Chamber and committees

The Biodiversity Strategy Delivery Plan 2024-2030 includes specific action to implement Scotland’s Strategic Approach for Scotland’s Rainforest which aims to improve its condition and health so that it can regenerate and expand whilst providing benefits to communities. There are a number of actions that protect our wider native woodlands including a commitment to landscape restoration areas with a significant woodland element, a register of ancient woodland, ensuring mechanisms are in place for restoration of ancient woodlands, establishing a programme to bring protected woodlands into favourable condition, best practice guidance for upland restoration, and actions on deer and grazing management.

The Delivery Plan also contains the key action to develop an invasive non-native species (INNS) Action Plan to support the protection and restoration of native habitats. The Plan will include actions to be taken to ensure new potential INNS are detected early to prevent establishment and spread. The Action Plan will also seek to better focus resources and effort to control or eradicate established INNS, where possible working at a landscape scale. Scottish Government are currently working with our stakeholders to develop the Action Plan, with a view to publication in summer 2025.

Scottish Forestry continues to target support for Rhododendron control through the forestry grant scheme at the priority areas in our Strategic Approach to Scotland’s Rainforest.

The National Maternity Safety Ambition in England was launched in 2015. Delivery of healthcare and the NHS is devolved and the Sottish Government is committed to continuous improvement in maternity safety across Scotland, working in partnership with NHS Boards and clinicians and service users, to deliver the best and safest care for mothers and babies. The Scottish Government’s Scottish Patient Safety Programme (SPSP) Perinatal strand (formerly MCQIC), part of Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS), was established in 2009 to improve outcomes and reduce variation in maternity services by providing safe, high-quality care for all. The aims of the programme are to reduce stillbirths; understand variation in caesarean birth rates; improve the recognition, response and review of the deteriorating woman, and to reduce neonatal mortality and morbidity.

The Scottish Government has also commissioned HIS to develop standards for maternity services, to support consistency of service design and delivery across Scotland. We continue to work with NHS Boards, clinical leaders, the third sector and national partners to develop our approach in the Scottish context.

Delivery of healthcare and the NHS is devolved and therefore work on the safety of and continuous improvement in maternity services in Scotland is the responsibility of the Scottish Government. The National Maternity Safety Ambition was launched in 2015 by the Department of Health and Social Care and applies to maternity services in England only. Officials and professional advisors meet regularly with colleagues across the UK, including from the Department of Health and Social Care in England, to discuss priorities across the UK, such as the Mothers and Babies: Reducing Risk through Audits and Confidential Enquiries across the UK (MBRRACE-UK) and to better understand work underway across each of the four nations.

The Scottish Government recognises the impact that child poverty has on families with a baby, and that some of these families may use baby banks.

Anyone supporting a family in desperate need should refer them to their local authority or a health professional, such as a health visitor, midwife or family nurse, in order to make sure they are getting the holistic support they need, including financial advice and a referral to cash-first crisis supports such as the Scottish Welfare Fund. To support this work, the Scottish Government has published a toolkit to help local areas to respond to and prevent food insecurity.

Our five family payments aim to give children the best start in life and could be worth over £10,000 by the time an eligible child turns six. These include the Scottish Child Payment, which is only available in Scotland, Best Start Foods and three Best Start Grants. They offer financial support to families who are on a low income, both in and out of work. There are no limits to the number of children in a family who can receive these benefits.

Scotland’s universal Baby Box is also offered to all parents in Scotland. It provides essential items worth around £400 for the first 6 months of a baby’s life.

The Scottish Government has committed to a pilot project which has been established through the Scottish Legal Aid Board up to a limit of £432,000 over a period of three years from 1 April 2023 - 31 March 2026, to support Scottish Women’s Aid for the provision of legal advice to those affected by gender-based violence and provides an early intervention service providing legal advice, intervention services to those impacted by domestic abuse. The project is being taken forward in collaboration with Edinburgh Women’s Aid and a firm of solicitors.

Between September 2023 – August 2024, 230 women have been referred into this legal service project. The majority of clients have sought help for a legal problem connected to child contact, child maintenance and divorce.

We will evaluate the pilot model once the current funding ends in March 2026 and learning lessons from projects such as these, is incredibly useful and enables us to shape and inform any future services and target funding in the places it is most needed.

We remain committed to tackling all forms of violence against women and girls, including domestic abuse, and we will continue to work closely with statutory agencies and stakeholders to ensure that victims receive the support they need.

Provisions to introduce a licensing scheme for certain wildlife traps and provisions relating to glue traps have not yet been implemented. We will be commencing these provisions over the coming months, with stakeholders given sufficient time to make any necessary changes.

Provisions relating to the licensing of muirburn and the Muirburn Code are expected to be brought in ahead of the next muirburn season in autumn 2025.

The Scottish Government wants the people of Scotland to see maximum benefits from Scotland’s energy transition, including the scaling up of the hydrogen industry.

Through the Peatland ACTION partnership we are funding the restoration of our peatlands. We are also working hard with our Peatland ACTION delivery partners to tackle the many barriers to upscaling peatland restoration in this relatively young sector.

Achieving our Hydrogen Action Plan target of 5GW of low-carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2030, and wider plan aims, requires significant investment.

The Scottish Biodiversity Delivery Plan 2024-2030, which was published on 27 November 2024, is the first in a series of rolling Delivery Plans which set out in detail the range of actions needed to deliver the step-change required to address the biodiversity crisis and become nature positive by 2030.

Under the Plan, wild salmon will benefit from both targeted action (for example through the Plan's explicit connection with the Scottish Wild Salmon Strategy) and through broad-scale activities such as the restoration of degraded upland habitats, improving and extending riparian woodlands, embedding nature-positive farming, fishing and forestry and ensuring that at least 30% of land, fresh water and sea is protected or conserved and effectively managed to support nature in good health by 2030.