Chamber and committees

The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. It is the responsibility of local authorities to enforce compliance with the register of tobacco and vapes in their local areas.

Before the oil price shock, based on the Ofgem energy price cap announcement, our forward looking estimates for April to June this year showed a decrease in fuel poverty in Scotland of around 30,000 households from estimates for January to March 2026.

However, developing global events continue to reinforce the impact of high energy prices, and the need to put in place robust and effective consumer protections and financial assistance for all fuel users.

While welcome, the limited support announced by the UK Government on 16 March, equates to only £33 per household using oil heating. This does not go far enough.

That is why the Scottish Government announced on 17 March we will more than double the amount available to support Scottish households struggling with heating oil prices. We will commit an additional £5.4 million on top of the £4.6 million allocated by the UK Government. We will announce further details around eligibility as soon as possible.

This new scheme is in addition to our existing support, including our energy efficiency schemes which already deliver average savings of £300 annually.

We urge the UK Government to take their responsibility for energy pricing seriously. In an energy-rich nation, no one should struggle to pay their bills. We must have the full powers of independence to make our energy wealth work for our people.

The outcome of the regional Project Gigabit in Scotland (PGiS) procurement which covers Orkney and Shetland - also known as Lot 6 - is expected to be announced shortly after the May 2026 election.

Modest changes in contract award dates are common in complex procurements such as PGiS, which require robust due diligence and assessment to ensure all underlying funding requirements are met. We must also be cognisant of the pre-election period which takes effect from 26 March 2026.

No central assessment has been made of the impact of paediatric long COVID on paediatric health and social care services. Responsibility for service delivery rests locally with NHS boards which configure services taking into account local circumstances and the reasonable needs of their patient populations.

We are providing £4.5 million funding to NHS boards on a recurring basis to support the delivery of specialist support for long COVID, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME)/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and other similar conditions. In allocating this resource, NHS boards have been asked to consider what would be needed to extend provision for these conditions to paediatric services if there is an identified need for this in their board. Boards have also been asked to consider how they may collaborate to provide a more efficient and effective service, whether this may be for the most complex cases and/or for specific populations e.g. paediatrics.

The number of homes completed through the demand led Rural and Islands Housing Fund by local authority area since 2023-24 is as follows:

Local Authorities are responsible for developing, delivering and maintaining flood protection schemes in their communities. This is because they are best placed to respond to local resilience needs. Therefore the Scottish Government has not had any discussions with SEPA regarding its guidance on flood defences and the wider flooding risk in the Langholm area.

Dumfries and Galloway Council put forward a flood protection scheme for Langholm in its 2015 Local Flood Risk Management Plan, but it was withdrawn due to a lack of community support for the scheme.

The Council have confirmed that there are no further works planned in terms of a flood protection scheme for Langholm. Council maintenance of road gullies in the area is planned after an incident of surface water flooding in late 2025.

The Rural and Island Housing Grant Scheme is expected to provide support to individuals including first time buyers, families, rural returners and others to help them access affordable owner occupation in the rural and island communities of their choice.

The development of this new grant scheme will be taken forward with rural and housing partners. It has an indicative budget of up to £20 million over four years and will be demand-led.

The revised Stop and Search Code of Practice (the Code) includes clear safeguards for officers for the conduct of strip and intimate searches. It requires that such searches must be conducted by a constable of the same biological sex as the detainee. It also makes clear that no officer is required to search a person of the opposite sex, even if this request is made, without the officers’ express consent. In addition, the revised Code stresses that if an officer declines to carry out this search, this decision should be respected and they should face no career detriment as a result.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) describes long COVID as “a multi-system condition with a range of debilitating symptoms… people may have wide-ranging and fluctuating symptoms following an acute COVID-19 infection, which may vary in nature over time”. The ongoing impact of long COVID can be debilitating for some with impacts on daily activities and quality of life reported to include fatigue, breathlessness, anxiety, depression and cognitive impairment.

National population health surveys are currently the most appropriate source of data on the proportion of a population experiencing the long-term effects of COVID-19. The annual Scottish Health Survey (SHeS) is the most robust source of data on self-reported long COVID prevalence in Scotland, including among children. Long COVID is defined for this survey as symptoms that develop during or after a COVID-19 infection that continue more than four weeks after the infection and are not explained by something else. The most recent data for 2024 was published in October 2025. The data for children (aged under 16) are available via the survey dashboard. The question asked respondents who had had COVID-19 whether they currently had long COVID. 1% of children aged under 16 were reported to have long COVID. This is the lowest self-reported prevalence rate among all age groups shown in this survey. The overall adult self-reported prevalence rate was 7%.

The Scottish Government does not have access to data about long COVID held in NHS electronic systems. It is in any case difficult to identify people who have long COVID from within NHS records: not everyone with long COVID will attend their GP, and not all cases or symptoms will be recorded as long COVID. Research undertaken in Scotland, England and Wales has consequently shown that long COVID among adults is under-recorded in GP electronic systems compared with findings from surveys such as SHeS which ask about self-reported prevalence. It is reasonable to assume that long COVID among children is also likely to be under-recorded and is therefore difficult to assess accurately from health records.

The Scottish House Condition Survey (SHCS) provides a snapshot of the Scottish housing stock in each survey year including the construction age and built form of Scottish domestic buildings. Within this it records if a dwelling has the presence of full or partial central heating. The percentage and total number of dwellings without full or partial central heating, broken down by age band of occupants, from the 2024 SHCS, is presented in table 1.

Table 1: Number, and percentage of, dwelling without full or partial central heating broken down by occupant age band, 2024