Chamber and committees

Within the Scottish Government, Learning for Sustainability (LfS) is part of a range of responsibilities covered by the Education Directorate. Within Education Scotland, LfS is part of a range of responsibilities covered by Education Scotland's Curriculum Team.

Resourcing is reviewed regularly in the context of overall business needs.

Tackling food fraud has been one of the main functions of Food Standards Scotland since the Scottish Government decided to set up the organisation from 2015. The Scottish Food Crime and Incidents Unit combines the investigative and intelligence functions of FSS, and was established to prevent, detect and investigate fraud and deliberate non-compliance across the food and animal feed chain, while supporting public bodies during incidents to protect public health from risks associated with food consumption. Its remit on fraud includes food adulteration, substitution, counterfeit products and document fraud within food and feed supply chains. Examples of fraud cases include the seizure of over 250 bottles of counterfeit vodka in 2024-25 The labelling closely resembled that of genuine products, but the bottles contained potentially lethal isopropyl alcohol. A successful prosecution case in 2025, resulted in a sentence of 3 and a half years following various fraudulent claims and mislabelling of imported tea as Scottish grown.

Specifically, on mis-leading labelling the Scottish Government and FSS recognise the importance of protecting consumer confidence and the reputation of genuine Scottish producers by ensuring origin claims are accurate and evidence-based. Under the Food Information to Consumers Regulation, an indication of country of origin is required where the absence of such information is likely to mislead consumers as to the true country of origin or place of provenance of that food. The place of last substantial change, such as curing pork into bacon or baking ingredients into a cake determines the origin of processed food. Simply packing a food does not constitute a substantial change therefore the origin isn’t affected. Where food businesses are not required to provide origin information, they can still provide this information on a voluntary basis providing such indications are accurate and this is done in the same way as if it were mandatory. However, where businesses falsely present products as Scottish or UK-produced when this is not the case, appropriate enforcement action will be taken to protect consumers and legitimate Scottish producers.

The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) operates a Corporate Parenting Strategy 2024-2026 which sets out its approach to supporting care-experienced individuals, including care leavers, within custody.

SPS collects information on care leaver status for individuals aged under 26 at the point of admission, based on self-reporting. As disclosure is voluntary, individuals may choose not to provide this information or may provide inaccurate details. As a result, the figures recorded are likely to underestimate the true number of care-experienced individuals within the remand population.

As of 25 June 2026, there were 52 individuals on remand who have reported being care-experienced, and 8 individuals on remand who have historic care-experienced markers. As the remand population changes on a daily basis, this will impact upon the numbers of those in our care on remand who are care-experienced.

The Scottish Government works with a range of stakeholders through the national Learning for Sustainability (LfS) Leadership Group, which meets quarterly to help oversee and co-ordinate delivery of the LfS Action Plan. The group is co-chaired by the Scottish Government and Education Scotland, and member organisations represent interests across, for example, local authorities, skills development, qualifications, the teaching profession, and the environment.

Scottish Government and Education Scotland officials also work together to deliver shared actions, such as the development of new sustainable learning settings guidance for educators, which Education Scotland published in March 2026. Through provision of funding, the Scottish Government further supports stakeholders to deliver climate action in schools, global citizenship training for practitioners, and resources for taking learning outdoors.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information. Decisions on criminal warrants are judicial decisions taken independently by sheriffs or justices, and the data requested are not routinely recorded.

Search warrants are prepared by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) and presented by the officer seeking the warrant to the presiding judicial office holder.

COPFS holds limited information relating to search warrant applications. The time taken to process a request will vary depending on the individual circumstances of each case. COPFS manually records the date on which a request to consider a warrant application is received from Police Scotland or another specialist reporting agency. It also records, where entered by staff, the date on which a final decision on that request was taken by COPFS or a judicial officeholder. However, COPFS are unable to readily provide reliable figures for the average, longest, or shortest time taken in each of the last five financial years due to identified limitations and inconsistencies in the way that the information has historically been recorded and maintained.

COPFS does not hold data on the time taken to execute a warrant after it has been granted by a judicial officeholder.

Scottish Ministers are giving active consideration to whether we should provide stronger planning guidance, including to balance the potential economic opportunities from the creation of data centres, with concerns raised by communities, and our national energy and climate goals which are vital to our future prosperity.

We will take forward our Heat in Buildings Bill in this Parliamentary session to support homeowners, landlords and tenants to transition to clean heating in a fair and affordable way.

The Scottish Government's legislative programme will be agreed by Ministers and announced to Parliament in due course in the usual way.

As each Justice organisation has their own administrative system to record information for operational purposes, it is not possible to monitor an individual’s interactions throughout the different stages of the justice system. Whilst a Scottish Criminal Records Office (SCRO) number is assigned to an individual and can be used to help identify them within management information systems, doing so is challenging as each organisation has their own approach to measuring activity. For example Police Scotland recording is done at the crime (or incident) level, Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service recording is based at person level and Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service recording is at case level.

SG has developed a Criminal Justice Journey Times dataset in collaboration with colleagues in COPFS and SCTS. This dataset allows times to be calculated for different stages of an accused’s journey through the justice system. The overall journey time is taken to be from the time an offence becomes known to the police to the time a verdict is reached in court.

The European flag is flown daily outside the Scottish Parliament in accordance with the SPCB’s flag-flying policy. That policy follows from Motion S5M-20625, agreed by the Parliament on 29 January 2020, which directed the SPCB to ensure that the European flag continued to fly daily at the Parliament building. The motion recorded that the flag had been flown at Holyrood since 2004 as a symbol of membership of the family of European nations; noted that the flag was originally the flag of the Council of Europe and that Scotland and the UK would continue to be represented within the Council of Europe; affirmed commitment to democracy, human rights, the rule of law and diversity; and recognised continuing to fly the flag as a sign of support and solidarity with EU nationals who have made Scotland their home.

The SPCB will be reviewing the flag flying policy later this year. In determining the policy or considering any changes to it, the SPCB will take into account your feedback as well as any relevant resolutions or directions to it from the Parliament.

On 18 June 2026, the First Minister met with the Anti-Racism Observatory for Scotland (AROS), Article 12 in Scotland, Black and Ethnic Minority Infrastructure Scotland (BEMIS), the Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights (CRER), the Council of Ethnic Minority Voluntary Organisations (CEMVO), and the Scottish Refugee Council (SRC).