Meeting of the Parliament 25 April 2017
I will maybe take a further intervention after I have made some more progress.
The assessment will report in the autumn, no later than when the Government sets out its secondary legislation plans for tax rate amounts and bands. In addition to that analysis, a robust monitoring and evaluation framework will be put in place for assessing the economic impacts of ADT in the future.
The Scottish Government has listened to the environmental concerns about our plans that some respondents have raised and is already committed to undertaking a full strategic environmental assessment of our ADT reduction plans. The screening and scoping report, which is an example of good practice, openness and transparency, was made available last year for full public comment.
The next main step of the SEA process is to publicly consult on the Scottish Government’s plan for an overall 50 per cent ADT reduction along with an accompanying environmental report, which will outline the findings of the assessment of the plan against a wide range of environmental topics, such as climate factors, air quality and biodiversity.
As well as the SEA, the Scottish Government is currently undertaking quantitative assessments of the likely greenhouse gas emission and noise impacts of our overall 50 per cent reduction plan. The noise assessment will be published in the autumn, no later than when the Government sets out its secondary legislation plans for the ADT tax rate amounts and bands that will apply from 1 April 2018.