Chamber and committees

As part of a wider review of Scotland's home education arrangements that was committed to in June 2025, Scottish Government officials are working with local government to assess the information that is held by local authorities in relation to home educating children and young people. This has included official level contact and scoping meetings with COSLA, ADES and Local Authority Home Education Leads, and most recently an information request sent last month to clarify the latest information that is held by local authorities. Officials will continue to work with local government and data analysts to review that information, identify potential data gaps and work towards establishing a baseline on the number of children and young people who are home educating in Scotland.

Scotland’s food system is resilient but faces growing risks from global and domestic shocks. While Scotland benefits from diverse supply chains and strong domestic production, recent events in the Middle East have highlighted vulnerabilities to disruption.

Food resilience is a shared responsibility, and collaboration is essential. The Scottish Government monitors food security, including fertiliser, fuel and food supply, working with industry through our Food Sector Resilience Group to share intelligence, identify risks and support coordinated responses.

These arrangements are underpinned by established resilience structures, including the Scottish Government Resilience Room, which can be adapted to respond to specific disruptions, including those affecting food supply. In addition, we liaise with Local and Regional Resilience Partnerships to plan, prepare for and respond to emergencies in ways that reflect Scotland’s unique geography and supply chain challenges.

Owners of tenement properties have a shared responsibility to maintain the tenement. The Housing (Scotland) Act 2014 introduced powers for local authorities to pay a missing share on behalf of an owner who is unwilling or unable to contribute to costs of common works. From October 2018, these powers were extended to registered social housing.

However, we know that tenement properties with multiple owners often still struggle to organise and finance shared repairs, maintenance and enhancement works.

This Government has committed to reform the Tenement (Scotland) Act 2004 and Property Factors (Scotland) Act 2011 by the end of this parliament, to better meet the needs of relevant owners and tenants to enable repairs, maintenance and enhancement of such properties, and improve delivery of services by factoring organisations, including considering costs, where they manage properties.

We are currently considering a report from the Scottish Law Commission on potential new measures and, should ministers consider that change is necessary to existing tenement law, primary legislation will be required to enable the introduction of new measures.

Local authorities hold statutory responsibility for managing and maintaining their school estate, and we expect them to provide safe environments for all school users.

The Scottish Government recognises the pressures that many school staff are currently facing in relation to behaviour. Whilst the Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research 2023 reported behaviour is generally good overall, it also reported increases in a range of disruptive and other negative behaviours in school.

In response, the Scottish Government and COSLA published a joint action plan on relationships and behaviour in schools in August 2024, setting out actions to support positive behaviour and reduce violence in schools. We have made significant progress on the delivery of these commitments and continue to do so. We are also committed to go further, and have committed to legislating to ban mobile phones in classrooms, as part of a wider and holistic approach to improving behaviour, reducing disruption and supporting positive learning environments for both pupils and staff.

Undertaking river restoration and flood protection activities may require authorisation from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) under the Environmental Authorisations (Scotland) Regulations 2018 (EASR). From November 2025, these regulations created a more streamlined and integrated system for environmental authorisations in Scotland.

There are four types of authorisation and which one is required depends on several factors, including the risk to the environment from the proposed activity. For example, some low-risk activities may be carried out without the need to apply to SEPA, provided the associated rules (General Binding Rules) are followed.

SEPA provides guidance on the types of EASR authorisation and for certain activities, like dredging. Early engagement with SEPA is advised to prevent any unnecessary delays to any activities being considered that may impact the water environment.

In addition, the Scottish Government supports Farming and Water Scotland, which provides a range of advice and guidance to helps farmers and land managers understand and comply with relevant regulations.

There are currently two Project Gigabit in Scotland contracts that are in their delivery phase which intersect with the Highlands and Islands Parliamentary Region – the regional contract awarded to GoFibre which covers the North East of Scotland and the nationwide contract awarded to Openreach. While there is currently a live regional procurement underway for Orkney and Shetland, until a contract is awarded, it is not possible to provide a breakdown of the premises to be connected.

a) The following table provides the number of premises that have received a connection through Project Gigabit in Scotland so far in the Highlands and Island Parliamentary Region, broken down by local authority area.

We are continuing to work with NHS Boards, local authorities, COSLA, the third sector and other delivery partners to improve access to neurodevelopmental support for children, young people and adults.

For children and young people, this includes continuing our work with COSLA and the Children and Young People’s Neurodevelopment Taskforce to deliver on the actions set out in the implementation review of the National Neurodevelopmental Specification for Children and Young People. Additional investment in 2025/26 is funding an ongoing project to supplement health board diagnostic assessment capacity throughout Scotland, particularly for young people approaching transition to adult services.

For adults, we will also ensure we work with partners across Scotland to take forward the proposals from the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Scotland’s 4-tier national pathway for neurodevelopmental conditions; ensuring anyone with or without a formal neurodevelopmental diagnosis can access the support they need when and where they need it. A timetable and route map for this work will be published in the first 100 days of this Government.

I recognise the significant pressures facing our Emergency Departments. The challenges we see in A&E are due to blockages across the whole-system, including high hospital occupancy, delays in discharge and increasing patient complexity.

This may result in patients waiting longer than we would wish, however we are clear every Health Boards focus on delivery of the A&E target through collaboration and efficiency.

That is why, this government will act immediately to drive improvements on A&E performance and reduce delays for patients, where we are working closely with Health Boards to ensure they have the support in place to cope with peaks in demand.

Building on the improvements made through the NHS Scotland Operational Improvement Plan (OIP), this government will publish a plan to improving flow within the first 100 days of parliament where our approach will be to take early actions focus on improving access to care, reducing waiting times and easing pressure on hospitals, particularly through strengthening primary and community care.

The Scottish Government understands the importance of sport and physical activity to support positive mental, physical and social health outcomes. We believe that sport and physical activity should be accessible to everyone, with no barriers.

The £40 million uplift for sport in the 2026-27 Budget will support opportunities for people across Scotland to be more active including for disabled people and those with additional support needs.

The Budget included £20 million for the delivery of a Summer of Sport. The programme, administered by sportscotland, aims to remove barriers and increase participation by offering free or low-cost activities for children and young people in every local authority across Scotland. Scottish Disability Sport was a key member of the working group to develop the principles of the Summer of Sport funding, ensuring that the programme is inclusive by design. In addition, inclusive training will be available to the delivery workforce across Scotland from organisations such as Enable.

Our national agency for sport, sportscotland, will invest up to £590,372 in Moray Council for 2026–27, including support for Summer of Sport activities.

We recognise that diabetic foot screening is a proven way to determine the chance of an individual with diabetes has of developing a future foot ulcer that may lead to amputation. Foot screening is also one of the key processes for good diabetes care.

Clinical guidance recommends that people who are deemed to be at low risk from diabetic foot complications are reviewed every two years whereas those who are deemed to be at medium or high risk should be referred immediately to podiatry services for assessment. Our expectation is that clinicians and GPs consult all relevant clinical guidelines when assessing someone with diabetes and refer for most appropriate treatment.

The Scottish Government remains intensely focussed on reducing waiting times. In 2025-26, we allocated more than £150 million additional funding to health boards to help tackle the longest waits for planned care. This funding delivered thousands more appointments, operations and procedures in 2025-26 compared to 2024-25. We are working with Health Boards to support the continuation of this progress in 2026-27.