Chamber and committees

Implementation of many measures in the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2025 require secondary legislation and guidance, and will therefore be subject to Parliamentary business and timetabling. The timetable for implementation of the measures is being developed. I intend to write to the Convener of the Rural Affairs Committee to set out the planned timetable for implementation.

The Scottish Government is committed to improving outcomes for people living with dementia, their families and carers through Dementia in Scotland: Everyone's Story, Scotland’s Dementia Strategy.

All consenting decisions are made on a case-by-case basis in line with the planning, consenting and assessment framework available at the time. No delays to individual project determinations have occurred because of the development timeline of the Updated Sectoral Marine Plan for Offshore Wind Energy, which remains on track for adoption in Summer 2026. Due to the conclusions of the plan-level Appropriate Assessment, adoption of the Updated Sectoral Marine Plan is contingent on UK Ministerial agreement.

As I set out in my statement to Parliament on 2 June, we will launch our consultation on a legislative approach to restrictions on mobile phones in schools within the first 100 days of this government. Further development of the legislative approach will be informed by the outcomes of this consultation, including the views of local authorities who have implemented restrictions.

A national programme of work to address recommendations of the Independent Review of Audiology Services in Scotland (IRASS) was concluded in 2025. A final report was produced which sets out how recommendations have either been implemented and completed, or embedded in longer term work programmes within the health and social care system.

This report is available at: Implementing-the-Recommendations-from-the-IRASS-March-2025.pdf.

Our 100 days prospectus includes a commitment to convene government, NHS Heads of Service, community audiology providers and stakeholders to set out an agreed plan to enhance community audiology services. This reflects our ongoing commitment to working with partners to determine how best to shift audiology care into the community.

A range of different stakeholder organisations are reflecting shared concerns about the nature and extent of protest activity, disorder and incidents of hate, prejudice and intimidation and their impact on faith communities, adversely racialised communities, people seeking asylum and refugees. This is independent of government and there is not a formal or constituted body as such called the Anti-Racism Coalition.

The Scottish Government does not routinely collect comprehensive information on the number of adult day care facilities and services operating in each local authority area.

However, between 2022 and 2024, the Scottish Government carried out four surveys of adult day care services at a national level. The surveys were initially undertaken to establish the extent to which services had returned to pre-pandemic operating levels.

Two collections were undertaken in 2022 to capture service provision before and after the removal of social distancing measures. The figures provided for 2022 reflect the later of these two collections. Further surveys undertaken in 2023 and 2024 continued to monitor the extent to which services had returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Adult day care services are typically commissioned through Health and Social Care Partnerships, and the information is reported on that basis.

The figures presented include only those services identified through survey returns as being open or open with reduced capacity. A figure of zero should not be interpreted as indicating that no adult day care facilities or services were operating in that area. In some cases, a zero may reflect a nil return, an incomplete return, or differences in local reporting rather than an absence of services.

A range of different stakeholder organisations are reflecting shared concerns about the nature and extent of protest activity, disorder and incidents of hate, prejudice and intimidation and their impact on faith communities, adversely racialised communities, people seeking asylum and refugees. This has been independent of government and there is not a formal or constituted body as such called the Anti-Racism Coalition.

The Scottish Government has committed to expanding childcare support to children from nine months through to the end of primary school over the course of this Parliament. We are at the early stages of developing our plans for expansion and, as this progresses, we will work with all parts of the childcare sector, parents, carers and children, to ensure that any expansion delivers a system which meets the needs of children and families across Scotland and supports a sustainable, resilient and high quality childcare sector. We will set out a detailed programme in due course, to enable Parliament and the public to monitor progress.

While we develop those plans, we are continuing to support families most in need, for example through our £15 million childcare support fund which helps with childcare costs, specifically targeting low-income households and families living in, or at risk of living in poverty. We are also continuing to invest £3 million in 2026-27 to fund breakfast clubs through the Bright Start Breakfasts Fund alongside an additional investment of £15 million to phase delivery of a national breakfast club offer from August 2027.

These measures, which we are putting in place now, will help to address the affordability and flexibility of childcare, helping families to manage costs and support participation in education and training, with wider benefits including supporting access to work.

The Scottish Budget for 2026-27 includes £9.4 million of investment to support independent hospices to provide pay parity with NHS levels for staff who deliver essential palliative care services.

We are working with the Scottish Hospice Leadership Group (SHLG) to gather relevant information from hospices to help ensure our governance and approval procedures are correctly followed prior to any allocation of funding being agreed.

This funding will be provided to hospices via allocations to NHS boards, with the clear expectation set that this funding should be immediately paid onward to the hospices.

We will continue to engage with SHLG and NHS boards to ensure that all independent hospices receive the funding as intended.