Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government monitors wider trends across all sectors, including the print industry, through Skills Development Scotland (SDS) and the Scottish Funding Council (SFC).

As our national skills body, SDS has operational responsibility for managing apprenticeship funding and delivery, and regularly monitors demand across all sectors, including print related frameworks.

We will continue to work with key stakeholders to assess sectoral skill needs across the economy and ensure that all sectors, including those in the print industry, can access appropriate support where required.

The Scottish Government has made clear that it stands in solidarity with the Ukrainian government and its people and resolutely condemns Russia’s illegal war against Ukraine.

Putting real pressure on Russia relies on the effectiveness of the international sanctions regime.

The Scottish Government fully supports the UK Government’s sanctions regime against Russia, and has urged the UK Government to take all possible action to ensure the effectiveness of its sanctions regime in exerting pressure on the Russian regime.

The Scottish Government works with Health Boards through planning to make best use of existing NHS resources and capacity, it is for Health Boards locally to determine how they use the private sector and to agree any contractual arrangements. The Scottish Government no longer provides direct funding to private providers for planned care, therefore, this information is not held.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that people with respiratory conditions receive the best possible care and treatment to enable them to live longer, healthier, and more independent lives. Through our Respiratory Care Action Plan for Scotland, we have supported national work to strengthen prevention, diagnosis, care and support for people living with respiratory conditions.

The Scottish Government has embedded the prevention of respiratory disease into wider policy through the launch of the Cleaner Air for Scotland Strategy, Warmer Homes Scotland Scheme and the refreshed Tobacco Action Plan.

National clinical pathways for severe asthma, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and interstitial lung disease are being developed through the Centre for Sustainable Delivery. This work includes enhanced referral triage and innovations in the diagnosis and management of sleep apnoea, helping to ensure that people receive the right care at the right time.

We also published the Quality Prescribing Guide for Improvement, which aims to keep people at the centre of their treatment, and promote safe, evidenced based, sustainable prescribing. A core component of this has been to create user friendly digital tools for both people living with lung conditions and healthcare professionals

To improve access to pulmonary rehabilitation, a key intervention for people with chronic respiratory conditions, we are working in partnership with Chest Heart and Stroke Scotland to develop a digital first model. This will provide self-management tools, resources and videos that can be accessed anywhere in Scotland and will be hosted on the My Lungs My Life platform.

We recently published the Scotland's Population Health Framework and the Health and Social Care Service Renewal Framework in which we outline our shared, long-term vision for reforming and renewing health and social care services to ensure they are more sustainable, preventative, and equitable.

We are exploring a Long-Term Conditions Framework to ensure equitable and sustainable access to services that everyone with long term conditions needs, such as those living with a respiratory condition. A series of advisory groups, including respiratory, will be established to make initial recommendations to the Scottish Government and these will produce an authoritative set of recommendations to inform the new government’s work on long-term conditions.

We will continue to work with clinicians, NHS, Boards, and national delivery partners and the third sector to ensure that people with lung conditions can access timely diagnosis, effective treatment and ongoing support as part of safe, high quality respiratory care.

Skills Development Scotland (SDS) provide an all-age career service in every local authority, with SDS Careers Advisers in secondary schools and SDS centres and community locations nationwide. Careers advisers highlight the career options available across all sectors - including the Print industry - to people across Scotland, including Apprenticeships.

SDS also works with partners and employers to highlight the importance of Apprenticeships particularly through Scottish Apprenticeship Week which took place in 02 – 06 March 2026. We continue to work closely with SDS to support the promotion of Apprenticeships throughout Scotland.

I am aware of Print Scotland’s concerns over the funding differences in training contributions between England and Scotland. Print Scotland have written to Skills Development Scotland (SDS) and will meet to discuss this further.

Apprenticeship funding in Scotland follows a contribution model that differs from England, alongside often differing training and assessment requirements, so cannot be directly compared.

We have committed to reviewing apprenticeship contribution rates and published the scope of this review on Friday 13 March as part of wider work on Modern Apprenticeship (MA) reform. The scope and terms of reference can be found here: Modern apprenticeship contribution rates review: terms of reference - gov.scot

The review will be in two stages. The first stage has already started and this will include working with our delivery partners to gather the necessary evidence. We expect the second stage of this review to be undertaken from February 2027 and we intend to publish a report following the outcome of the review.

The Scottish Government announced its intention to launch ScotZEB on 17 November 2025 with the scheme opening to bids on 5 December 2025. Officials met with interested stakeholders on request, and responded to all queries regarding eligibility, scheme guidance and technical requirements, both directly and through the scheme administrator, the Energy Saving Trust. The Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT) was also notified at the point of scheme launch.

ScotZEB3 is a capital grant subsidy scheme rather than a procurement exercise. As such, the Procurement Act 2023 does not apply. The Scottish Government does not directly procure buses; vehicle procurement is carried out by bus operators.

I am pleased that we will invest £4 million in 2026-27 to support Local Transport Authorities to build business cases for local bus improvements through franchising, using powers created in the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019.

Work to develop appropriate governance arrangements and the detail of administering the fund is at an early stage. This will be considered with key stakeholders, including COSLA and Local Transport Authorities.

The Scottish Government respects the independence of Local Government and the position of each council, including Glasgow City Council, as an independent employer with responsibility for their own budgets, workforce planning and job evaluation processes. The Scottish Government has no formal role in these issues at a local level and encourages all councils to make decisions, through engagement with trade unions, that meet their responsibility to secure value for money and meet their legal obligations to their employees.