Chamber and committees

We want to see more high-quality apprenticeships to support our vital services, including planning.

We recognise the benefits of the work-based learning opportunities that apprenticeships provide, as demonstrated by the early success of our Future Planners Programme.

We recently endorsed the creation of a new Graduate Apprenticeship pathway into planning at Heriot-Watt University. The new course would provide an important new route into the profession, supporting efforts to expand planning education and develop the future planning workforce in Scotland.

The Scottish Government is committed to improving economic activity, and to making workplaces healthier and fairer.

Public Health Scotland is a key delivery partner of the Population Health Framework, co-published with COSLA, setting out whole-system preventative approaches to improve the key building blocks of health, including good work and income.

The organisation hosts and maintains Healthy Working Lives, a well-established online resource for employers, employees and professionals. Within this site, the Mentally Healthy Workplaces portal provides specific advice, and people within small to medium-size businesses can self-refer to occupational health support at Working Health Services Scotland.

PHS work in partnership with Scottish Government and See Me also includes the ‘Supporting a Mentally Healthy Workplace: National learning network for employers’ which has over 800 members and brings together employers on a quarterly basis to share learning and experiences of supporting mental health and wellbeing at work.

Public Health Scotland’s engagement with employers has included extensive work across sectors including roundtables, surveys and group sessions. 2025 and 2026 has been focused on recommendations to improve health and work support.

Complementing this activity, PHS facilitates Scottish Government involvement in the UK Government’s Keep Britain Working review on workplace health provision, ensuring the needs of Scottish employers and services are represented.

There are no plans to direct NHS Boards to make available superior cluneal nerve hydro-dissection and pulsed radio frequency treatment for carpal tunnel syndrome, ulnar nerve entrapment and other peripheral nerve or fascial impingements.

It is the Scottish Government’s role to set the wider policy framework within which NHS Scotland has operational responsibility. NHS Scotland is responsible for the planning and delivery of the services within their local area, including decisions on treatments offered, based on local patient need. Decisions on local services, including referral arrangements, care pathways and access to specialist input, are for Boards to take based on clinical and patient need, workforce capacity and available resources.

Scottish Ministers have not participated in any meetings of a Benthic Impacts Working Group, as referenced in Part Three of the UK Marine Strategy.

I refer the member to the answer to question S7W-03607 on 6 October 2026. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

Our Programme for Government 2026 – 2031 sets out our commitment to strengthen support for children with long-term conditions. Clinical advice from the Chief Medical Officer and the Scottish Government’s Senior Medical Advisory for Paediatrics is clear that paediatrics requires its own approach, tailored to the needs of children and young people. It is vital that we take the time needed to understand those needs at the outset and we will set out how we will take forward this work in due course.

This work will link with delivery of our wider NHS Reform ambitions and our Long Term Conditions Strategy for Adults, which we expect to publish in March 2027. Transitions from paediatric to adult services will be one of the initial areas of focus within this Strategy, as these are managed by adult services.

The Scottish Government is pleased to note the UK Government’s call for evidence on gamebirds. We have a Programme for Government Commitment to consult on phasing out cages for gamebirds and will consider carefully any future policy proposals from Defra before deciding whether to consult jointly on the issue.

The updated UK Marine Strategy Programme of Measures was published in 2025 following a 2021 consultation.

The principal fisheries management measures included in the 2025 Programme of Measures in relation to Descriptor 6 (Seafloor Integrity) that have been implemented in Scottish waters are measures to protect sensitive seabed habitats and species within Scotland’s Marine Protected Area (MPA) network.

Site specific restrictions on particular fishing methods within MPAs in offshore waters came into force on 16 October 2025.

Additionally, on 14 September 2026 the Scottish Government launched an 18 week consultation on proposed fisheries management measures within Scottish inshore MPAs and proposed Priority Marine Features (PMF) management areas.

We have reviewed the report referred to in the question but have been unable to identify the working group to which the member refers. Consequently, we are unable to provide information on ministerial participation in meetings of that group or any associated meeting minutes

The Marine Directorate does not have a specified number of RPAS available for marine compliance aerial surveillance flights. RPAS capability is provided through a contracted arrangement with external suppliers, who operate short and medium-range systems from the Marine Protection Vessels Hirta and Jura. Availability is managed through this contract and is scaled according to operational requirements.