Chamber and committees

As of September 2026, 71 GP practices across Scotland are registered under the General Practice Armed Forces and Veterans Recognition Scheme so far. Whilst GPs operate independently and registration rates have increased in the past year, we clearly have more work to do to increase participation.

The Scottish Government continues to promote the scheme through engagement with NHS Boards, GP practices, the Ministry of Defence, Veterans Scotland and the Royal College of General Practitioners Scotland. Training resources remain available to all practice staff through NHS Education for Scotland's TURAS platform to help improve awareness of the health needs of veterans and Armed Forces families.

In addition, the Scottish Government has invested in Veterans Scotland during 2026-27 to deliver a dedicated GP Recognition Acceleration Scheme. As part of this work, a national GP Advocate has been appointed to promote the scheme directly with practices and primary care leaders, with the aim of increasing registrations and expanding the scheme's reach across Scotland.

The Scottish Government is aware an incident involving a public-facing health statistics service in Australia. It highlights why governments across the world must continue to take both the opportunities and risks of Artificial Intelligence (AI) seriously. The incident reinforces the need to consider AI agents as both a cyber threat and a governance challenge. It highlights the importance of monitoring automated access to public-facing services, ensuring robust controls around health data systems, and developing clear policies on the use, assurance and incident reporting of AI-enabled tools by suppliers and partners.

As part of the Sustainability Appraisal, a Socio-Economic Impact Assessment (SEIA) was undertaken to assess the potential social and economic effects of the proposed fisheries management measures. The assessment was undertaken in line with Scottish Government guidance for undertaking SEIAs for Marine Protected Areas in inshore waters, which was co-developed through stakeholder engagement, and considered both the potential costs and benefits associated with the proposals.

Economic impacts on existing fishing activity were quantified where robust evidence was available, including information on fishing effort, vessel activity, landings, employment and Gross Value Added. Potential benefits associated with ecological recovery and wider ecosystem services were also considered within the assessment. However, these benefits were assessed primarily on a qualitative basis due to uncertainty regarding the scale and timing of environmental change, the value of associated ecosystem service improvements, and how fishers may respond to management measures over time.

The purpose of the SEIA was to assess the reasonably foreseeable impacts of the proposed management measures on existing activities. It was not designed to model future sectoral transition scenarios or predict the extent to which fishers may switch between different fishing methods. While opportunities for some static gear fisheries may arise where mobile demersal gears are restricted, the scale and nature of any such transition cannot currently be assessed with sufficient certainty to support robust quantitative analysis.

The installation cost of the Reverse Speed Discrimination Traffic Signals on the A75 in Springholm, which includes the upgrade to the detection/activation system was £179,011.18. These were funded from Transport Scotland’s Trunk Road Casualty Reduction budget.

Maintenance of traffic signal equipment is covered as part of the Transport Scotland’s South West Network Management Contract Core Operations budget, which manages several various operations through a monthly payment. As this is a single budget it is not possible to extract costs for individual items.

As the Reverse Speed Discrimination Traffic Signals relate to the trial of an innovative traffic signal operation, maintenance of some specific elements are funded from the Trunk Road Casualty Reduction budget. A fault detection remote monitoring system for the traffic signals is maintained at an annual cost in the order of £15,000. Maintenance works were also carried out on the traffic counter loops in Springholm early in 2026 which provide data for the ongoing monitoring at a cost of £23,698.98.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of ensuring that the impacts of major energy infrastructure projects on affected communities and sectors are properly considered and addressed.

Scottish Ministers do not currently have powers to require compensation payments in relation to energy infrastructure. Any compensation arrangements are therefore a matter for private agreement between developers and affected parties.

This matter was discussed at a recent meeting the Scottish Fishermen's Federation had with myself on 9 September. The Scottish Government has and will continue to engage with the Scottish Fishermen's Federation and representatives of the fishing and offshore wind sectors to explore options for addressing the impacts of offshore wind development on fishers.

This work has been taken forward through the Scottish Offshore Wind Energy Council's Barriers to Deployment subgroup and through direct engagement with the Scottish Fishermen's Federation, including the aforementioned meeting with myself in September.

Officials are continuing to develop and refine options with both sectors before presenting these to Ministers for consideration.

The Scottish Government recognises the significant impact that long COVID, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) and similar conditions can have on people’s lives.

The 2025-26 Scottish Budget included an additional £4.5 million to support the development and delivery of specialist support across Scotland for people with long COVID, ME/CFS and other similar conditions. This funding has been confirmed on a recurring basis, providing NHS boards with longer-term certainty to develop services sustainably and support the recruitment and retention of the skilled staff required to deliver them.

Responsibility for the planning and delivery of healthcare services rests with individual NHS boards. We have therefore provided boards with flexibility to develop and deliver models of care that reflect local population needs and circumstances, while following relevant clinical guidance.

While NHS Highland establishes its Post-Infection Recovery Service, patients with long COVID, ME/CFS and similar conditions continue to be able to access assessment, treatment and support through existing NHS services, including primary care and other appropriate local pathways and services based on their individual clinical needs.

The Scottish Government continues to engage with NHS boards on the development of specialist support for people with long COVID, ME/CFS and similar conditions.

The innovation active rate of an area is influenced by the industrial composition of the businesses headquartered there. Innovation rates can vary markedly by industrial sector, for example, 12.7% of Scottish ‘Accommodation & Food Services’ businesses were innovation active in 2022-24, compared to 73.9% of Scottish ‘Scientific research & development’ businesses.

The 2022-24 headline innovation active rates of 29.4% for Scotland, and 34.0% for the UK, are based on a wide range of sectors covered by the UK Innovation Survey. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reports on a smaller group of industrial sectors, excluding sectors like ‘Construction’, ‘Retail’ and ‘Accommodation & Food Services’. When these sectors are removed, the results for Scotland and the UK are more similar. In the latest survey (2022-2024), 50.6% of businesses based in Scotland were ‘innovation active’ under the OECD definition and methodology; the same share as the UK.

More detail is available from the Scottish Government statistical release UK innovation survey 2025: results for Scotland - gov.scot, which was published on the 16th of September 2026.

The Scottish Government will continue to support NHS Boards in meeting their data protection and cyber security obligations through national guidance, assurance and oversight. Any relevant lessons identified from this incident will be considered and shared across NHS Scotland, and appropriate action taken where necessary to safeguard patient information and services.

Responsibility for asbestos legislation and the related regulations is reserved to the UK Government.

Asbestos is not covered by the Scottish building standards system and Scottish legislation makes no provision for how it is handled, and the Scottish Government currently does not plan to commit to a continuous national programme of asbestos training and education.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is responsible for asbestos management issues and it would be for the HSE to consider the need for training for workers, on a UK-wide basis, if this is considered to be required.

As I have set out in response to previous queries on the matter of Environmental Standards Scotland’s (ESS) report Protecting Scotland’s Seafloor: an assessment of Scottish Ministers’ implementation of the Marine Strategy Regulations 2010, the Scottish Government is carefully considering the findings and recommendations and is engaging closely with ESS to seek to agree an appropriate action plan. The Scottish Government’s position on the report’s findings and recommendations will be set out through that engagement and in its formal response.

As this work is under active development, it would not be appropriate for me to comment further on the details of that work at this stage.