Chamber and committees

Ministers are considering the scope and structure of the review, including how the views of stakeholders can best be taken into account.

The three NHS Regional Chief Executives leading implementation for the North, East and West established a Task and Finish Group in March 2025. The Group’s membership comprises of the NHS Regional Chief executives, regional planners and service leaders bringing working knowledge and understanding of current services, to lead delivery of the work.

The remit of the group is to oversee and support national action and coordination required for delivery of Regional Implementation Plans to implement the move to three Neonatal Intensive Care units across Scotland. This includes work to develop a funding model, and work to model the additional impact on capacity in maternity services.

The group met on the 2 June 2025 and will meet monthly thereafter.

The Task and Finish Group will provide updates to and seek any collective agreement through the Board Chief Executives and Planning and Delivery Board reporting to NHS Scotland Executive Group.

The Scottish Government believes that every child should be given the opportunity to learn to swim, it is a life skill that can save lives.

Scottish Swimming launched their National Primary School Swimming Framework in September 2024. During the development of the Framework, a number of pilots were undertaken across nine local authorities to establish the best mechanism to deliver school based swimming lessons. As a result, the Framework’s key principles and resources have been designed to be flexible and adaptable to meet the many different challenges and circumstances faced by local authorities and schools.

The Framework can be used by education authorities and schools to improve school swimming provision and enhance the existing school swimming experience.

The Scottish Government will continue to work with sportscotland, Scottish Swimming, and various local and national partners, including the City of Edinburgh Council, to consider the best approach for a continued roll out of a National Framework for school swimming in the near future.

Transport Scotland does not hold data on rejections or referrals so would be unable to provide the proportions as requested. However, this information would be held by individual local authorities.

The Scottish Government’s plans for woodland creation will also raise woodland cover to 23% by 2045. Scotland is leading the UK, planting 75% of all new woodland in the past 10 years. The Government will continue to use the Forestry Grant Scheme and other levers such as the Woodland Carbon Code to maximise the resources available for woodland creation.

Forestry is a major land use in Scotland for positive economic, social and environmental outcomes. Forests and woodland are some of the most biodiverse habitats in Scotland. Scotland’s forests are for example home to 172 priority species including pine marten, Scottish Crossbill, black grouse and 75% of the UK red squirrel population.

All our woodlands of all types - be it productive broadleaved, conifer, native or mixed - have the potential to contribute to biodiversity gain in Scotland. The UK Forestry Standard sets out the requirements and guidelines to achieve this. In Scotland, we are currently creating nearly 75% of all the new woodland in the UK. In 2023/24 Scotland created 15,000 ha which was the highest level in 34 years. Native woodland planting, with biodiversity outcomes as a primary objective, was at 7,700 ha which was the highest since 2001.

Degraded peatlands emit rather than capture and store carbon and lose the unique and biodiverse ecosystems they host when in good condition. That is why this government has committed £250 million to restore 250,000 hectares of degraded peatlands by 2030 as an essential element of mitigating and adapting to the linked climate and nature emergencies.

Through our flagship Peatland ACTION programme, we are making good progress towards that target. To date we have put around 90,000 hectares of degraded peat on the road to recovery including almost 15,000 hectares in 2024-25 alone – the highest amount in any single year and more than 40% up on the previous year.

Every hectare of peatland restored locks up the carbon it contains, reducing its contribution to climate change which is driving some biodiversity loss across Scotland. The rewetting, revegetating and reprofiling carried out during restoration also benefits nature directly by reinstating lost habitats and species and increasing the resilience of these wetland ecosystems to future climate change.

Integrating peatland protection, management and restoration within farming, crofting and other land uses brings benefits for climate, for nature and for people.

There are currently no plans to run a nationwide public awareness campaign.

The law on surrogacy is reserved to Westminster. As such any changes to legislation would need to take place in the UK Parliament.

Occupational therapists or physiotherapists are the professions involved in Blue Badge assessments and are best placed to assess an applicant's eligibility, due to their specific training courses, accredited by their professional bodies and subsequent registration with the Health & Care Professions Council (HCPC).

Transport Scotland does not collect data on the numbers of assessors or their training records. This information would be held by individual local authorities.

A core principle of the Blue Badge scheme in Scotland is that access to the scheme is based on the applicant’s functional mobility, whether visible or not, and it is important to note that people with fluctuating conditions or hidden disabilities can apply under the eligibility criteria in the same way as people with visible disabilities. There are no plans to change or expand the eligibility criteria for Blue Badge.