Chamber and committees

Squid fishing is a sporadic fishery with the majority of landings of squid occurring between May to October. Historically squid has been present in the Moray Firth and is becoming prevalent in Shetland.

The information you have requested to do with the areas of Scotland’s inshore waters where squid fishing has taken place is not held by the Scottish Government. It is not possible to separate landings of squid between inshore and offshore waters and so it is not possible to provide a breakdown of squid fisheries within inshore waters.

As required under the Patient Rights (Scotland) Act 2011, the Charter must be reviewed at least once every 5 years. The Charter was last published in October 2022 and is scheduled to be reviewed in 2027.

In total over 16,000 cataract procedures at National Treatment Centres (NTCs) have been allocated to health boards across Scotland in 2025-2026 (44.9% of the total NTC allocation). This is compared to over 13,500 cataract cases allotted to NTCs in 2024-2025 which made up 36.5% of total NTC capacity allocated last year. This activity is split between NTC Highland and the Eye Centre at the Golden Jubilee University National Hospital. Please note that some activity performed by NTC Highland is a re-provision of core activity for NHS Highland.

Health Boards are also delivering additional ophthalmology activity in 2025-26 as part of the £106M funding to reduce waiting times and improve capacity and the wider £21.7bn investment we are making in health and social care services this year.

The initial users in NHS Lanarkshire will be patients accessing dermatology outpatient services. They will have the following features:

The Scottish Government is considering the Soil Association’s review of their farmed salmon organic standards and is engaging with them in dialogue.

In response to the Rural Affairs and Islands Committee inquiry on salmon farming in Scotland, we set out a broad range of actions we are taking alongside industry and regulators to enhance the development and sustainability of the sector. The Scottish Government is disappointed there was very limited consultation on the outcome of Soil Association’s review and proposals, in light of our work programme.

The Scottish Government recognises the crucial role innovation plays in enabling the sustainable development of Scottish aquaculture. We continue to work with our enterprise agencies, regulators and stakeholders to encourage innovation addressing challenges and creating opportunities for Scottish businesses.

For example, our Marine Fund Scotland awarded over £4.5 million to aquaculture projects in the year 2024-25, facilitating over £17 million of investment across the sector. In May 2024 the Scottish Government and Scottish Funding Council invested £1.5 million for the Sustainable Aquaculture Innovation Centre (SAIC) to deliver applied innovation projects to March 2026. We are also working with stakeholders to develop long term arrangements for innovation support.

The Scottish Government currently has no plans to take forward a Dundee Northern Bypass or Relief Road. The A90 is an important part of Scotland’s Trunk Road network and passes through suburban Dundee, thus serving both strategic need through traffic and the need for local accessibility.

Creative Scotland assesses all applications made - irrespective of theme, subject matter or artform - in accordance with the published criteria and guidance for each funding stream. This guidance states explicit restrictions on the use of funding provided by Creative Scotland for party political activities. The terms and conditions of the agreements entered into with successful applicants further support this position, making clear that funding awarded cannot be used for such activities.

The Scottish Government and UK Government have made a joint investment commitment of £90.2 million to the Stirling and Clackmannanshire City Region Deal over a ten year period until the end of March 2030.

The Deal, now in its 6th year of delivery, has spent £34.68 million of this available funding up to the end of quarter 4 of financial year 2024-25. This has resulted in completion of the following five projects:

• restoration of the Japanese Gardens at Cowden;
• a digital hub in Cowie, offering training and business development opportunities;
• Walk, Cycle, Live Stirling active travel project, providing two high quality walking and cycling routes;
• A Regional Energy Masterplan, supporting a strategic whole systems approach to energy across Stirling and Clackmannanshire; and
• transfer of land from the Ministry of Defence to Stirling Council to enable wider regeneration at Forthside.

Meanwhile, the following four projects are in delivery:

• a flexible skills project, providing skills development opportunities to improve the employability of up to 500 individuals;
• an inclusion workers and investment fund, providing tailored employability support to 245 people from traditionally excluded groups;
• Scotland’s International Environment Centre (SIEC), offering research and collaboration opportunities to protect and enhance natural resources; and
• the National Aquaculture Technology and Innovation Hub (NATIH), a research facility and business development hub for sustainable aquaculture food production that is due to open in November 2025.

Local authorities must use the financial resources available to them as efficiently as possible to ensure the best possible value. How this is done is a matter for each council. Local Authority reserve balances in Scotland remain considerably higher than pre-pandemic levels.

The record funding settlement for Local Government in 2025-26 was the result of early and meaningful engagement between Scottish Government, COSLA and Councils. We remain committed to ensuring the sustainability of local services going forward and budget engagement ahead of the 2026-27 Scottish Budget has already commenced.

Our Income Tax policy supports our progressive approach to tax, which balances the need of supporting households through a challenging economic period, while raising revenue to sustain our investment in public services.

We continue to deliver on our commitment to protect lower income households, ensuring more than half of taxpayers pay less than they would elsewhere in the UK for the remainder of this Parliament.

As part of the Tax Strategy published alongside the Budget, we are providing a period of stability for Income Tax for the lifetime of this Parliament which includes committing to uprating the Starter and Basic rate bands by at least inflation.

Whilst Employment Legislation is reserved, the Scottish Government has continued to use the levers at our disposal to encourage employers to adopt Fair Work practices for all workers including flexible and inclusive and family friendly workplace practices that can help reduce barriers faced by women in the labour market. Scotland has a lower gender pay gap across full and part-time earners compared to the UK and has been so since 2003.

We continue to closely monitor the impacts of our tax policy decisions on taxpayers, businesses, and the economy using a range of evidence such as real time economic data, formal evaluations and engagement with stakeholders, including the business community.