Chamber and committees

From February – May 2024, the Scottish Government held a public consultation on the detail of proposed regulations to restrict promotions of food and drink high in fat, sugar or salt. The consultation was run in parallel with a programme of extensive stakeholder engagement.

During the consultation period, I met with a range of stakeholders across public health groups and the food and drink industry. Several Ministerial roundtable events were held with stakeholders to discuss their views on proposals for regulations. We will publish the outputs of these roundtable events alongside independent analysis of the consultation responses in early 2025, as well as set out next steps for the regulation of HFSS food and drink promotions.

Ministers meet regularly with a broad range of stakeholders including public health groups and industry to discuss a range of issues relating to public health policy.

The public consultation on the detail of proposed regulations to restrict promotions of food and drink high in fat, sugar or salt closed on 21 May 2024.

We will publish the independent analysis report of the consultation responses in early 2025, as well as next steps and timelines for the regulation of HFSS food and drink promotions.

Smoking is the most significant cause of preventable cancer in Scotland (18%). By 2034, we aim to be living in a Tobacco-Free Scotland, reducing smoking rates to below 5%.

To help achieve this, the Scottish Government launched the “Quit Your Way” stop smoking service campaign, which ran for 5 weeks between February and March 2024. An assessment of the campaign found that visits to the Quit Your Way Scotland NHS Inform page increased by 100% and numbers of people visiting the local help to stop smoking page increased up to 2297% compared to the 5 weeks prior. Requests for support to stop smoking via NHS Inform, where we make clear the link between smoking and cancer, doubled compared to the same period in 2023.

Figures published by Public Health Scotland on 17 December 2024 show that over the past year more people have accessed the NHS smoking cessation service, 30,314, a 12.4% increase from 2022-23 (26,963).

We will publish the independent analysis report of the consultation responses in early 2025, as well as next steps for the regulation of HFSS food and drink promotions.

The Lord President as head of the Scottish judiciary is responsible for the training of judicial office holders. Training is delivered by the judicial institute for Scotland.

The information requested is not held centrally. Public Health Scotland conducts HIV surveillance and publishes an annual statistical report, however this does not include data on people living with HIV in Scotland who have a diagnosed mental health condition.

The Scottish Government remains committed to reducing health inequalities and supporting people to live longer and healthier lives. Tackling underlying drivers such as poverty and inequality remain the best way to improve population health outcomes and life expectancy. We are undertaking a range of actions to achieve this.

In 2024-25 we continued to allocate around £3 billion a year to policies which tackle poverty and protect people as far as possible during the ongoing cost of living crisis. This is in addition to initiatives to promote healthy lifestyles through tobacco control, preventing alcohol related harm, promoting healthy eating and physical activity.

These actions are coupled with national support to enable local approaches to address regional health disparities. Through the Place and Wellbeing Programme, the Scottish Government is tackling health inequalities by supporting health and social care bodies to operate as effective anchor institutions; empowering the community and voluntary sector to complement the public sector; and working to achieve fairer health and wellbeing outcomes through the coordinated efforts of Community Planning Partnerships.

Furthermore, the Scottish Government is working with its partners at a local, regional and national level to develop a Population Health Framework, to take a cross-government and cross-sector approach to improve the key building blocks of health including: good early years and education; good work and income; healthy places; and equitable health care. The Framework’s overarching ambition is to accelerate the recovery and improvement of population health in Scotland, focussing on a whole system approach to preventative action. Actions under the Framework will be targeted to areas and communities most in need to ensure an equitable approach to address regional disparities between Scotland’s communities.

A key way Scottish Government will develop its understanding of a whole system approach is through the recently announced collaboration between Public Health Scotland, University College London’s Institute of Health Equity and three of Scotland’s local authority areas. The Collaboration for Health Equity in Scotland (CHES) will work with Aberdeen City, North Ayrshire and South Lanarkshire to strengthen and accelerate action underway to improve health and wellbeing and reduce health inequalities. Insight and learning from the Collaboration will be shared through a national learning system to support work across the whole country.

In addition, there are targeted actions within the Scottish Government’s Women’s Health Plan aim to address women’s health inequalities through raising awareness across women’s health, improving access to healthcare for women across their lives and tackling inequalities in health outcomes for women and girls.

The management of the school estate is the statutory responsibility of local authorities. Decisions about the closure of schools are also a matter for local authorities.

There are additional provisions to protect schools from closure in place, particularly those in rural areas, via the Schools (Consultation) (Scotland) Act 2010. Local authorities must undertake a full statutory consultation on the permanent closure of schools. Ministers have powers to “call-in” any proposals to permanently close schools.

Through our Addressing Depopulation Action Plan, published in February, we acknowledge the important role that education provision plays in terms of local population attraction and retention. Through this Action Plan we have provided £90,000 in funding to Dumfries & Galloway Council in this financial year, which will be used to further explore locally-identified priorities around depopulation and design a campaign to encourage people to move to the area along with inward investment, among other measures to support the long-term sustainability of communities.

The Scottish Government will also provide over £15 billion in the 2025-26 Local Government Settlement. This represents an increase of £1 billion, a real terms increase of 4.7% compared to 2024-25.

In 2025-26 Dumfries and Galloway Council will receive £444.5 million of funding, which equates to an extra £62.9 million or an additional 16.5% compared to 2024-25. In addition, all councils will receive their fair share of the currently undistributed sum of £563 million.

The Scottish Government continues to adopt a comprehensive approach to address public health issues focusing on early prevention, reducing inequalities and creating the conditions to support people to lead healthier lifestyles.

This includes addressing the underlying drivers of heath inequalities by continuing to allocate around £3 billion a year in 2024-25 to a range of actions to tackle poverty and mitigate the impacts of the ongoing cost-of-living-crisis. This includes funding for free bus travel, the provision of early learning and childcare, as well as providing direct financial support through the likes of the Scottish Child Payment.

The Scottish Government has taken clear action to improve population health including continuing and increasing Minimum Unit Pricing of alcohol – estimated to have saved hundreds of lives - and delivery under our Tobacco and Vaping Framework including ongoing work on the UK Tobacco and Vapes Bill to create a smokefree generation.

We are taking action to improve diet and increase physical activity. This includes ongoing work to consider restrictions on promotions of high fat, salt and sugar foods under our Diet and Healthy Weight Delivery Plan, and promoting active lifestyles through our Physical Activity for Health Framework.

Furthermore, to address long term population health challenges work is ongoing to produce a Population Health Framework in partnership with COSLA and in collaboration with our wider partners. This will set out a whole system approach on population health seeking and key actions that seek to improve population health.

The Scottish Government welcomes the significant investment being made in the redevelopment of Hunterston marine yard to create a renewables hub, which it is anticipated could support thousands of jobs for the local community.

Peel Ports suggest that the site will be capable of hosting critical infrastructure, manufacturing, and fabrication facilities for the deployment of offshore wind. These will have the potential to boost local, regional, and national economies, creating employment opportunities in the local area and supporting local businesses.

The Scottish Government’s investment of up to £500m over five years to anchor our offshore wind supply chain in Scotland, is expected to leverage additional private investment of £1.5 billion in the infrastructure and manufacturing facilities critical to growing the sector.

Officials will continue to work closely with Peel Ports on the company’s plans for investment to maximise the benefits for the local region.