Seafarer employment legislation is reserved and a matter for the UK Government. Guidance published by the UK Government in 2018, and updated following 2020 legislation, can be found here: Minimum wage: seafarers and other people working at sea - GOV.UK.

As such, no assessment of the pay and conditions of seafarers working on vessels at Inch Cape Offshore Wind Farm has been made by the Scottish Government.

Scotland’s offshore wind sector is expected to generate significant employment opportunities. Based on evidence available across a number of individual studies, the Scottish Government’s Offshore Wind Focus paper estimates the Offshore Wind sector in Scotland could support as many as 10,400 to 54,000 jobs. We do not hold specific figures on the number of shore-side and seafaring jobs in Scotland that will be supported by the construction of the Inch Cape Offshore Wind Farm.

The Scottish Government remains committed to supporting the growth of Scotland’s offshore wind sector, investing up to £500 million over five years to support market certainty, and help create a highly productive, competitive offshore wind economy with thousands of new jobs.

The Scottish Renewables’ Supply Chain Impact Statement 2023-24 highlighted that, at the time of publication, 105 different Scottish suppliers, firms and consultancies have helped to progress and shape the Inch Cape Offshore Wind Farm. Inch Cape may consider publishing further details in relation to its supply chain and work packages at its own discretion.

The Scottish Government recognises the company’s commitment to Scotland’s supply chain and its role in identifying opportunities for local businesses.

Through the Scottish Government’s Fair Work policy, all employers across Scotland, which would include those involved in the Offshore Wind sector, are encouraged to adopt Fair Work principles. The Fair Work Action Plan asks employers right across Scotland to play their part, while setting out what support is available to help them realise the benefits of fair, diverse, and inclusive workplace practices.

There are currently three Energy from Waste (EfW) sites currently in construction and commissioning and SEPA keeps the Scottish Government updated about their development.

With respect to community consent, these facilities require planning consent from the relevant local authority and a permit from SEPA. Both the planning process and SEPA permitting process include formal consultation processes.

For EfW permits, SEPA consults the public twice: firstly at an early stage of the application and again on SEPA’s draft determination and draft decision document. This process has been followed for all EfW permits to date. Some EfW facilities also have regular liaison meetings with their local community and SEPA attends when invited.

Permits plus compliance and monitoring data are published by SEPA on its public register and EfW operators are also required, via the permit, to publish their monitoring data on their own website. There is also a 24 hour pollution hotline which members of the public can use to inform SEPA of any issues associated with an EfW facility.

Scottish waste legislation is underpinned by the waste hierarchy and Scottish Government has a range of laws and policies which implement it in managing waste.

The Waste (Scotland) Regulations 2012 require Scottish households and businesses to present recyclable materials such as glass, metal, plastic, paper, cardboard and food waste separately for collection.

Scotland was the first nation in the UK to introduce a ban on landfilling biodegradable municipal waste which comes into force on 31 December 2025.

The Circular Economy Act and our Circular Economy and Waste Route Map to 2030 set out ambitious plans to deliver priority actions which will help maximise progress towards a circular economy. The plan has 4 strategic aims: to reduce and reuse, maximise recycling, decarbonise disposal and strengthen the circular economy.

A total of £66.6 million has been allocated through the Recycling Improvement fund, to 27 Scottish local authorities for 47 projects to increase the quantity and quality of recycling across Scotland.

These are just some of the measures in place in Scotland which are to helping to drive waste up the hierarchy and away from disposal.

To drive progress towards our circular economy goals, Scotland had a set of waste and recycling targets in place over the past decade running to 2025, and spanning the waste hierarchy.

As our Circular Economy & Waste Route Map set out, while these previous 2025 targets have provided a good platform for progress over the past decade, they are not universally the best indicators to deliver our circular economy, emissions and nature objectives.

By 2027, we will set new statutory circular economy targets, using powers from the Circular Economy (Scotland) Act 2024. These targets will follow the development of a monitoring and indicator framework to allow for more holistic tracking of Scotland's consumption levels and wider measures of circularity, and will take into account the waste hierarchy.

The Scottish Government is supportive of a gradual and carefully managed expansion of physician associate (PA) and anaesthesia associate (AA) roles, underpinned by robust evidence of the benefit that can be derived from these roles in specific settings and contexts.

In order to achieve this, we have established a national Programme Board to advise on key aspects of the roles and NHS Scotland’s approach to their deployment. This work builds on action already undertaken to introduce statutory regulation of the roles which we consider is vital for patient safety. GMC regulation has, for the first time, introduced UK-wide standards for education, training and professional practice with meaningful consequences when these are not met.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

The information requested on how many (a) physician associate and (b) other medical associate profession roles were recruited by NHS Scotland in 2023-24 is not centrally held. Information on how many whole-time equivalent physician associates and other medical associates are in post can be found on the TURAS NHS Education for Scotland workforce statistics site at: NHS Scotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence.