Chamber and committees

The number of public service vehicles, passenger journeys, and distance travelled by local bus services are published each year within Transport Scotland's Scottish Transport Statistics publication. The most recent version of the bus tables can be found at https://www.transport.gov.scot/media/ea2pp3vv/sts-chapter-02-bus-and-coach-travel-reference-tables-accessible.xls.

The Scottish Government does not hold data on the number of bus services. This information is held by the Traffic Commissioner for Scotland, with the most recent figures included in the Traffic Commissioners for Great Britain Annual Report 2023-24 available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/traffic-commissioners-annual-report-2023-to-2024.

In October 2024, a report commissioned by the Scottish Government projected an initial treatment capacity shortfall for residual waste in Scotland of 600,000 tonnes when the ban on landfilling biodegradable municipal waste commences on 31 December 2025.

However, alongside further measures to reduce waste and promote recycling, the construction of planned infrastructure continues, helping to address this temporary gap; and available projections continue to indicate before turning into an estimated capacity surplus from 2027.

Officials continue to work with waste sector partners, including local authorities on these matters.

The £6,252,000 of new funding we are providing for diabetes technology in 2025-2026 is in addition to the recurring funding we have announced previously.

Skills Development Scotland (SDS) holds operational responsibility for the delivery of apprenticeships across Scotland, including the assessment of sectoral demand. Within the roofing sector, there are currently three distinct apprenticeship pathways, all of which are embedded within the Construction Modern Apprenticeship (MA) frameworks.

The Scottish Government continues to prioritise funding for Modern Apprenticeships in construction, recognising the sector as one of the largest contributors to MA starts and in-training figures for 2024-25.

Modern Apprenticeship allocations are informed by consultation with employers and industry stakeholders. This includes demand statements from Sector Skills Organisations and representative bodies, input from Industry Leadership Groups, and insights drawn from Skills Investment Plans and Regional Skills Assessments.

In 2025-26, we are investing £300 million in heat in buildings programmes to increase energy efficiency and provide financial support. At the same time, we are prioritising skills development for Scotland’s current and future workforce—working closely with the sector to ensure training provision aligns locally with business needs and future demands, supporting our transition to net zero.

Through our Just Transition Fund for the North East and Moray, we have allocated £75 million since 2022 to create jobs, support innovation and secure the highly skilled workforce of the future.

The Scottish Government understand the importance of sport and physical activity and the positive impact that it has on the physical, mental, and social health of people in Scotland. We value the role that hockey plays in encouraging participation in sport, particularly for women and girls.

sportscotland, our national agency for sport, has provided Scottish Hockey with a direct investment of £815,175 in the current financial year to help support a wide range of activity that encourages and supports people to participate in hockey, including club, coaching, and performance sport.

In 2024-2025 sportscotland also provided additional investment of £296,506 into the sport of hockey through their athlete personal award programme, Direct Club Investment (DCI), Sports Facility Fund (SFF), support services, Awards for All investment, and expert resource.

In addition, sportscotland works in partnership with all 32 local authorities to invest in and support the Active Schools network. Active Schools aims to provide more and higher quality opportunities to take part in sport and physical activity before school, during lunchtime and after school, and to develop effective pathways between schools and sports clubs in the local community. In the 2022-23 academic year, hockey was the tenth most popular Active Schools activity (sixth for girls), with over 114,000 visits to around 5,500 Active Schools hockey sessions

An open and transparent criminal justice system is important to allow for justice to be delivered and seen to be delivered so communities can have confidence in how offending behaviour is being dealt with. However, there can be areas of the operation of the criminal justice system where it is considered appropriate to allow certain individuals to remain anonymous to protect their dignity and privacy while still ensuring justice is able to be delivered.

The issue of anonymity in respect of domestic abuse criminal cases has been raised in the past with the Scottish Government. In considering whether victims of domestic abuse should receive anonymity, a key consideration has been that if anonymity is afforded to victims then, given the nature of domestic abuse, it may be that anonymity would be required for the accused too. This is because identification of the accused may reveal the identity of the victim. This inherently creates a challenging scenario within which to develop anonymity protections.

While the Scottish Government has no current plans in this area, we keep all policy relating to anonymity within the justice system under review.

The treatment and disposal of biodegradable municipal waste (BMW) is the responsibility of those who collect this material – local authorities and private businesses.

However, as part of the Government-commission report published in October 2024 ("Landfill Ban Assurance Study"), commentary was provided on residual waste markets external to Scotland and their "capability to contribute towards managing any capacity deficit in Scotland from 2026".

Officials continue to work with waste sector partners, including local authorities on these matters.

The backlogs generated by the pandemic have been largely addressed and we have now returned to a position where the number of scheduled trials across all criminal business types is below 20,000. This is considered a manageable level of workload by Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service for the justice system.

The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service publish monthly criminal case data.

As at the end of April 2025 the number of Sheriff Summary trials scheduled is 15,472.

Annual figures show a 53% reduction in scheduled Sheriff Summary trials since the peak in 2021-22 when it was 33,598.

Dualling of the A9 will improve connectivity of the Highlands with the Central Belt of Scotland, reducing journey times and improving journey time reliability. Whilst dualling of the A9 between Perth and Inverness is likely to support delivery of some of the projects identified in the Project Willow report, where those entail transportation of materials by road to or from the Highlands, it is unlikely that dualling would be necessary for delivery of those projects.

We are not aware of high rates of maternal mortality in remote and rural areas of Scotland, and unfortunately the ICESCR report does not provide any evidence in support of this statement in its report in relation to Scotland or the UK.

All women and girls who are pregnant in any part of Scotland will have the full range of maternity care provided to them. Our Health Boards continue to look to improve the range of maternity and neonatal care that can be provided locally to meet the needs of their rural populations. When specialist maternity or neonatal care is required which cannot safely be delivered locally, women and babies may need to travel to access that care, and we expect Boards to facilitate seamless delivery of this care.

We are also committed to ensuring that women across Scotland have timely access to sexual and reproductive health services, and to information which allows them to make informed decisions about their own sexual and reproductive health. Our Sexual Health and Blood Borne Viruses Action Plan 2023-26 sets out our ambitions to improving the accessibility and availability of contraception services across Scotland. As part of this plan, we have committed to visiting all 14 health boards. During these visits we will be recognising the challenges that boards are facing and the good practice they are delivering. We will also use this time to explore areas for collaboration between boards both nationally and regionally, especially within rural areas.