Chamber and committees

There have been 98 personal injury accidents on the A90 from Dundee to Stonehaven since 1 January 2021 to 7 September 2026, reported per quarter in the following table.

Personal Injury Accidents/Casualties – Dundee (Emmock Roundabout) to Stonehaven (where A957 Slug Road crosses the A90)

The Scottish Government welcomed the Competition and Markets Authority's report, which illustrates the higher prices faced by Scottish households, and reinforces our longstanding concerns about the disparity in consumer protections for those reliant on heating oil.

We remain in close contact with key fuel suppliers across Scotland to ensure that we have the information necessary to monitor the current situation and in turn to inform our planning for all eventualities.

Given the current and ongoing volatility of international events, it is critical that UK Government makes urgent progress on implementing the report recommendations. Ultimately, only they have the power to deliver the structural reform needed for meaningful change.

In the meantime, we will continue to deliver support through our Scottish Emergency Heating Oil Scheme. The scheme enables eligible households to apply for £300 towards their heating oil and liquid petroleum gas bills.

The Scottish Government expects women who experience conditions following mesh removal surgery to have access to appropriate treatment and support based on their individual clinical needs, regardless of where they live in Scotland or where their mesh removal surgery was undertaken.

Care after removal surgery is expected to be provided by the patient’s local Health Board wherever possible, allowing care to be delivered closer to home. Where treatment cannot be provided locally, processes are in place to enable patients to access appropriate services elsewhere within the NHS.

We recognise that access to services and waiting times can vary and that lengthy waits can have a significant impact on women’s quality of life. That is why the Scottish Government has invested £13 million in additional funding to Health Boards to help reduce long waits for gynaecology services.

The vast majority of funding available to Local Authorities is provided by means of a block grant. It is then the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, including on inter island connectivity, on the basis of local needs and priorities.

Ultimately, locally elected representatives are best placed to make local decisions on how to allocate resources in their communities.

Local authorities have a statutory duty under the Local Government in Scotland Act 2003 to report on their outcomes, alongside a requirement to prepare and publish annual accounts. Shetland and Orkney Island Councils would be expected to set out how they have allocated the totality of funding available to them in 2025-26, including the £20 million, in their accounts for the year.

The Scottish Government has no plans to amend the National Parks (Scotland) Act 2000 as part of its proposed local government reforms. We will be required to amend both National Parks Designation Orders to reflect any changes to the local authorities within the boundaries of both National Parks.

The Scottish Government is currently engaging with other UK regulators to ensure parity on marine licensing requirements for storage and construction of offshore wind turbines in port areas. In the meantime, Marine Directorate –Licensing Operations Team (MD-LOT) has been providing regulatory advice and guidance to potential applicants and intends to share a regulatory position in due course. The Scottish Government is committed to prevising clarity on this matter.

The Grangemouth Industrial Just Transition Plan commits to a formal monitoring and evaluation framework based on the Plan's 16 Just Transition Outcomes. In line with that commitment, the first comprehensive assessment against the monitoring and evaluation framework is scheduled for 2027.

The Scottish Government has not undertaken a specific economic assessment of the lifetime cost to Scottish public services of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). While there are no current plans to undertake such an assessment, we keep the evidence base under review as part of our wider work to prevent alcohol-related harm.

The Scottish Government is seeking as many views as possible to it’s online consultation on proposed Fisheries management measures within Scottish inshore Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and proposed Priority Marine Feature (PMF) management areas - Scottish Government consultations - Citizen Space/

To extend awareness and reach, a series of 26 in person drop in events are taking place across Scotland to help people understand what is being presented and to guide them through using the consultation platform. If individuals are unable to attend an in person event there are also 16 on- line sessions available for them to engage with. The majority of these are general sessions with some region specific and an additional session aimed at young people. Further online sessions will be scheduled to meet any emerging demand. These sessions have been arranged over a range of days and times to allow options for attendance.

The geo-spatial element of the citizen space platform has been utilised and respondents are able to choose to respond by marine region or by fishing gear type. Following lessons learned from the Offshore MPA consultation the platform has been specially designed to allow the respondent to easily navigate through the consultation with all relevant information being linked throughout. Within the consultation, responses can be saved and returned to for further editing. The documentation has been written in as accessible as possible language and format.

Should a respondent have difficulty in completing the consultation online, they can provide a written response either by email to [email protected] or by writing to

Inshore MPA and PMF Management Consultation

Scottish Government

Marine Planning and Policy Division

Area 1B North

Victoria Quay

Edinburgh EH6 6QQ

Some of the consultation documents are available in Gaelic and we are happy to receive responses in both English and Gaelic.

There has been widespread engagement with the fishing industry and environmental organisations for over 10 years on the proposed measures, and the launch of the consultation has been widely publicised throughout these networks The Scottish Government held a pre-consultation launch event on the 3 September with key stakeholders to provide insight into the consultation documents and provide opportunity for discussion.

The Scottish Government and NatureScot are working with partners to advertise consultation online and drop-in sessions, utilising local papers and social media channels. Notification of the consultation, online and drop-in sessions have also been publicised through the Scottish Governments Marine Bulletin which has notified 430 subscribers to the newsletter.

I am pleased to confirm the Independent Review of Maternity Services is now underway. Professor Christine McCourt has published the review methodology on a dedicated website and has begun establishing two advisory groups who will provide support to her during the review.

The review will take nine months to complete. Once it concludes, Professor McCourt will submit her report and recommendations to Scottish Ministers one month later, in July 2027. Once the report is received, I will give careful consideration to Professor McCourt’s findings and recommendations and set out my response. I intend to update Parliament as soon as possible given the significant interest in improving maternity services across the Chamber.

This review represents an important opportunity to ensure that women, babies and families receive the highest quality maternity care possible.

This review is system-wide, and I will work with partners across the maternity system to take forward the changes identified.

In the meantime, Healthcare Improvement Scotland continue to conduct their unannounced inspections of all 18 of Scotland’s acute maternity units. I am clear that learnings from these inspections must inform ongoing improvement across our NHS and I will of course continue to engage with Members directly on any specific local issues identified.