the vast majority of which were obtained ethically and legally.

Any consideration to return historical artefacts would be a matter for the relevant institutions, including universities as autonomous bodies with responsibility for their own strategic and operational decisions. The Scottish Government expects institutions to follow best practice and ensure that decisions in respect of any requests for the return of objects of cultural significance from their collections conform to international standards.

Scottish Government officials continue to engage with the museums sector on these matters, including those museums hosted by universities.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-16363 on 25 April 2023. This set out which justice organisations received resources through the ‘Recover, Renew, Transform’ (RRT) Fund in 2021-22 and 2022-23, and how much each organisation received. A central aim of the Fund was to support the justice sector to address backlogs, by increasing capacity across the system.

Before the establishment of the RRT Fund, the Scottish Government had provided £12.077 million to the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service in 2020-21 for the establishment of remote jury centres. By enabling jury trials to proceed at a time of strict public health restrictions, these centres helped to prevent the court backlog increasing further.

The 2023-2024 Budget allocates £42.2 million of RRT funding. This includes £26.5 million to the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service to support them in continuing to address the court backlog by maintaining enhanced court capacity.

We also allocated an additional £10.75 million to frontline support services during the pandemic, to ensure that they could continue to respond to the needs of survivors of gender-based violence at a time when services were under increased pressure.