Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government continues to monitor and consider a range of evidence in relation to the energy sector.

As part of this approach, we commissioned and published in 2023 a package of independent analysis on Scotland’s Energy System and Just Transition. This analysis considers the economic impact of Scotland’s oil and gas industry, including in terms of employment, during the transition to net zero. A partial update of the baseline data underpinning the analysis was published in 2025.

Decisions on licensing, consenting and the associated fiscal regime for offshore oil and gas are all matters currently reserved to the UK Government. The Scottish Government will continue to support the energy workforce with the powers available to us.

We recognise that diabetic foot screening is a proven way to determine the chance of an individual with diabetes has of developing a future foot ulcer that may lead to amputation. Foot screening is also one of the key processes for good diabetes care.

Clinical guidance recommends that people who are deemed to be at low risk from diabetic foot complications are reviewed every two years whereas those who are deemed to be at medium or high risk should be referred immediately to podiatry services for assessment. Our expectation is that clinicians and GPs consult all relevant clinical guidelines when assessing someone with diabetes and refer for most appropriate treatment.

The Scottish Government remains intensely focussed on reducing waiting times. In 2025-26, we allocated more than £150 million additional funding to health boards to help tackle the longest waits for planned care. This funding delivered thousands more appointments, operations and procedures in 2025-26 compared to 2024-25. We are working with Health Boards to support the continuation of this progress in 2026-27.

The wellbeing of our health and social care professionals, including nurses, is vitally important to this government, and is fundamental to ensuring they can deliver high-quality, compassionate care to individuals and communities.

Scottish Government continues to engage with NHS boards, professional bodies and wider stakeholders on issues affecting the health and wellbeing of the nursing workforce, including burnout, stress and retention.

Following publication of the Nursing and Midwifery Taskforce (NMT) recommended actions in February 2025, the Scottish Government are working with health and social care staff, staff-side organisations, health boards and higher education institutions to deliver lasting positive change for our nurses in Scotland.

There are 44 recommended actions to deliver, with consistent and widespread consistent engagement across health and social care to support their delivery. This collective effort is focused on improving retention of our nurses and welcoming more people into this rewarding profession.

We recognise that throughout their career, employees, including nurses, will face differing demands on their time and energies at home as well as at work. That is why we developed the national Supporting Work Life Balance workforce policies. These are designed to provide staff with a range of flexible working options, to help them to balance their daily life, whilst maintaining and promoting the best possible service to our patients and service users.

The Scottish Government keeps emerging national and international evidence under review, including work from bodies such as UNESCO and the OECD, to understand how digital tools can support learning, wellbeing and positive educational outcomes. This research highlights both the opportunities offered by well-designed digital approaches and the importance of ensuring device use is purposeful and balanced. The Scottish Government will continue to consider international research and good practice.

Local authorities hold statutory responsibility for managing and maintaining their school estate, and we expect them to provide safe environments for all school users.

The Scottish Government recognises the pressures that many school staff are currently facing in relation to behaviour. Whilst the Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research 2023 reported behaviour is generally good overall, it also reported increases in a range of disruptive and other negative behaviours in school.

In response, the Scottish Government and COSLA published a joint action plan on relationships and behaviour in schools in August 2024, setting out actions to support positive behaviour and reduce violence in schools. We have made significant progress on the delivery of these commitments and continue to do so. We are also committed to go further, and have committed to legislating to ban mobile phones in classrooms, as part of a wider and holistic approach to improving behaviour, reducing disruption and supporting positive learning environments for both pupils and staff.

Responsibility for decisions about the delivery of education, including the use of digital approaches in classrooms and early years settings, rests with local authorities, who are best placed to assess the impact of local practice in light of the needs of their learners and communities. The Scottish Government recognises that the educational impact of digital device use cannot be judged on a simple assumption that more or less device use will in itself lead to better or worse outcomes. Evidence from international bodies, including the OECD and UNESCO, indicates that any benefit depends on a range of factors, including the quality of teaching, the nature of the learning activity, and how well digital tools are used to support pedagogy. Digital technology is therefore best understood as something that can enhance effective teaching practice where it is used purposefully and appropriately, rather than as a determinant of educational impact in its own right.

The UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC), an independent expert advisory group, advises all four UK nations on population health screening programmes. Officials from the governments of all four nations, including the Scottish Government, attend all meetings of the UK NSC as observers, and regular meetings are held between the four UK nations to discuss the work of the Committee.

The Chief Medical Officer for Scotland has been sighted on the evidence which has formed the basis of the recent UK NSC recommendation on prostate cancer screening. Additionally, Scotland is represented on the UK NSC by the Scottish Director of Screening, who liaises regularly with Scottish Government officials.

Undertaking river restoration and flood protection activities may require authorisation from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) under the Environmental Authorisations (Scotland) Regulations 2018 (EASR). From November 2025, these regulations created a more streamlined and integrated system for environmental authorisations in Scotland.

There are four types of authorisation and which one is required depends on several factors, including the risk to the environment from the proposed activity. For example, some low-risk activities may be carried out without the need to apply to SEPA, provided the associated rules (General Binding Rules) are followed.

SEPA provides guidance on the types of EASR authorisation and for certain activities, like dredging. Early engagement with SEPA is advised to prevent any unnecessary delays to any activities being considered that may impact the water environment.

In addition, the Scottish Government supports Farming and Water Scotland, which provides a range of advice and guidance to helps farmers and land managers understand and comply with relevant regulations.

The Scottish Government Football Banning Order consultation opened on 1 December 2025 and closed on 23 February 2026. There have been over 900 responses to that consultation, the results of which will be published shortly and will inform legislation.

Information on prostate cancer staging is available via Public Health Scotland Routes to Diagnosis publication. It is worth noting that survival rates, the most crucial measure for any patient, remain high in comparison to other tumours. Public Health Scotland’s Cancer Survival in Scotland data set confirms that Scotland’s five-year survival rate for prostate cancer is 88.6%, similar to that of the other UK nations.

The Scottish Government takes advice from the UK National Screening Committee(UK NSC), an independent expert advisory group that informs screening policy across the UK, regarding national screening programmes. Should a recommendation be made to introduce targeted prostate screening, the organisations that oversee screening will advise us on how to take that recommendation forward.