³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ

The Scottish Government has received no assurance from the UK Government that the MV Pentalina or MV Alfred, are safe to operate on ferry routes in Scotland. All vessels are required to meet all relevant regulatory requirements as set out by the Maritime & Coastguard Agency (MCA) and any other regulatory authority.

The Scottish Government is taking forward a wide range of action in schools and colleges to address gender based violence and sexual harassment.

To support schools to deliver learning on relationships, sexual health and parenthood education, Education Scotland have produced experiences and outcomes which set out what each pupil is expected to learn and how their learning is expected to progress through the four levels of learning.

In addition to this, we are funding a number of targeted programmes to support positive behaviour and relationships. This includes the Mentors in Violence Prevention Scotland Programme which is working to tackle gender stereotyping and attitudes that condone violence against women and girls; pilot of a whole schools approach to tackling gender based violence with Rape Crisis Scotland and Zero Tolerance; and, running up to three Fearless campaigns nationally to educate and support young people to speak up about crime, making their lives and that of their communities safer.

We are also developing a National Approach guidance document, with partners on the Gender Based Violence in Schools Working Group, to ensure consistency in messages on sexual harassment and gender based violence to everyone working with children and young people.

In colleges and universities, institutions are expected to adopt and adapt the Equally Safe in Higher Education Toolkit, and in doing so adopt a Gendered Analysis to this issue, assess their own policies and practices against the Toolkit and put in place policies, reporting processes and support arrangements to keep students safe.

The Scottish Government continues to fund several projects aimed at support the further and higher education sector, by developing online training and resources, particularly for the college sector; developing an institutional GBV Charter Mark and the parameters of effective risk management approaches to work already undertaken by Universities Scotland; and, to purchase an online tool to enable staff and students in certain Glasgow-based institutions to anonymously report gender based violence and racial harassment issues.

The Scottish Government, unlike the UK Government, included a requirement within the Scottish High Level Output Specification (HLOS) for Network Rail (NR) to take action on climate change during this Regulatory Control Period.

For the period 2019-2024, the Scottish Government is providing funding to support a 21% increase in NR spending on operation, maintenance and renewal activities on the Scottish rail network. This is in line with the Office of Rail and Road’s independent determination of costs necessary to deliver safety, performance and resilience requirements, including Climate Change action.

In March of this year, NR published two reports from independently commissioned experts following the derailment at Carmont. The work was a recommendation from the NR Interim Report on the Carmont derailment published in September 2020, to establish two task forces examining in detail NR’s GB wide management of extreme weather and earthworks.

In October 2019 PWC provided support and detailed analysis on a full range of options for Ferguson Marine. Scottish Ministers considered the evidence and on that basis the Scottish Government stepped in to take ownership, to ensure a viable future for the yard, it's workforce and completion of the much needed vessels. The Scottish Government continues to work closely with the yard to explore all possible options to ensure a viable future for the business.

The Scottish Government will be able to provide more detail about a Scottish exchange programme in due course. The programme will be developed based on what would deliver the best value for Scotland and on the needs of Scotland and those of our learners and institutions.

In the meantime, we are engaging with the European Commission and European institutions in line with our commitment for Scotland to remain close to the Erasmus+ programme.

To improve the resilience of ferry services serving island and remote mainland communities, we are exploring opportunities for chartering additional tonnage including the temporary time charter of the MV Pentalina. Industrial relations are a matter for CalMac Ferries Ltd, its employees and the recognised trades unions. I understand discussions have been taking place between CalMac and its local Union representatives on these matters.

The maximum passenger and vehicle carrying capacity of the vessels in the CalMac fleet that normally operate the routes they will consider deploying the MV Pentalina on, if chartered, are detailed in the following table.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-00457 on 14 June 2021. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at /chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

The Scottish Government is working with Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd (CMAL) and ferry operators to develop and deliver a programme of major and small vessel replacements. Detail of the current programme is included in Annex D of the Infrastructure Investment Plan.

Most recently, CMAL provided an update on the new vessel for Islay with the first phase tender process scheduled to take place during the summer 2021.

Build through the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband (DSSB) Highlands and Islands contract - including the subsea cable between Ormsary and Jura - was delivered through a combination of funding from Scottish Government, UK Government, Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), Local Authorities and BT.

However, it is not possible to provide a breakdown for a single piece of infrastructure.