Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government engages regularly with companies in the offshore wind supply chain. Our strategic investment in critical enabling infrastructure and supply chain facilities is leveraging significant private investment and crowding in additional funding from UK public finance institutions. Under our Just Transition Fund, our 2025-26 projects have a particular focus on enabling offshore wind infrastructure and the wider supply chain, as does our funding for the Energy Transition Zone.

Our enterprise agencies work closely with companies through innovation accelerators including the Launch Academy and CAN-DO feasibility funding calls as well as through manufacturing factsheets and masterclasses. And our agencies’ demand-led programmes connect offshore wind projects with innovative Scottish floating wind technology and service providers.

Offshore wind developers have made commitments to invest an average of £1.5bn in Scotland per project across the ScotWind projects. We expect developers to honour their Supply Chain Development Statement (SCDS) commitments, which were a condition of their being awarded Lease Option Agreements.

My sympathies go to anyone bereaved after a loved one endured a long A&E wait. The Scottish Government recognises the link between prolonged waits and increased risk of harm. We monitor A&E performance through weekly data and operational reviews, analysing factors such as bed occupancy, delayed discharge, workforce pressures and seasonal demand. This informs actions to reduce delays and improve patient flow.

We acknowledge the Royal College of Emergency Medicine’s modelling, which estimates excess deaths associated with long waits. While based on modelling rather than case reviews, it highlights the need to address underlying causes. Our analysis shows high bed occupancy and delayed discharge are key drivers, compounded by winter pressures. To tackle these, we have invested £220 million in 2025-26 to improve hospital flow, reduce waiting times and expand community care, including frailty services and Hospital at Home. I will meet RCEM later this month to discuss ongoing improvements.

I met with the UK Minister for Energy Consumers most recently on 3 December during which the Warm Homes Plan was discussed.

In its advice to the Scottish Government on Scotland’s Carbon Budgets, the Climate Change Committee noted that “Making electricity cheaper, through rebalancing prices to remove policy levies from electricity bills, is a key recommendation the Committee have made to the UK Government and will be essential to delivering Scotland’s targets, in tandem with action by the Scottish Government.”

It is therefore legitimate that the Scottish Parliament should be able to consider the Heat in Buildings Bill in the context of the Warm Homes Plan and any UK-wide action that may be taken to make electricity cheaper. We will therefore continue to press the UK Government to share more information on the timing and content of the Plan in order to bring forward legislation whilst ensuring the transition to clean heat is affordable and deliverable.

We do not collect national data on patients waiting on trolleys in A&E. Our focus is on addressing the underlying causes of this practice, such as high hospital occupancy and poor patient flow.

We want to drive improvements and are working closely with health boards to ensure they have the support in place to cope with peaks in demand. Through the NHS Scotland Operational Improvement Plan, we are investing £220 million to reduce waiting times, improve hospital flow, and minimise delayed discharges.

As set out by me in the statement to Parliament on 13 November on winter preparedness and national planning, winter resilience planning is best undertaken by those delivering the services themselves. The Scottish Government supports this via the nationally agreed priorities and principles set out in the document “National Planning Priorities and Principles for Surge and Winter Preparedness in Health and Social Care” which was published on 13 November 2025.

The Scottish Government has not engaged directly with families or clinicians calling for the introduction of routine point-of-care testing for diabetes symptoms. However, we regularly engage with Diabetes Scotland and other third-sector organisations, and clinicians, through forums such as the Scottish Diabetes Group, which provide opportunities for clinical leaders and patient representatives to inform policy development.

We also engage with people with lived experience of diabetes through events such as World Diabetes Day and other awareness activities, ensuring their perspectives help shape our approach to improving care and early diagnosis.

Through these channels, we ensure that views from healthcare professionals, organisations supporting families and those directly affected by diabetes are considered in shaping policy.

The Scottish Government expects all NHS Boards and healthcare professionals to follow relevant clinical guidelines when assessing children and to refer them for testing where clinically necessary.

Decisions on testing are a matter for clinicians, guided by national clinical standards, and it would not be appropriate for the Scottish Government to mandate this. In May 2023, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence updated its diabetes guideline (NG18), which recommends that any child displaying symptoms such as excessive urination, thirst or tiredness should be referred immediately to paediatric diabetes services for diagnosis and care. This process includes appropriate testing to confirm diagnosis.

The Scottish Government expects all NHS Boards and healthcare professionals to follow relevant clinical guidelines when assessing children and to refer them for testing where clinically necessary.

We encourage parents and carers to contact their GP urgently if their child is displaying symptoms.

We remain committed to improving early diagnosis and awareness among healthcare professionals and will continue to monitor emerging evidence to inform future policy decisions.

The Scottish Government is taking steps to improve early detection of type 1 diabetes in children through research, awareness initiatives, and clinical guidance.

Scotland contributed to the UK’s largest screening trial for children with type 1 diabetes, the ELSA study, which screened 20,000 children aged 3 to 13 for early markers of the condition. The findings will help inform future policy decisions.

Our Diabetes Improvement Plan sets out priorities for early diagnosis and prevention and is overseen by the Scottish Diabetes Group, which brings together clinical leaders and stakeholders to drive improvements in care.

A key commitment within the Plan is raising awareness of type 1 diabetes in primary care to ensure clinicians can recognise early signs and symptoms and act quickly.

The Scottish Diabetes Group works closely with the Diabetes Managed Clinical Network-Managers and Leads group to ensure frontline perspectives inform policy and practice. National clinical guidelines are regularly discussed at Scottish Diabetes Group meetings to reinforce best practice.

At its next meeting in March, the Scottish Diabetes Group will consider a suggestion brought forward by the Scottish Government, to promote awareness of the 4Ts (Toilet, Thirsty, Tired, Thinner) which are key symptoms of type 1 diabetes in children. We remain committed to improving early diagnosis and will continue to monitor emerging evidence to inform future policy decisions on diabetes care for children and young people.

The Scottish Government does not hold centrally data on how many cases of diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) in children have resulted specifically from delayed diagnosis in each of the last five years.

While information on diabetes diagnoses and hospital admissions for DKA is recorded nationally, through SCI-Diabetes, these datasets do not capture whether an episode of DKA was attributable to delayed diagnosis. Assessment of the clinical circumstances leading to DKA sits with local NHS Boards and care teams.

Reducing the number of children presenting in diabetic ketoacidosis remains a priority. Evidence shows that improved awareness, timely referral, and better glucose control can reduce the likelihood and severity of DKA.

Closed Loop Systems support more stable blood glucose control and provide early alerts that can help prevent deterioration and emergency admissions. Local experience in Scotland demonstrates sustained improvements in glycaemic control among children using these systems, reducing future risk of acute complications.

The Scottish Diabetes Survey 2024 highlights continued improvement in monitoring and technology uptake among children and young people, reinforcing the importance of prevention and early intervention across the pathway rather than retrospective attribution of individual cases.

Alongside technological advances, the Scottish Government continues to support early detection and prompt referral through national clinical guidance, professional education and the Diabetes Improvement Plan, overseen by the Scottish Diabetes Group. This approach is intended to reduce avoidable harm, including diabetic ketoacidosis, in children and young people with type 1 diabetes.

The Scottish Government Executive Committee, settled on implementing 40% in-person working over a working month, for staff in core directorates. This target was settled on following an internal review of evidence from a number of sources. The aim is to spend 40% of contracted hours working in-person with colleagues and/or stakeholders or other settings from 27 October 2025. The 40% target is averaged over a four-week period and is a target not a mandate.