Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government recognises the risks associated with litter picking on high-speed roads and the need for robust safety measures. Responsibility for litter collection on Scotland’s trunk roads is shared between Transport Scotland and local authorities. Transport Scotland’s Operating Companies manage litter picking on motorways and special roads, while councils are responsible for other trunk roads, including the A9. Both must carry out risk assessments and implement safe working practices, including traffic management where required. To further reduce risks, Operating Companies coordinate maintenance activities with local authorities, enabling litter-picking to be undertaken when traffic management is already in place.

Yes, legal advice was obtained before the announcement of the proposed direct awards and since.

We continue to make significant financial investment in health and social care services. The 2026-27 Budget invests £22.5 billion in health and social care, including £17.6 billion in NHS Boards, £2.3 billion for social care and £2.4 billion in primary care. The Health and Social Care Improving Flow Plan is about ensuring that investment delivers maximum benefit by improving how services work together and shifting care towards prevention, community services and home-based care where appropriate. Delivery will build on that existing investment, while detailed implementation planning will continue alongside normal financial planning processes.

Improving A&E performance is a key priority of this Plan. We recognise that A&E performance is influenced by pressures across the whole pathway, including delayed discharge, hospital occupancy, ambulance handovers and community capacity. For that reason, the Plan focuses on improving flow across the entire health and care system, to support sustainable improvement in A&E performance.

In line with the commitment to tackle corridor care, we will work with Health Boards and Public Health Scotland to ensure we are taking the necessary steps to deliver improvements. This will include considering collecting data on patients who are being cared for in non-standard areas, such as hospital corridors. This consideration will be based on clinical advice.

Delayed discharge remains a key priority and the plan sets out the action we are taking to support this including strengthening the adoption of Discharge Without Delay, Home First and Discharge to Assess approaches.

To support our aim of a more connected system, with simpler routes to care, we are introducing digital appointment functionality through MyCare.scot. The first phase, planned for 2027-28, will allow patients to view secondary care appointment information and related communications online. Over time, the service will expand to include appointment management, self-management, two-way communication to support services such as e-triage, and remote monitoring. The Digital Health and Care Record will also support secure access to a more complete health and care record across organisations, while MyCare.scot will provide the public-facing route for people to access their information and services.

The establishment of Integrated Navigation Centres and Co-ordination Hubs forms part of our wider programme of reform, as set out in our Health and Care Improving Flow Plan 2026-2031, to improve patient flow and access to care across the health and social care system.

Detailed planning is underway with system partners. Decisions on the number of centres and hubs, workforce requirements and associated costs will be considered within that planning. As this work progresses, we will continue to assess local and national needs to ensure these arrangements deliver the greatest benefit for patients and services.

While we recognise that some will have concerns about these proposals the Scottish Government cannot stand by when households are struggling to afford essential goods. Our objective is not to penalise retailers, but to strike a fair balance that addresses the needs of those that are struggling with the cost of their weekly shop. We are consulting on draft proposals before any decisions are taken. The consultation seeks views and evidence from consumers, retailers, producers and other stakeholders on the potential benefits, risks and issues around any food price cap scheme.

I am pleased to report that as of September 2026, Public Service Delivery Scotland and Local Government Digital Office have accepted a formal commissioned to develop a programme around the Digital Health and Care Record. £3.6m will be invested this year to begin the necessary initial technology testing and business case work needed to set out the path to delivery and estimated delivery cost.

The Scottish Government currently have a number of programmes in place and planned for the future to help create a safer online environment for children and young people. On 25 March 2026 the Online Safety Taskforce published its Action Plan which brings together our priorities for protection children and young people from online harm. This plan will continue to be built upon to ensure it evolves alongside the lived experiences of children and young people across Scotland.

We recognise that online safety is a complex problem and that there is a spectrum of harm that can occur – from damaging concentration, to wasted childhood years scrolling on one end, through to the absorption of harmful violent/misogynistic/radicalising content in the middle, to incitement to self-harm and grooming at the most acute end. We have therefore committed in our Programme for Government to take a public health approach to online safety to ensure children, parents and schools are better equipped to deal with online safety.

As part of this approach we launched Digital Wellbeing surveys on 19 August to hear directly from children, young people and parents/carers on the issues facing them and what further guidance they would like. On the 25 August we launched a public health campaign, with content on how parents can help keep their children safe online, as well as a public consultation on restricting access to mobile phones in schools.

We fund a range of initiatives that address social media usage amongst children and young people to help them navigate online spaces and use screens in a healthy, safe and positive way. This includes the Digital Discourse Initiative and the Mind Yer Time resource which is designed by children and young people to use social media and screens in a healthy way. We also work with Parent Club to provide a range of advice for parents and carers on supporting the mental health and wellbeing of their children and families, including a range of advice and information specifically for parents of teenage children.

The resilience of the Polaris All-Terrain Vehicles as well as the resilience of all vehicles within its fleet is a matter for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service(SFRS).

The Scottish Government is committed to the decarbonisation of the maritime sector in a sustainable way to deliver a just transition. Many ports across Scotland have already published plans committing to decarbonising their operations. Port of Leith owners Forth Ports has outlined its commitment and the actions it is taking to achieve a Net Zero carbon operation by 2042. The Company has also outlined an interim target of achieving carbon neutral emissions (Scope 1 and 2) by 2032.

Shore power will play an important role in reducing vessel emissions at berth, but given the infrequent but high peak loads that larger vessels such as cruise ships require, shore power may not always be optimal for every port. We will work with the ports sector to ensure that low emission solutions are pursued whilst proportionate to the scale of operations of an individual port.

We would expect the outcome of the feasibility study to be published by May 2027. The recently announced feasibility study into the use of tram trains on the Edinburgh Suburban Line is planned to take 9 months to complete.