Chamber and committees

Section 40 of the Regulatory Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 introduces an offence of significant environmental harm and sets maximum penalties for convictions for this offence. As set out in the Scottish Government’s draft Annual Report on the Scottish Government's commitment to align with the European Union where appropriate that was laid on 31 October 2024, we are considering Directive (EU) 2024/1203 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 April 2024 on the protection of the environment through criminal law. As a part of our consideration of this Directive, we are assessing the provisions for qualified offences for conduct that causes widespread and substantial environmental damage to particular features of the environment, and comparing this with existing provisions in Scots law to protect the environment.

The Scottish Government provides core funding annually to Health Boards for sexual health and blood borne virus (BBV) services. From 2018-19 to 2023-24, Health Boards received funding through the annual Outcomes Framework allocation to cover a range of outcomes, including sexual health and BBVs. It was up to Health Boards to decide how much to allocate to each outcome within this envelope. In order to give Boards more control over local priorities this funding was baselined in 2023-24.

The total value for Outcomes Framework allocations since 2018-19 is set out in the following table.

Given the wide range of bodies that make up the public bodies landscape in Scotland, and that not all public bodies share the same relationship with Government, there are no set rules as to the frequency ministers and officials should meet with them. Ministers with portfolio responsibility for public bodies do meet with them on a regular basis, and I have met with multiple public bodies over the past 6 months.

Of the 131 public bodies referred to there are some public bodies such as Parliamentary Commissioner that Ministers are not responsible for, but those public bodies that Ministers have responsibility for, civil servants make up the public body sponsor team within the Scottish Government.

Sponsor teams are the first point of contact between an Non-Departmental Public Bodies (NDPBs) and the Scottish Government. They provide advice, help and support to the public body and advice on accountability, governance and performance to Ministers and Portfolio Accountable Officers both on an ad-hoc basis and as part of regular meetings. Sponsorship is flexible, proportionate and responsive; and facilitates positive relationships between the body and the Scottish Government. Each public body will have a Framework Document that outlines the working relationship between itself and the Scottish Government. The Framework Document should be published on the public bodies website and will set out expectations for regular meetings.

The Scottish Government is working intensively with business organisations and stakeholders to deliver on our shared ambitions, including through the New Deal for Business Group, which helped shape the First Minister’s recent Programme for Government and is informing our key priorities regarding economic growth.

There are good examples of business already feeding into policy development in areas like public health, circular economy and fair work. Deepening this relationship is an ongoing process, and I’m committed to building on the progress to date.

The Scottish Government will keep working with business to improve productivity, bring investment and create high quality jobs for Scotland.

Literacy, which includes reading, remains the responsibility of all educators and a key priority in the National Improvement Framework. The National Improvement Framework and improvement plan 2024 included a range of actions to support literacy under the National Response to Improving Literacy, all of which are relevant to reading. The 2025 National Improvement Framework, which will be published in December 2024, will include a new long-term strategy setting out how we will work in partnership with local authorities and wider children's services to improve outcomes for young people. Improving achievement in literacy will remain a key priority.

Of particular note, in February 2024 Education Scotland published an Early Reading Professional Support Overview followed by a number of Professional Learning Resources from March to June 2024 for educators who support children and young people to learn to read. This guidance covers a range of themes including developing skills for reading and it seeks to provide clarity on the position of systematic phonics within an overall approach to early reading. The guidance is accompanied by an enhanced national primary schools professional learning programme on early reading.

In addition, the Scottish Government continues to fund the Scottish Book Trust to deliver both the Reading Schools programme and Read Write Count with the First Minister (RWC). Reading Schools offers three accreditation levels to Primary, Secondary and Additional Support Needs schools, designed to champion schools’ efforts to build and sustain a reading culture, while RWC gifts books and other materials to Primary 2 and 3 pupils across Scotland. The Scottish Government also continues to fund the School Library Improvement Fund to support creative and innovative projects within the school library sector.

The National Response to Improving Literacy Partnership Board (NRIL) brings together Scottish Government, Education Scotland and the Association of Directors of Education Services (ADES) to identify and support actions to improve literacy. A key priority for the “NRIL” in 2024 and 2025 is the Literacy and English Curriculum Improvement Cycle which will seek to strengthen and update Scotland’s Literacy and English Curriculum.

The Scottish Government does not comment on the internal affairs of non-SG bodies.

The Scottish Government is fully committed to improving and protecting the welfare of all animals in Scotland. The Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006 protects animals in Scotland, including livestock, and in November 2023 we published our own pig welfare guidance to further improve the welfare of farmed pigs. The Welfare of Farmed Animals (Scotland) Regulations 2010 was updated to include this updated guidance.

The Scottish Government is committed to the plans for a National Care Service, and Scottish Ministers are continuing work on progressing this as quickly and effectively as possible.

There are a range of commercial digital products available to schools aimed at improving children's reading.

Some schools in Scotland are already using these approaches to improve children's reading and Education Scotland, the Scottish education agency, will continue to explore the evidence base and relative effectiveness of these and how to best share good practice in this area.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) will provide updates on HIV statistics as part of the HIV in Scotland annual surveillance report. The latest report was published in September 2024 and the next release will be in Autumn 2025.

The HIV Transmission Elimination Delivery Plan was launched in March 2024. PHS is developing a monitoring and evaluation plan to assess progress against this plan and the Scottish Government will update Parliament on this in due course.

Falling birth rates are a demographic trend replicated across many high-income countries, with significant future implications for our economies, communities and public services.

The Family Friendly Nation strand of our Population Strategy sets out our ambition to ensure Scotland is the ideal place to raise a family. In delivering this, in November 2022, the Ministerial Population Taskforce published ‘Attitudes to Family Formation in Scotland’ to update our evidence base about family planning and ideal family size.

Next steps are being considered by the Taskforce, including scoping potential policy lessons from international comparators to support people to have the number of children they wish to have.