On 13 June 2025, I represented the Scottish Government at the summit meeting of the British-Irish Council hosted by the Northern Ireland Executive and jointly chaired by the First Minister – Michelle O’Neill and the deputy First Minister – Emma Little-Pengelly. The meeting was attended by Ministers from all eight of the BIC Member Administrations.

The theme of the summit focussed on “The role of AI in reform and transformation” which offered the opportunity to share and learn from the range of initiatives being taken across these islands to maximise the benefits presented by this rapidly evolving technology.

On the Latest Political Developments item, the Council reflected on international issues including the situation in Gaza as well as the concerning escalation of conflict between Israel and Iran. I also welcomed the recent trade deals with the European Union and the United States and called for better engagement with the UK Government to ensure that the deals take Scotland’s needs into account.

During the summit, I held bilateral meetings with the Taoiseach, the Tnaiste, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the Northern Ireland First Minister and deputy First Minister, the First Minister of Wales and the Chief Minister of the Isle of Man.

The Communiqué that was issued by the British-Irish Council after the meeting can be found on its website at:www.britishirishcouncil.org/resources/

43rd British-Irish Council Summit

Newcastle, County Down, 13 June 2025

Communiqué

The British-Irish Council (BIC) held its 43rd Summit meeting today, Friday 13 June 2025, hosted by the Northern Ireland Executive in Newcastle, County Down.

The Summit meeting had a thematic focus on The Role of AI in Reform and Transformation and was co-chaired by First Minister, Michelle O’Neill MLA and deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly MLA.

The Role of AI in Reform and Transformation

The Council discussed the approaches of the British-Irish Council’s Member Administrations to harnessing AI technologies for public sector reform and transformation in the provision of public services across these islands.

The Council discussed the potential benefits, and the associated challenges, of the more widespread and scaled-up use of AI technologies in public administration.

Latest Political Developments

Council members reflected on significant recent developments within their administrations and discussed a number of domestic and international topics of mutual interest.

Next Summit Meeting

The Council noted that the next BIC Summit will be hosted by the Welsh Government in late 2025.

BIC Secretariat

13 June 2025

Plenary Participants

The Scottish Government is firmly committed to advancing equality and improving outcomes for disabled people across Scotland. I’m pleased to confirm that the Disability Equality Plan will be published today.

This plan has been shaped through close collaboration with Disabled People’s Organisations at every stage of its development. I want to sincerely thank each organisation for their time, insight, and dedication in helping us create a plan that aims to deliver meaningful and lasting change.

The plan sets out a series of actions to ensure disabled people are more visible and actively involved in shaping policy and decision-making. It also commits to improving disability competence across government, so that the needs and rights of disabled people are considered from the very outset of policy development. I will personally champion this work to ensure it is embedded across all areas of government.

Finally, the plan introduces a robust governance framework to hold us accountable for delivering on our commitments—whether that’s reducing the disability employment gap, reforming social care, or promoting and protecting disability rights.

The publication of this plan marks an important milestone. It lays the foundation for systemic change and is a vital step toward building a fairer, more inclusive Scotland for everyone.

Link to the plan: https://www.gov.scot/isbn/9781836915508

In response to the Joint Budget Review conducted with the Parliament in 2022, the Scottish Government continues to improve the information available on the climate impacts of our decision-making.

This is the second year in which we have produced our enhanced taxonomic assessment of the full Budget providing a standardised approach to the classification of both resource and capital budget expenditure relative to their climate impact. We are committed to learning and improving how we do it and, while the overall approach to the taxonomy is the same as last year, to increase its rigour and robustness the key change to the process this year has been to bring in a wider range of official expertise through a more panel-based approach improving confidence in the assessment of budget lines.

The improved taxonomy methodology has been published on the Scottish Government website today. https://www.gov.scot/isbn/9781836916550

Transport Scotland does not hold this information. However, CalMac Ferries Limited (CFL) has provided the information as they do capture the number of Commercial Vehicles carried, and the number of Commercial Vehicle lane metres used.

A table has been placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib Number 65902) that provides a breakdown, by individual routes and calendar year from 10 October 2024 up until June 2025, detailing the total number of Commercial Vehicles carried and the total number of Commercial Vehicle lane metres used only.

This information will now be available via the CalMac website by following the link

https://corporate.calmac.co.uk/en-gb/about-us/performance-reports/island-performance/.

The Scottish Government can respond in terms of where single carriageway trunk roads have been previously committed to being dualled. The Scottish Government cannot comment on any commitments made by Local Authorities to dual single carriageways roads on the local road network.

The Infrastructure Investment Plan 2021-22 to 2025-26 established a pipeline of projects and programmes. Included within this was the commitment to dualling the A9 between Perth and Inverness and the A96 from Inverness to Craibstone Roundabout.

The Scottish Government remains absolutely committed to dualling the A9 between Perth and Inverness and good progress is being made in delivering targets in the delivery plan announced in December 2023, which anticipates completion by the end of 2035.

In terms of the A96, the position of the Scottish Government has not changed – the current favoured position is to fully dual the route and we are already starting the dualling process from Inverness to Nairn, including a Nairn Bypass. As part of the then Bute House Agreement, the Scottish Government agreed to undertake a review of the corridor and Transport Scotland published the outcomes from the Review in draft for consultation in November 2024. The feedback received from the consultation will help inform the Scottish Government’s final decision on how best to take forward improvements to the A96.

The A96 between Inverness and Craibstone Roundabout is predominantly single carriageway. There are dualled sections from Raigmore Interchange to just east of Inverness Retail Park roundabout and also from Inverurie roundabout to Craibstone roundabout.

The A9 between Perth and Inverness is single carriageway with dualled sections from Inveralmond roundabout to Birnam, Ballinluig to Pitlochry, Kincraig to Dalraddy, a section near Dalnaspidal,a section near Crubenmore, a section between Slochd and Tomatin, and a section from Moy to Inverness.

In 2023 there were two fatal casualties on single carriageway sections of the road where dualling was included within the pipeline of schemes from the Infrastructure Investment Plan. A96 between Inverness and Craibstone Roundabout recorded one fatality, and the A9 between Perth and Inverness recorded one fatality.

The personal injury accident information provided above is sourced from Transport Scotland’s Accident Manager Database based on the current figures available. The date period was taken from 1 January 2023 to 31 December 2023 and the information was extracted from the database on 12 June 2025. The following are potential reasons for an accident not appearing on our system: Transport Scotland only holds trunk road accident information which is provided to us by Police Scotland. This information is subject to change, e.g. when later returns are received from Police Scotland, who are responsible for recording details of injury accidents.

Annual Scottish accident figures are published by Transport Scotland on a yearly basis and can be found on the Transport Scotland at www.transport.gov.scot.

It is not possible to provide this information.

The most recent available data on conviction rates for rape and attempted rape were published in Criminal Proceedings in Scotland, 2022-23. The figures for the most recent available five years are set out in Table 1. This shows the conviction rates for people prosecuted in court.

Table 1: Conviction rate for rape and attempted rape

The following table shows the estimated number of police recorded cyber-crimes during 2021-22 to 2023-24. These estimates are based on a review of crime records, whereby a random sample of cases was drawn across Scotland for those types of crime that could in theory involve a cyber-element. Further information on recorded cyber-crime is available in the recorded crime Accredited Official Statistics publications at Recorded crime in Scotland - gov.scot. Figures for 2024-25 will be published as part of this series on 24th June 2025.

The Scottish Government, Police Scotland and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) are working together to help protect organisations from cyber criminals, by identifying fraudulent websites, preventing phishing emails, blocking phone numbers and ultimately bringing those responsible to justice. We encourage everyone who wishes to report a fraud to contact the police and to report suspicious sites to NCSC using the reporting tool on their website.

Partners will continue to share knowledge and learning around fraud activity. Fraud is committed by a broad range of criminals, from domestic lone actors to complex international organised crime groups.

Data are available on the Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) share of businesses, jobs and turnover. These estimates, sourced from the Businesses in Scotland 2024 publication, are shown in the following table.

Table 1: SME share of businesses, jobs and turnover – Scotland – 2019 to 2024

The Scottish Government revised the Code of Conduct, in August 2021, to make it clearer, to drive up standards and to improve transparency and consistency, supporting homeowners to challenge poor performance, using the Tribunal as necessary.

In considering the continued registration of a property factor, or of any application to enter the register, the Scottish Ministers will take steps as set out in the Property Factors (Scotland) Act 2011 including, amongst other things, consideration of the extent to which a property factor has complied with the Code of Conduct and with any property factor enforcement order made by the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland (Housing and Property Chamber). Failure to comply with an Order is a criminal offence.

The Housing Bill (Scotland) contains minor adjustments to improve the effectiveness of the property factor registration processes. Ministers have committed to undertaking a review of the property factor regulatory regime.