Chamber and committees

Forestry in Scotland is guided by the principles of sustainable forestry management set out in the UK Forestry Standard (UKFS) requirements and guidelines and must also operate within the legal requirements regarding biodiversity and wider environmental impacts. Scottish Forestry is the Scottish Government’s agency tasked with regulation and policy advice for forestry. Any felling must either comply with a felling permission granted by SF or be carried out as part of an approved long term management plan. Techniques, such as whole tree harvesting, are only suitable on certain sites and guidance is available to ensure that it is carried out in a sustainable manner. All new woodland creation projects are assessed against the evidence-based UKFS which represents the governments approach to sustainable forestry.

Resource Planning Assumptions (RPAs) support the delivery of local authority priorities as identified in their Strategic Housing Investment Plan (SHIP). Due to the challenging post-Covid delivery climate, delivery partners were not able to use the £724.268 million available capital allocated through resource planning assumptions in 2021-22, and actual spend was £613.169 million. In 2025-26 we are making available £660.064 million through resource planning assumptions for local authorities. Affordable Housing Supply Programme: resource planning assumptions - gov.scot

Information on actual spend by local authority compared to RPA is available in Table 2 of our 2021-22 annual out-turn report: Affordable Housing Supply Programme: out-turn report 2021-2022 - gov.scot. Whilst the published RPA for Glasgow City in 2021-22 was £120.578 million, in the 2021-22 out-turn report it is recorded as £129.030 million as this included £3.741 million for the Govanhill Acquisition Programme and £4.711 million for the Glasgow Housing Association Wheatley Bond.

The 2025-26 Affordable Housing Supply Programme budget of £768 million represents an increase of more than £211 million (38%) when compared to the 2024-25 original published budget of £556 million. This is an increase of more than £181 million capital (44%) and an increase of more than £30 million (63%) in financial transactions. The 2025-26 budget more than reinstates the affordable housing supply programme to 2023-24 levels, with £15.8 million more being available to invest when compared to 2023-24.

We continue to work with partners to increase the delivery of more affordable homes, the majority of which will be for social rent, including meeting the existing commitment to the targeted use of £40 million for acquisitions.

The Scottish Government has committed to publishing a full set of cost benefit assessments for the forthcoming climate change plan. The upcoming CCP will cover the period from 2026-2040 and will give the best view of the policies required to support our pathway to net zero. The plan will also be subject to, and will publish alongside, a suite of impact assessments including equalities and island impact assessments that will provide particular focus on groups with specific considerations.

The Scottish Government is continuing to take action to reduce inappropriate out-of-area placements and delayed discharges experienced by people with learning disabilities and complex care needs through our Coming Home programme.

New Dynamic Support Registers (DSR) were introduced in May 2023 to help with local planning, building on our £1 million investment into Health and Social Care Partnerships through the Community Living Change Fund. It was encouraging to see an 18% reduction in numbers of people reported as being on the DSRs in the most recent quarter, but more needs to be done.

Our ongoing work combines a national focus with strong local leadership. A Peer Support Network has been established and has met a number of times. The Scottish Government and CoSLA co-chaired a Coming Home stocktake event on 12 May 2025, which was attended by system leaders from across health and social care. We are working with CoSLA, including via the co-chaired Collaborative Response and Assurance Group (CRAG), to collectively agree actions from this event and progress the Coming Home vision.

We have also consulted on how the proposed Learning Disability, Autism and Neurodivergence Bill can strengthen our work on the Coming Home programme, in particular the recommendation to establish a National Support Panel and whether there are opportunities to strengthen Dynamic Support Registers in the future.

As this is an operational matter for Scottish Water, and the Scottish Government does not hold this information, I have asked them to respond. Their reply is as follows:

Annual leakage levels are published in Scottish Water’s annual report and accounts which are routinely laid before Parliament and available online at https://www.scottishwater.co.uk/Help-and-Resources/Document-Hub/Key-Publications/Annual-Reports. Data for England and Wales is published by Ofwat at https://www.ofwat.gov.uk/publication/leakage-dataset-june-2025/

The leakage figure reported by Scottish Water currently equates to circa 24.7% of water supplied. Leakage is a function of an ageing asset base, and rates are affected by the increase in extreme weather conditions.

If seeking to compare leakage in Scotland with other parts of the UK, it should be noted that Scottish Water’s network is different to many others due to the remote nature of many rural and island communities, as well as the topography and length of pipework used. Direct comparison is difficult due to the very localised nature of how leakage is calculated. When all the various factors are considered, Scotland’s leakage rate appears marginally higher than the average for the UK, however it is still comparable.

Overall, Scottish Water has made great progress and since 2007 has reduced leakage by some 58%.

Our immediate priority is to capitalise on the near term opportunities set out in Project Willow, with a focus on bringing forward new jobs at Grangemouth as quickly as possible. The Grangemouth investment taskforce is delivering on this priority by working with businesses with an interest in developing projects aligned to those suggested in Project Willow.

Creative Scotland publishes information on all successful applications made to its funding programmes on its website. The assessment criteria for all funds are also published and are accessible to applicants and indeed any member of the public. It would not be appropriate for Creative Scotland to publish information on unsuccessful applications due to sensitivities around, for example, an applicant's commercial interests. It is the decision of each individual unsuccessful applicant whether they make the outcome of their application publicly known.

The Scottish Government is firmly committed to building a country that ensures equality of opportunity for all by embedding equality, inclusion and human rights into everything that we do. That includes ensuring that the rights of all neurodivergent people, including those with autism, are respected, protected and championed.

We are continuing to deliver work across government and with national and local partners, combining a national focus with strong local leadership.

Work is continuing on the proposed Learning Disabilities, Autism and Neurodivergence (LDAN) Bill, which presents a unique and world-leading opportunity to help create a society where being neurodivergent or having a learning disability is as accepted as being neurotypical.

For the majority of current or concluded Scottish Public Inquiries none have overrun their original timeframe since the Inquiries (Scotland) Rules 2007 came into effect. This is because Ministers have not sought to specify in the Terms of Reference a fixed date by which the inquiry must conclude, to ensure that there is no impediment to the ability of the Chair to follow evidence wherever it may lead, and that their independence from government is manifest to all those with an interest in the inquiry.

However, the exception to this would be the concluded Vale of Leven Inquiry. The Terms of Reference included a provision “to report by 30 September 2010 unless otherwise provided by the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing”. The Chair of the Inquiry made an application to the Cabinet Secretary for the deadline for the report to be extended, with the final phase of oral hearing not being completed until June 2012. The Chair confirmed in the inquiry’s report that they “did not consider it possible to report by a specified date” explaining that “until the work of an inquiry is well underway any prediction about a time limit cannot be accurate and may be totally unrealistic”.

The current Scottish COVID-19 Inquiry Terms of Reference provide an example of how an overall expectation in relation to reporting timeframes can be set, whereby they include an expectation of the inquiry “To provide reports to the Scottish Ministers as soon as practicable”. How the Scottish COVID-19 Inquiry fulfils that expectation in practice is, under the legislation, a matter for its independent Chair.

In relation to costs, there is no single record maintained by Scottish Government of cost information relating to current and former inquiries. Costs are determined to a large extent by how each inquiry is run by its independent Chair and, for this reason, the Scottish Government does not set a fixed budget or cost limit for an inquiry. Under section 17 of the Inquiries Act 2005, the Chair is responsible for the procedure and conduct of an inquiry, and has a duty to avoid any unnecessary cost. Publication of information in relation to costs is undertaken independently by inquiries themselves.

Decisions on offshore oil and gas licensing, as well as on consenting and the associated fiscal regime, are matters currently reserved to the UK Government.

The Scottish Government is clear in its own support for a just transition for Scotland’s valued offshore 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.