Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting those separated by adoption to express a wish to be in touch with one another

Scottish Government policy officials met with Birthlink on 17 December 2024 to discuss the operation of the Adoption Contact Register. The Minister for Children, Young People and The Promise plans to meet the Chief Executive of Birthlink in early 2025.

The Scottish Government provided £57,000 in 2024-25 to Birthlink via the Children, Young People and Families Early Intervention and Adult Learning and Empowering Communities Fund (CYPFEI & ALEC) third sector fund to support the operation of the Adoption Contact Register.

Despite facing the most challenging financial situation since devolution, the Scottish Government remains committed to supporting the third sector. Subject to approval of the Scottish Budget by the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Government will be extending provision of the CYPFEI & ALEC third sector funds at current levels, from 1 April 2025 until March 2026.

The Scottish Government recognises the pressure on household budgets which is why in 2024-25 we continued to allocate around £3bn a year to policies which tackle poverty and help with the cost of living for households.  This includes providing free bus travel for over 2 million people and continuing to invest in discretionary housing payments with £90.5m being made available in 2024-25.

Additionally in November we announced a £41 million package of support for people struggling with energy costs this winter. This includes: an additional £20 million which will be provided for the Scottish Welfare Fund, to enable councils to provide more vital support to people in crisis; an additional £20 million for the Warmer Homes Scotland Scheme, which helps people install energy efficiency measures and more efficient heating systems, saving on average around £300 per year in household energy bills, and making £1 million of grant-funding available to registered social landlords to fund work to help sustain tenancies.

The Scottish Government believes that a social tariff is the best way to ensure that energy consumers are protected against high costs and can afford all of their energy needs. The powers to implement a social tariff remain with the UK Government and we are committed to working closely with them to advocate for the delivery of a social tariff across Great Britain. We established a Social Tariff Working Group in November, bringing together stakeholders to co-design a deliverable social tariff policy, and will share the outputs from the group with UK Government as soon as possible.

As detailed in my letter to NZET Committee on 17 December 2024, the technological and financial landscape has changed significantly since the Decarbonisation Action Plan was first published. The Scottish Government currently faces significant financial and budgetary pressures. As a consequence of these challenges, it is clear that the 2020 Decarbonisation Action Plan commitment to decarbonise rail services by 2035 can no longer be met. A revised target of 2045 is planned for the refreshed Rail Services Decarbonisation Action Plan.

I refer the member to the answer to the question S6W-31908 on 11 December 2024. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

The replacement for ScotRail’s High Speed Trains (HST) is expected to be more energy efficient than the HSTs and therefore will significantly reduce emissions, a direct contribution to decarbonisation.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally. It should be noted that the presence of RAAC does not in of itself mean that a building is unsafe. Further information on RAAC in the Public Sector in Scotland can be found in this report Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (RAAC) across the public sector in Scotland - gov.scot

The Scottish Government has been clear that it will do what is right and necessary to fix the issue of unsafe cladding fully and from the outset. Developers have a key role to play in the assessment, risk mitigation and remediation of buildings with potentially unsafe cladding. We are working collaboratively with them to ensure a fair and proportionate approach to meeting the costs of cladding remediation.

We shared a draft Developer Remediation Contract on 24 September 2024 with the nine developers who signed the Developer Commitment Letter in 2023. The cost to developers who sign the legally binding contract will depend on how many, if any, buildings with potentially unsafe cladding they have developed, and the scale of remediation or mitigation required for each of those buildings following their assessment. Developers agreeing and signing the legally binding developer remediation contract will be a positive step to ensuring the safety of homeowners and residents in multi residential properties with unsafe cladding.

Additionally, this year’s Programme for Government announced that, subject to the devolution of the necessary powers, the Scottish Government intends to bring forward a Bill to establish a Building Safety Levy in Scotland to support the funding of the cladding remediation programme. As set out in the recent consultation on the Scottish Building Safety Levy, we estimate that this measure would seek to raise £30 million per annum.

The Cladding Remediation Programme is accelerating the pace of delivery now that we have put in place the essential building blocks, including the Housing (Cladding Remediation) (Scotland) Act 2024, which will be commenced on 6 January 2025.

As we finalise these acceleration plans, we are diligently working on cost estimates to ensure financial clarity. However, the Scottish Government’s position remains that we will invest as necessary to effectively minimise risks posed by unsafe cladding.

Our spending on remediation costs can only follow a full end to end process - checking buildings are in scope, commissioning a Single Building Assessment, completing that robust technical assessment, identifying the works that need to be carried out, designing those works and gaining the necessary approvals, and then carrying out the remediation itself.

Investment in the programme continues with £52.2 million allocated in the 2025-2026 Scottish Government budget to support delivery and acceleration.

Work to finalise the Affordable Housing Supply Programme (AHSP) Review is ongoing and at present no publication date has been set. The key purpose of the Review is to consider the responsiveness, impact, efficiency, value-for-money and deliverability of the AHSP. It is not a Review of the 110,000 affordable homes supply target. The Scottish Government remains committed to achievement of this target and we have increased the affordable housing budget by over £200m in 2025-26 to ensure we continue to deliver the homes Scotland needs.