Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government publishes accredited statistics each December that are based on the number of second homes and empty properties on council tax registers as at September each year. A full breakdown by local authority area is available at: Housing statistics: Second homes and empty properties - gov.scot.

The Scottish Government does not hold the specific information requested and this would need to be sought from the operator. However, I can advise that the original cost of the CHFS2 contract included a forecast amount relating to agency staff of £729k.

The initial contract award period was extended by one year (Oct 2024 – Sept 2025) and the estimated costings provided did not separate out any agency costs.

The number of homes completed through the demand led Rural and Islands Housing Fund by local authority area since 2023-24 is as follows:

Each structure on the trunk road network is inspected every two years. Any defects found are recorded and categorised in terms of severity and extent. Currently, of the 2069 bridges on the trunk road network, 1939 are recorded as having defects. An assessment of the extent and severity of these defects is used to prioritise works and produce one and three year programmes for repair. 270 bridges are deemed to have defects severe enough to programme specific works. Programmes are updated every year taking into account data from the previous year’s inspections.

Spreadsheet A contains a list of structures with defects along with their positions on the trunk road network.

Spreadsheet B contains a list of structures with programmed repairs along with the year in which they are due to commence, , with some schemes devised to address similar defects on multiple structures.

These can be found in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. Number 66564)

The Rural and Island Housing Grant Scheme is expected to provide support to individuals including first time buyers, families, rural returners and others to help them access affordable owner occupation in the rural and island communities of their choice.

The development of this new grant scheme will be taken forward with rural and housing partners. It has an indicative budget of up to £20 million over four years and will be demand-led.

The Rural and Islands Housing Fund is a demand-led fund. The following table shows how much the Scottish Government has spent on the Rural and Islands Housing Fund in each year since 2023-24, broken down by local authority area:

The Scottish Government has spent approximately £80m on A96 Dualling. This figure comprises expenditure on the vast range of technical and specialist advisory services required to appropriately inform the design, development, assessment, preparation and promotion of major trunk road improvements to the A96.

£261.3m has been spent on consultancy fees on the A9 Dualling Programme out of an estimated total scheme cost for the Programme of £3.97 billion, at April 2025 prices. This figure is inclusive of VAT where applicable and includes spend for taking the various component projects through design and statutory process stages, acquisition of land, demolition and preparatory works, procurement of contractors to construct the works, as well as costs of administering construction works contracts and monitoring construction works activities undertaken to date.

Whilst menu content will be decided locally, there is much work underway by Scottish Government to facilitate the uptake of venison across the public sector.

This includes a successful pilot with Wild Jura, Argyll and Bute Council and Food for Life Scotland to supply venison into six primary schools. Officials are working collaboratively to explore opportunities to increase demand for venison and develop options to increase supply by helping the sector make the most of various routes to markets such as wholesale and framework agreements used widely across public sector.

In February 2026, the Scottish Government provided £45,000 to SAOS and Scottish Venison to undertake activity to help build capability within the venison sector and drive increased consumption of venison from Scotland. This includes work to improve and establish new supply chains, build skills and develop resources for use within schools.

Officials will continue to work collaboratively with the Scottish Venison Association, Scotland Food & Drink as well as other key stakeholders to ensure opportunities are available within the public sector to enjoy venison.

The Scottish Government promotes Scottish landed fish and shellfish through grants to Seafood Scotland from the Marine Fund Scotland.

Marine Fund Scotland awards for promotion of Scottish Seafood by year since 2021 are:

2021 £2.6m

2022 £1.92m

2023 £1.75m

2024 £1.85m

2025 £1.7m

As these funds are awarded to promote Scottish landed fish, it is not possible to split them out by fish and shellfish.

This is an operational matter for ScotRail. The Member may wish to contact them directly for the information.

In addition, the Office for Rail and Road (ORR) publishes statistical information on station usage on its website, which can be accessed here: Estimates of station usage | ORR Data Portal