Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government’s Family Law consultation closed on 21 April this year. It sought views on a range of matters, including whether we should legislate to raise the minimum age of marriage and civil partnership. The responses are being analysed and an independent report of the analysis will be published later this year. A formal response to the consultation will follow thereafter setting out our next steps.

Every cancelled or postponed surgery has a real impact on patients and their families and we have made it clear to health boards that patients with the greatest clinical need should not have their operations postponed.

Surgical procedures can, of course, be cancelled or postponed for a number of reasons, including the patient’s clinical needs, the patient themselves cancelling the operation, staff such as anaesthetists not being available, or due to an emergency taking clinical priority.

The latest Public Health Scotland data shows that in August 2026 there were 25,253 operations planned to take place across NHS Scotland. Of these, only 2.0% were cancelled by the hospital on the day before or on the day that treatment was planned to take place due to capacity or non-clinical reasons, and this trend has remained steady.

The Scottish Government is investing to expand access to the NHS in Scotland and our NHS is delivering thousands more operations, procedures and appointments compared to last year. We will continue to work with health boards to ensure capacity is used as effectively as possible so that fewer patients are impacted by cancellations and postponements.

Practice partners are responsible for designing their own patient appointment and consultation arrangements to meet their service obligations.

The Scottish Government has worked with NHS Boards in the development of the walk-in service programme. Responsibility for the design, location and accessibility of individual services, including local stakeholder engagement, rests with the relevant NHS Board. We have been clear that all services should be specifically designed to take into account healthcare inequalities and consideration given to groups who struggle with accessing primary care.

The public sector reform creates an opportunity for national renewal and simplification of the service delivery landscape to best deliver for the people of Scotland. This will require strong leadership from within local government and commitment from delivery partners to look beyond individual, institutional and sectoral interests to focus on the collective outcomes we seek to achieve for Scotland.

Any proposals will be developed through engagement with local government, public bodies, trades unions, and relevant delivery partners, which includes Police Scotland.

Ensuring the continuity of frontline services and maintaining public safety through visible community policing remains a Scottish Government’s priority.

Presentation at a Police Custody Centre is often necessary to prevent further offending, facilitate investigations and capture samples such as fingerprints, photographs and DNA. However, police custody is not a suitable place of safety for children.

The Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Act 2024 strengthened safeguards for children in police custody, with provisions commencing on 30 March this year meaning that nobody under the age of 18 should be kept unless the alternatives are deemed, unsafe, inadvisable due to the person’s mental or physical health, or impracticable.

In 2021, 3,730 children and young people were arrested and taken to a police station. Out of these, 568 were held in police cells to appear before courts.

However, the operation of police custody services, including decisions about the detention and release of children, is an operational matter for Police Scotland under the direction of the Chief Constable.

The Scottish Government does not hold the requested information.

Operational decisions regarding road policing resources, officer training and the deployment of forensic services are matters for Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority. However, the Scottish Government recognises the importance of maintaining effective arrangements to support the investigation and prosecution of drug driving offences.

The Scottish Police Authority's Forensic Services Committee has recently advised the Authority's Board of the importance of delivering a sustainable long-term operating model for forensic services and continues to oversee work designed to ensure future capacity and resilience across the service. The Scottish Government continues to engage with the Scottish Police Authority and Police Scotland on this work, including in relation to forensic toxicology services which support the investigation of drug driving offences, with the aim of ensuring forensic services remain effective and capable of meeting current and future operational demand.

Workforce management and deployments are operational matters for the Chief Constable, with oversight by the Scottish Police Authority.

Workforce management and planning are operational matters for the Chief Constable, with oversight by the Scottish Police Authority.

Hospital at Home services are now established across all territorial NHS Boards and are a key part of delivering more care closer to home. As set out in our Improving Flow Plan, it is our ambition that 10,000 patients will benefit from Hospital at Home services this winter.