Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government does not hold this information. This is a matter for individual NHS Boards.

The Scottish Government is focused on driving innovation and has already taken significant steps to harness the use of digital technology in the NHS. We expect Health Boards to embrace the latest tools for but also understand that fax machines may remain practical and necessary at present in some departments as Boards move forward with plans for service transformation.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information. This is a matter for individual NHS Boards.

The Scottish Government is focused on driving innovation and has already taken significant steps to harness the use of digital technology in the NHS. We expect Health Boards to embrace the latest tools but also understand that pagers may be more practical and preferred in some cases to best serve the needs of patients.

Following an amendment raised by the member, this matter has already been debated in Parliament. I provided a response to this debate in the Chamber on 11 February 2026.

I will provide an update to Parliament later this month on the progress we have made against the Operational Improvement Plan commitments.

The ‘Support for Active Travel’ budget line was re-named ‘Support for Active and Sustainable Travel’ when the Bus Infrastructure Fund was launched at the start of financial year 2025-26 and brings together programmes and investment designed to facilitate and encourage greener alternatives to car use. In 2026-27 that budget continues to deliver the Active Travel programmes and the Bus Infrastructure Fund, which has been increased to £60 million for the next financial year.

This change was made to better reflect the Scottish Government’s policy intention and approach, so that we could show and encourage everyone with an interest in active and sustainable travel that like them, we see how our funding and interventions can and should work better together. We are investing to support high quality active travel and bus infrastructure, sustainable travel integration and behaviour change investment to promote walking, wheeling and cycling for everyday shorter journeys.

These cross border transfers are minimal in terms of total numbers of patients transferred to Hospital in Scotland. They are part of an on-going agreement between the Scottish Ambulance Service, North East and North West NHS Ambulance Services to support each other during periods of high demand and during critical incidents.

Part of this agreement will sometimes see patients from England transferred to Borders General Hospital for treatment.

To ensure patient safety, the Scottish Ambulance Service will always take patients to the nearest possible hospital in a life threatening situation, which in some parts of Scotland, may be over the border.

We continue to invest in our ambulance service with additional investment of £12.7m this year compared with 2024-25. This is helping the Service to recruit over 290 additional frontline staff this year, following on from the 241 recruited last year.

All aspects of LBTT review work remain on track for ultimate report publication before the end of this Parliamentary term

Alma Economics were appointed to undertake independent research on various aspects of the legislation and engaged with a range of relevant organisations to support this. We have now received their final report, and officials are currently considering our initial response to the findings ahead of the report’s publication in the coming weeks.

Officials are currently finalising internally led review strands following close engagement with relevant stakeholders, including industry experts, Registers of Scotland and Revenue Scotland.

As set out in Scottish Budget 2025-26, the review will support decisions in the next Scottish Parliament on whether any legislative changes should be brought forward.

The Scottish Government was not informed of the decision to close the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme prior to the announcement from UK Government, and is disappointed with the decision that future funding will apply to England only.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of maintaining support for Scotland’s historic places of worship, which continue to play vital cultural, social, and community roles.

In light of the UK Government’s decision, the Scottish Government is actively exploring options to ensure that listed places of worship in Scotland are not disproportionately affected by this withdrawal of UK-wide VAT relief.

In 2026-27, NHS Shetland will receive £86.6 million in baseline funding. Information regarding the funding provided to NHS Shetland between 2023-24 and 2024-25 is available within the Board’s published Annual Reports and Accounts for each respective year, as well as in publicly accessible Board papers.

In 2023-24, the Scottish Government provided NHS Shetland with capital funding of £555,000 for the development of a Gilbert Bain Hospital replacement business case.

The Scottish Government meets regularly with CalMac to discuss a wide variety of matters related to the Clyde & Hebrides Ferry Services.

For example, SSEN Transmission’s Lewis Hub will lead to an increase in demand for commercial vehicle movements to Stornoway over the next five years. CalMac and Transport Scotland have been working closely with SSEN Transmission to understand their plans to minimise impact on the Stornoway to Ullapool route and ensuring that our lifeline ferry services remain resilient for those who rely on them.