Chamber and committees

The Digital Strategy for Scotland Vision and the Sustainable Digital Public Services Delivery Plan (2025-2025) will both be published today (18 November 2025). Tomorrow, I will be attending the Digital Scotland conference at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre, where I will give the joint keynote with Cllr Katie Hagmann.

• The Digital Strategy for Scotland Vision is available here:
  https://www.gov.scot/isbn/9781806433698
• The Sustainable Digital Public Services Delivery Plan is available here:
  https://www.gov.scot/isbn/9781806433704

I can confirm that the commitment to reduce drop-off in breastfeeding at 6-8 weeks by 10% by 2025 has been achieved and exceeded. The rate of drop off has reduced from 34.5% in 2017-18, when the stretch aim was announced, to 25.3% in 2024-25, a reduction of 9.2 percentage points. This shows a 27% reduction, thereby exceeding the anticipated 10% by some margin.

As we set out in the Breastfeeding and Infant Feeding Strategic Framework published earlier this year, we committed to setting out a new stretch aim before the end of 2025. Following engagement with Health Boards and key stakeholders, I can now confirm that this will be ‘to reduce drop-off in breastfeeding at 6-8 weeks by 10% by 2031’.

Much of the improvement over the last seven years has been driven by a combined approach within and between Health Boards, including further embedding of the Unicef UK Baby Friendly standards. From 2025-26 the Scottish Government is permanently transferring over £0.8 million annual additional investment into the baseline budgets of NHS Boards to provide a sustainable basis for funding for interventions to support breastfeeding. This builds on additional investment of over £11 million since 2018. This funding will continue to be used to support evidence-based interventions and to target those who need it most.

As part of our achievements for the highest rates of breastfeeding ever, at 69% initiation and 61% at First Visit, we now have more than half of all babies being breastfed at 6-8 weeks. The statistics from 11 November mark the first time since these statistics began in Scotland in 2002-03 that more babies are being breastfed than formula fed at that time point. It is also clear from the most recent Infant Feeding Statistics, that action on breastfeeding inequalities is making a difference, with the most marked differences for those who live in the most deprived areas and younger mothers.

We want all babies to have the best start in life, including the best nutritional start. Supporting, protecting and promoting breastfeeding remains one of the most important actions we can take to improve the health of both the mother and baby, in both the short and long term. However, we also recognise that breastfeeding might not be possible for every mother and baby and we will continue to support all parents with their infant feeding choices.

This work has been driven through our health services and partners, and in particular the role of Infant Feeding Leads and their teams across maternity, neonatal and community-based services. We will continue to work collaboratively with local leaders to ensure that all mothers across Scotland can be fully supported to achieve their breastfeeding goals.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that appropriate and relevant support is available to people when they are released from custody. Individual needs are identified by throughcare support, which allows those with a history of substance use to receive the right support for them. Through collaboration with the third sector, we also aim to ensure that recovery support provided in prisons continues throughout the transition and resettlement process back into the community.

Further integration across services and consistent data collection are essential to fully assess the impacts on post-release re-offending rates.

Website analytics data is not 100% accurate for a number of reasons: including where users have opted out or blocked tracking. Additionally, some data is only retained for a maximum of 13 months.

Gov.scot implemented new cookie banner settings as of the start of September 2024. Previously all users were opted-in to analytics tracking by default (and could opt out); now the default is that all users must choose if they want to opt in or not. This caused a drop in traffic available in the dashboard which has been calculated to be 39% of the total site usage. Each of the figures below are the opted-in analytics users only.

Data from 8 October 2025 up to 9 November 2025

Paper title: A Fresh Start with Independence

Main paper URL: https://www.gov.scot/publications/fresh-start-independence/

Main paper publish date: 8 October 2025

Main paper views: 12,233

Easy read URL: https://www.gov.scot/publications/fresh-start-independence-easy-read-version/
Easy read publish date: 8 October 2025

Easy read views or download link clicks: 483

Audio URL: https://soundcloud.com/scotgov/a-fresh-start-with-independence

Audio publish date: 17 October 2025

Audio link clicks: 3

Translation publish date: 8 October 2025

Translation downloads:

Arabic: 5

Bengalii: 0

Bulgarian: 0

Cantonese: 1

French: 4

Gaelic: 4

Hindi: 0

Italian: 1

Mandarin: 2

Polish: 3

Punjabi: 0

Romanian: 2

Russian: 4

Spanish: 2

Ukrainian: 2

Urdu: 1

BSL YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpP6-wYXyB0

Date BSL Version Published: 16 October 2025

Views: 3

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting the fishing sector in Scotland.

Our work to secure sustainable fishing opportunities for Scottish vessels through our international negotiations, which is informed by our science advice, is critical to supporting economic growth and development within the fishing industry. Our quota management approach ensures the quota is translated into opportunities for the Scottish industry and licencing supports the proper functioning of the fishing industry and the responsible management by the fishing fleet. Our enforcement efforts underpin sustainable fisheries management, delivering confidence and accountability in our sea fisheries which supports a positive brand and marketplace for Scottish seafood.

In addition to this, we support the fishing sector through a modernisation programme to ensure the long-term sustainability of Scotland’s fish stocks and to provide confidence from an economic perspective. The Scotland’s Fisheries Management Strategy and the subsequent delivery plan, which apply across the fishing fleet, includes a range of actions focussed on delivering sustainability for Scotland’s fishing sector, including commitments to strengthening and modernising regulation to support sustainable fishing practices, increasing the volume of fish landed into Scottish ports, and increasing resilience within the sector.

We also provide direct financial support through the Marine Fund Scotland (MFS) which provided £14 million this year to support sustainable fisheries and aquaculture, research, innovation, and support coastal communities around Scotland. Since 2021, the MFS has awarded £70 million to 390 projects, enabling over £150 million investment. This includes £4.6 million to projects in the North East, including £1.2 million to Peterhead Port Authority.

This MFS support shows how derisory the allocation of just £28 million over 12 years of the £360 million Fishing and Coastal Fund is. It is a hammer blow for our fishing sector given that it equates to only 7.78% of this new funding. Scotland accounts for over 60% of the UK’s fishing capacity and seafood exports, with Scottish vessels landing over 75% of UK quota species. Scotland’s allocation should be at least 46%, reflecting our share of the UK’s EU fisheries funding.

As of 17 November 2025, there have been 45 outbreaks of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza amongst poultry and other captive birds in the UK in the current outbreak period (since 1 October 2025): 35 in England; six in Wales; three in Northern Ireland; and one case in Scotland. In the same period 253 wild birds in Great Britain have been identified as infected with the virus, only 12 of which have been located in Scotland.

As with England and Wales, Scotland has had an Avian Influenza Prevention Zone (AIPZ) in place since January this year, which has required all bird keepers in Scotland top apply strict biosecurity measures at their premises including measures to deter wild birds, prevent contamination and incursion into flocks and to apply best practice hygiene and husbandry process in order to protect flocks. Scotland has also worked with their operational partners, including the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) to act rapidly on the suspicion of disease and to apply disease controls to close down the spread of infection at the three premises at which outbreaks have occurred in 2025.

Officials have been meeting with Scottish poultry industry representatives to discuss the correct and proportionate response to the current risk levels and outbreaks in the UK. The housing of birds in Scotland is being considered, but this is being balanced against significant welfare of impact of confining millions of birds, potentially over a sustained period. CVO Scotland will, however, continue to act swiftly and effectively in response to the changing situation and characteristics of this virus.

Scottish Government continue to issue disease prevention communications urging all bird keepers to apply robust biosecurity best practices in order to protect their birds and to remain vigilant for clinical signs of the disease in their flocks. They are reminded that it is a legal requirement to report suspicion of the disease.

The Scottish Government expects organisations awarded public contracts or receiving public sector grants to maintain agreed workforce standards and professional conduct. Questions on Fair Work First are routinely included in Scottish Government contracts and as a standard requirement in grant conditions. These criteria make clear that exploitative practices, such as unpaid trial shifts, are incompatible with fair work.

Under public procurement legislation, bidders can be excluded from procurement procedures where there is evidence of breaches of employment law or professional misconduct. For grants, there is no statutory exclusion mechanism; instead, compliance with Fair Work First criteria is a condition of funding, and failure to comply will result in termination of the grant and recovery of funds. As with all commercial, procurement, and grant matters, decisions must be taken on a case-by-case basis with appropriate legal advice being sought.

A summary of the scoring mechanism has already been published on the scheme guidance webpages. This explains how applications were assessed through a combination of eligibility checks, verification of information provided, and merit-based scoring against the scheme objectives.

Variation in the accuracy and completeness of applications was a significant factor in the outcomes. Applicants were expected to provide clear and verifiable information, however a number of submissions contained inconsistencies or responses that could not be supported at inspection. For example, some applicants selected “Yes” to using the grant for electronic identification technology when applying for items such as creep feeders, hoof-trimming equipment, water troughs, or fencing, where EID was not relevant. Had these applications been awarded funding, they would have been unable to evidence how the investment delivered and the grant would have had to be recovered.

These issues may not indicate intent to mislead but demonstrated misunderstanding of the scheme’s contractual requirements. In contrast, applications that provided specific, accurate, and verifiable information were able to be scored properly and offered greater assurance of compliance with the scheme rules. This explains why some applications that appeared similar received different outcomes, and why robust assessment and verification were essential to the scheme