Chamber and committees

No concerns were raised at any point.

The Scottish Government remains committed to ensuring equitable access to genomic tests associated with Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) approved medicines.

While the work of the Scottish Genomics Test Advisory Group (SG-TAG) is currently paused, processes remain in place to support test development and implementation.

Requests for new genomic testing can still be submitted via an interim process in place since October 2024. New submissions are regularly reviewed by the Scottish Strategic Network for Genomic Medicine (SSNGM) horizon scanning group for consideration of next steps.

The Scottish Government continues to invest in Scotland’s genomic capabilities, and we are working in conjunction with NHS Scotland National Services Division (NSD) on a transformation programme to ensure we can commission and implement additional testing.

The Scottish Government continues to support Angus Council to address the erosion issues affecting the sand dunes in Montrose through the Coastal Change Adaptation Fund.

Dredging license applications from Montrose Port Authority have been carefully considered by the Scottish Government ensuring that most dredged material is deposited within Montrose Bay and the dredged material remains in the same coastal circulation cell.

We continue to progress our Dynamic Coast project and between 2022-23 and 2025-26 Angus Council have received almost £730,000 from Scottish Government’s Coastal Change Adaptation Fund: £290,000 in direct distribution and £440,000 to fund a case study to improve the flood resilience of sand dunes at Montrose.

The recruitment and deployment of police officers is a matter for the Chief Constable.

Police Scotland’s three-year Business Plan 2024-2027 sets out the Chief Constable’s vision of a thriving workforce which goes beyond an overall officer headcount and that of a police workforce which includes police staff.

The Chief Constable aims to make maximum impact with a workforce that has the right skills and capacity to keep people safe. Through the Chief Constable’s workforce modernisation plan, Police Scotland are developing an operating model that will create capacity to deal with new and increasing threats by moving more officers to frontline roles, to strengthen community confidence.

The deployment of officers and staff is a matter for the Chief Constable. It is vital that the Chief Constable has the flexibility to develop her workforce to respond to new and emerging operational demands.

Investigation of reports to Police Scotland are quite rightly operational matters for the Chief Constable. Police Scotland has confirmed that every crime report is assessed for threat, harm, risk, vulnerability and for proportionate lines of investigation and evidence, as soon as it is reported.

The Scottish Government is committed to working across Scottish society, and the Scottish Parliament, to guard against the threat of polarising forces and ensure we empower people who feel distant from politics or on the margins of society.

The recent Gathering was an important milestone in this work – bringing together more than 50 leaders to assess the robustness of Scotland’s democratic system and examine the root causes that might undermine shared values. It secured a commitment, across civic, faith, and political leaders, to foundational principles which will guide our collective response and to working in a shared endeavour to give life to these principles. But this was only ever a starting point.

As set out in Programme for Government 2025-26, Scottish Government will now work with partners to develop specific, targeted actions in response to these issues, including:

• Developing counter interventions to the threats to our democratic system.
• Creating positive relationships and engage people across society on the issues.
• Working with partners to engage their own networks to strengthen democratic.
• Using the Scottish Government’s convening power to advance the dialogue around, and progress the solutions to, the issues identified.

Further detail on the outcomes of this work will be provided in due course.

The Scottish Government is clear in its support for a just transition for Scotland’s valued oil and gas sector, which recognises the maturity of the North Sea basin and is in line with our climate change commitments and energy security.

Our goal remains to decarbonise the heat in Scotland’s buildings by 2045. We are taking action in pursuit of this target, including the allocation of £1.63 billion of funding through our Heat in Buildings schemes this Parliamentary Session so far.

The Heat in Buildings Bill that we have committed to introducing this year will set this target in legislation. But we also need urgent UK Government action to significantly reduce the running costs of clean heating systems like heat pumps.

The Scottish Government has made significant early progress through our delivery schemes, with heat pump deployment increasing year on year. The rest of the UK is now catching up on pace of delivery, having adopted a similar approach to our existing grant offer.

We will introduce a Heat in Buildings Bill this year which sets a target for decarbonising heat by 2045. However, we must ensure that any proposed interventions reduce carbon emissions and help reduce fuel poverty. We are therefore calling for urgent UK Government action to significantly reduce the running costs of clean heating systems like heat pumps.

The judgements and issues in the Scottish Government’s Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan are informed and influenced by ongoing developments in the UK Government’s energy policy and recent court decisions. We are taking sufficient time to analyse and reflect on those developments and their impact on Scotland.

Scotland’s valued and highly skilled offshore oil and gas workforce must be at the heart of a just transition, therefore the Scottish Government is not awaiting a final policy position from the UK Government to take action. We have been supporting workers with the powers available to us, and will continue to do so. We are working with industry partners on an Energy Skills Passport, and with UK Government to develop a Regional Skills Pilot scheme for Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire. Through our Just Transition Fund for the North East and Moray we have invested £9.7 million on skills interventions, including the Skills Passport, a Digital Innovation Lab, and an Energy Skills Transition Hub which will open later this year.