Chamber and committees

We will take forward our Heat in Buildings Bill in this Parliamentary session to support homeowners, landlords and tenants to transition to clean heating in a fair and affordable way.

The Scottish Government's legislative programme will be agreed by Ministers and announced to Parliament in due course in the usual way.

The Scottish Government is currently reviewing the Antisocial Behaviour (etc.) (Scotland) 2004 Act, and the provisions on the sale of spray paint fall within the scope of that review.

The Scottish Government supports local authorities and Police Scotland, who lead the response to graffiti, in working with communities to prevent and tackle antisocial behaviour. Under the 2004 Act, each local authority and the Chief Constable have a joint duty to prepare and keep under review an antisocial behaviour strategy for their area. Prevention is also supported nationally, including through Phase 7 of CashBack for Communities, which is providing £26 million over three years for projects that steer young people away from crime and antisocial behaviour.

The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) operates a Corporate Parenting Strategy 2024-2026 which sets out its approach to supporting care-experienced individuals, including care leavers, within custody.

SPS collects information on care leaver status for individuals aged under 26 at the point of admission, based on self-reporting. As disclosure is voluntary, individuals may choose not to provide this information or may provide inaccurate details. As a result, the figures recorded are likely to underestimate the true number of care-experienced individuals within the remand population.

As of 25 June 2026, there were 52 individuals on remand who have reported being care-experienced, and 8 individuals on remand who have historic care-experienced markers. As the remand population changes on a daily basis, this will impact upon the numbers of those in our care on remand who are care-experienced.

The Scottish Government works with a range of stakeholders through the national Learning for Sustainability (LfS) Leadership Group, which meets quarterly to help oversee and co-ordinate delivery of the LfS Action Plan. The group is co-chaired by the Scottish Government and Education Scotland, and member organisations represent interests across, for example, local authorities, skills development, qualifications, the teaching profession, and the environment.

Scottish Government and Education Scotland officials also work together to deliver shared actions, such as the development of new sustainable learning settings guidance for educators, which Education Scotland published in March 2026. Through provision of funding, the Scottish Government further supports stakeholders to deliver climate action in schools, global citizenship training for practitioners, and resources for taking learning outdoors.

The Scottish Government has on the 13th of July repositioned the energy consents unit within an expanded Planning Directorate, creating a single, stronger centre of expertise in planning and consenting within the Scottish Government.

As the First Minister set out in Parliament on 25 June 2026, we are giving active consideration to whether we should provide planning guidance to balance the potential economic opportunities from the creation of data centres, with concerns raised by communities, and our national energy and climate goals which are vital to our future prosperity.

All issues about local and national decision making and the implications for energy use will be considered fully.

The European flag is flown daily outside the Scottish Parliament in accordance with the SPCB’s flag-flying policy. That policy follows from Motion S5M-20625, agreed by the Parliament on 29 January 2020, which directed the SPCB to ensure that the European flag continued to fly daily at the Parliament building. The motion recorded that the flag had been flown at Holyrood since 2004 as a symbol of membership of the family of European nations; noted that the flag was originally the flag of the Council of Europe and that Scotland and the UK would continue to be represented within the Council of Europe; affirmed commitment to democracy, human rights, the rule of law and diversity; and recognised continuing to fly the flag as a sign of support and solidarity with EU nationals who have made Scotland their home.

The SPCB will be reviewing the flag flying policy later this year. In determining the policy or considering any changes to it, the SPCB will take into account your feedback as well as any relevant resolutions or directions to it from the Parliament.

The Scottish Government funds the following organisations who support the delivery of the Anti-Racism Delivery Plan published in March 2026. This is independent of government and there is not a formal or constituted body as such called the Anti-Racism Coalition. These organisations are:

• Anti-Racism Observatory for Scotland (AROS)
• Article 12 in Scotland
• Black and Ethnic Minority Infrastructure Scotland (BEMIS)
• Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights (CRER)
• Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA)
• Council of Ethnic Minority Voluntary Organisations (CEMVO)
• Intercultural Youth Scotland (IYS)
• Minority Ethnic Carers of People Project (MECOPP)

Since February 2026 there have been four Roundtable meetings with these organisations and the Scottish Government. A Terms of Reference for these Roundtables is being developed collaboratively.

Separately, a range of different stakeholder organisations are reflecting shared concerns about the nature and extent of protest activity, disorder and incidents of hate, prejudice and intimidation and their impact on faith communities, adversely racialised communities, people seeking asylum and refugees.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information. Decisions on criminal warrants are judicial decisions taken independently by sheriffs or justices, and the data requested are not routinely recorded.

Search warrants are prepared by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) and presented by the officer seeking the warrant to the presiding judicial office holder.

COPFS holds limited information relating to search warrant applications. The time taken to process a request will vary depending on the individual circumstances of each case. COPFS manually records the date on which a request to consider a warrant application is received from Police Scotland or another specialist reporting agency. It also records, where entered by staff, the date on which a final decision on that request was taken by COPFS or a judicial officeholder. However, COPFS are unable to readily provide reliable figures for the average, longest, or shortest time taken in each of the last five financial years due to identified limitations and inconsistencies in the way that the information has historically been recorded and maintained.

COPFS does not hold data on the time taken to execute a warrant after it has been granted by a judicial officeholder.

As each Justice organisation has their own administrative system to record information for operational purposes, it is not possible to monitor an individual’s interactions throughout the different stages of the justice system. Whilst a Scottish Criminal Records Office (SCRO) number is assigned to an individual and can be used to help identify them within management information systems, doing so is challenging as each organisation has their own approach to measuring activity. For example Police Scotland recording is done at the crime (or incident) level, Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service recording is based at person level and Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service recording is at case level.

SG has developed a Criminal Justice Journey Times dataset in collaboration with colleagues in COPFS and SCTS. This dataset allows times to be calculated for different stages of an accused’s journey through the justice system. The overall journey time is taken to be from the time an offence becomes known to the police to the time a verdict is reached in court.

Since February 2026, the Scottish Government has had Roundtable meetings with the following funded organisations who support delivery of the Anti-Racism Delivery Plan, published in March 2026:

• Anti-Racism Observatory for Scotland (AROS)
• Article 12 in Scotland
• Black and Ethnic Minority Infrastructure Scotland (BEMIS)
• Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights (CRER)
• Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA)
• Council of Ethnic Minority Voluntary Organisations (CEMVO)
• Intercultural Youth Scotland (IYS)
• Minority Ethnic Carers of People Project (MECOPP)

A Terms of Reference for these Roundtables is being developed collaboratively and will be published once agreed.

Separately, a range of different stakeholder organisations are reflecting shared concerns about the nature and extent of protest activity, disorder and incidents of hate, prejudice and intimidation and their impact on faith communities, adversely racialised communities, people seeking asylum and refugees. This is independent of government and there is not a formal or constituted body as such called the Anti-Racism Coalition. These organisations include:

• Anti-Racism Observatory for Scotland
• Black and Ethnic Minority Infrastructure Scotland (BEMIS)
• Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights (CRER)
• Council of Ethnic Minority Voluntary Organisations (CEMVO)
• Scottish Refugee Council