Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government has no plans currently to mandate further data collection from salmon farms given the information already provided is sufficient for transparency and regulatory purposes. The approach was set in our response (March 2025) to the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee's recent inquiry and report into salmon farming in Scotland. In this correspondence, I also committed to improve the accessibility of existing data collections and to explore how to gain greater insights into cleaner fish mortality.

The First Minister met the President of the United States in the Oval Office of the White House on 9 September 2025. They discussed a variety of issues including the Scotch Whisky industry. The conversation included the President sharing his views on the Open Championship golf tournament.

Section 7 of the Act was brought into force on 26 June 2024 but only insofar as for the purpose of section 8 (removal of certain trustees by court: unfitness). The Scottish Government’s preferred approach is to allow the remaining provisions of the Act to be brought into force at the same time as a Scotland Act Order extends relevant provisions to pensions trusts and officials are working closely with UK Government colleagues to progress this work.

I am pleased to confirm that the suite of CHFS3 documentation has been signed by all parties and the new arrangements will come into effect on 1 October 2025 for an initial duration of 10 years.

This is the culmination of a significant amount of work over a number of years including a robust due diligence exercise and extensive stakeholder engagement to inform the approach taken.

The new contract will fundamentally change the ethos of the Clyde and Hebrides Ferry Services by moving from a commercial arrangement to a model which is more focused on the delivery of a public service, and which is fully engaged and responsive to the particular needs of the communities served.

The flexibility afforded under these new arrangements, along with our commitment to ongoing stakeholder engagement, will help deliver continual improvement throughout the duration of the contract.

Alongside the Scottish Government’s ongoing significant investment in new vessels and infrastructure, I fully expect CHFS3 to be a catalyst for positive change across the Clyde and Hebrides Ferry Services network.

Local authorities are entirely separate entities from the Scottish Government and their powers are set out in statute. It is up to each local authority to manage its own day to day business. The Scottish Government does not have a role in the operations of councils, including decisions to instruct external legal counsel. The Scottish Government expects all councils to have robust internal procedures in place to manage conflicts of interest and to ensure decisions are taken in a transparent and accountable manner.

The importance of play, learning, active time and socialising in outdoor environments has been reflected in the Learning Estate Strategy which was co-produced by the Scottish Government and COSLA. For example, it includes a guiding principle which makes clear that outdoor learning and the use of outdoor learning environments should be maximised.

To encourage and embed this approach, the latest phase of the £2bn Learning Estate Investment Programme has a requirement for enhanced outdoor environments, including sheltered spaces.

Furthermore, the consultation on the updating of the School Premises (General Requirements and Standards) (Scotland) Regulations 1967, which is scheduled to begin by the end of this year, will include outdoor environments as part of its scope.

Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) approved the Final Draft of the Strathclyde Regional Bus Strategy on 19 September. A costed programme and timeline for delivery of a Franchise Framework Assessment as required by the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019) will be considered at a future partnership meeting.

As this work develops, SPT will be required to undertake more detailed appraisals to determine which of the various bus options they want to progress with. In a climate of increasing fiscal pressure, it is important that the business cases for improving bus services are made robustly and in an evidenced based way to support future decision making on funding.

In 2025-26 the Scottish Government provided record funding of over £15.1 billion to local authorities, a real terms increase of 5.5%. It is, however, the responsibility of each local authority to allocate the total financial resources available, including on support for bus provisions such as franchising in their region, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled its statutory obligations. Ultimately, it is for locally elected representatives to make local decisions on how best to deliver services to their local communities.

The NDAs are currently updating their 5 year strategy to cover the period 2026 to 2031. This is a routine exercise and so we do not intend to propose a parliamentary debate on this issue.

We will consider the requirement for a parliamentary debate on any proposals to transfer major nuclear defence liabilities, including the potential transfer of the Vulcan Naval Reactor Test Establishment, near to Caithness, to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) if and when any such formal proposal is received.

The Scottish Government is aware of the ongoing concerns regarding unresolved equal pay cases within the Scottish public sector. We recognise that transparency and accountability are essential to ensuring equal pay for equal work for everyone across all public bodies in Scotland.

As part of our phased approach to improving the effectiveness of the Public Sector Equality Duty in Scotland (PSED), we continue to review the operation of the Scottish Specific Duties. This includes considering reforms to the equal pay statement duty, where necessary and proportionate, and seeking to ensure that regulations are used to reinforce each other for maximum effect in enabling better performance of the general duty.

In line with Scottish Ministers’ statutory duty under Regulation 12 of the Scottish Specific Duties, the Scottish Government will publish our new proposals to enable better performance of the PSED in Scotland for 2025-29 in December 2025. These proposals and the accompanying report will set out our considerations and next steps to improve the effectiveness of PSED in Scotland. We are carefully considering a wide range of evidence including the effectiveness of equal pay regulations as we develop these proposals.

While inter-governmental discussions are ongoing, and while we are developing PSED-related improvement proposals, we have not yet made an assessment of the likely impact on women of the UK Government’s commitment but we are making stringent efforts to resolve this matter and to consider how action planning could be used in a Scottish context.

As Minister for Equalities, I am still awaiting a confirmed meeting date with UK Government Ministers, following an offer via correspondence in May 2025, to discuss the Scottish Government’s concerns around provisions in the UK Government’s Employment Rights Bill and to seek a resolution in line with current timelines for the Bill’s passage. These concerns relate to powers to mandate for equality action plans and the naming of outsourcing providers for public bodies in Scotland. Currently these provisions will only come into force for public bodies in England, and so Scottish Ministers continue to seek assurances around receiving the equivalent powers to regulate as those proposed for UK Government Ministers.

Using the powers that we do have and as part of the Scottish Government’s phased approach to improving the effectiveness of the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) in Scotland, we continue to review the operation of the Scottish Specific Duties to support Scottish listed authorities to enable better performance of the general duty.