Chamber and committees

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) publishes ‘Renewable electricity – number of sites by region’ on an annual basis as part of the Accredited Official Statistics publication Energy Trends. The latest statistics were published on 30 September 2025 and show that as at the end of 2024, there were a total of 3,721 onshore and offshore wind sites based in Scotland.

Site specific information is not published and would be needed to provide the requested breakdowns. This is held by DESNZ.

Since 1 January 2024, the Energy Consents Unit has received 57 applications for consent to construct, extend and/or operate wind farms under Section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989.

Two of these applications have been approved in this time, with the remaining 55 currently being processed by the Energy Consents Unit and awaiting determination by Scottish Ministers.

The following tables provide the number of injury road collisions on the A77 with the requested breakdowns.

Please note that figures for 2025 and 2026 are provisional, as they are based on monthly returns received thus far from Police Scotland, with the most recent returns being received on 11 March 2026. This may be an incomplete picture of casualties due to a slight lag between collisions occurring and the data being processed and shared by Police Scotland. These figures are also subject to change due to subsequent corrections and late records.

Personal Injury collisions on the A77

Recommendation 40 in the second Strategic Transport Projects Review (STPR2) recommends that safety, resilience and reliability improvements are made to both routes. This will include, but is not limited to improving junctions, enhancing overtaking opportunities and widening or realigning carriageways to alleviate pinch points such as narrow structures or at stretches of older standard single carriageway.

This recommendation is underway and Transport Scotland are currently exploring the development of previous schemes along the A77, as part of a wider assessment of these and new potential improvements on a route wide basis. This is so that they can be prioritised for improvement, beyond general maintenance schemes.

The Infrastructure Delivery Pipeline, published alongside the Scottish Budget on the 13 January 2026, includes transport projects and programmes including a commitment to develop the necessary business case(s) for improvements to both the A75 and A77. This commitment is aligned to the Scottish Government’s whole portfolio of infrastructure investments, the Spending Review and STPR2.

RSHP education is designed to help children and young people build positive relationships as they grow older and should present facts in an objective, balanced and sensitive manner within the framework of curricular values and an awareness of the law. The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring all children and young people receive high quality RSHP education, which is an integral part of the health and wellbeing area of the curriculum. Revised statutory RSHP teaching guidance was published in February 2026 which reinforces age and stage appropriate content and learning.

Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) is the national approach to learning and teaching for young people aged 3 to 18 and is underpinned by the values of wisdom, justice, compassion and integrity. CfE provides learners with a range of personalised learning experiences based on internationally agreed standards and research evidence on age appropriate education which children and young people need as they grow and develop into adolescence and young adulthood. Education Scotland has been leading on development and delivery of the new Curriculum Improvement Cycle, a planned and systemic approach to strengthening the curriculum to ensure it remains forward looking and supports more consistent teaching and learning experiences and improved attainment and achievement of our children and young people.

This universal design principle directly applies to RSHP lessons where teachers must ensure learning is accessible for all while accommodating diverse communication styles, processing speeds, and sensory profiles. Education Scotland’s neurodiversity resources published on their website provide teachers with help to support neurodivergent learners.

I have consistently said that this Government was prepared to give every consideration to an Inquiry in Scotland if we felt it necessary. We now feel it is and this conclusion was reached after careful consideration.

I have had significant engagement over the past few months with MSPs, Police Scotland, Alexis Jay, and survivors on this important issue.

A statutory inquiry will offer further independent scrutiny that is both substantive and visibly distinct. I believe that this visibility is now critical to maintaining public confidence and encouraging openness and participation from victims and survivors.

In addition, engaging survivors in the development of child sexual abuse and exploitation policy and practice is a key priority. We have already announced work to be taken forward with survivors, and the creation of a Truth Project will build on that through a meaningful process.

The Supporting Transgender Pupils in Schools Guidance provides a range of non-statutory guidance in relation to policy, practice and legal requirements which education authorities and schools may wish to consider, in fulfilling their responsibilities to support Transgender pupils, as part of their duties to provide education and support pupils within their school communities. The policy position on support for pupils, including Transgender pupils, is already clearly set out within the guidance document. The guidance was reviewed between April and September 2025 with revised guidance being published in September 2025. There are no plans to review the guidance at this time.

The Scottish Government is investing around £198 million this year to support 25,000 new Modern Apprenticeships (MAs), alongside 5,000 new Foundation Apprenticeships and over 1,200 Graduate Apprenticeships. Our investment enables continued support for over 39,000 apprentices already in training.

SDS provide a range of useful information and resources on their website for employers on how to take on apprentices and work with training providers. There is also some business support available through Find business support in Scotland | Find Business Support and local employability services Local Employability Services | Employability in Scotland. A continued key priority as we reform the skills system will be to encourage greater participation from small and micro businesses.

We remain committed to working with employers and industry leaders to make sure that employers across Scotland, particularly in areas of skills shortage, can continue to access the talent they need to succeed.

There are currently four gender identity services providing specialist gender identity healthcare to adults in NHS Scotland. A separate service for young people accepts referrals from across Scotland. The governance of each of gender identity healthcare service remains the responsibility of the respective Health Board running the service.

Several actions from the NHS Gender Identity Services: Strategic Action Framework 2022-2024, published in December 2021, jointly support the NHS Health Boards in strengthening governance arrangements to deliver safe and effective healthcare:

?Healthcare Improvement Scotland has published national Gender identity healthcare services standards. These support national consistency in the multidisciplinary delivery and coordination of high-quality gender identity healthcare, which is based on current evidence and best practice. Standards apply to all services where people may access gender identity healthcare and are clear in expectation that organisations must demonstrate effective and collaborative leadership, governance and partnership working.

• The Gender reassignment protocol for Scotland (September 2024) sets out expectations for pathways and delivery of NHS Scotland adult gender identity healthcare.
• NHS National Education for Scotland (NES) has published their Transgender Care Knowledge and Skills framework for adults and is now developing an annex to the Framework for staff supporting children and young people who are trans or gender-questioning
• On 28 October 2025, Public Health Scotland published, for the second time, nationally collated data on waiting times for accessing NHS gender identity clinics. This follows the first publication on 5 November 2024, which was the first of its kind in the UK.