Chamber and committees

The pathways in place across the country for people with problem alcohol use are developed and implemented by local services based on local needs assessments. The services necessary are commissioned on the advice of local Alcohol and Drugs Partnerships. The Scottish Government provides funding for those services and asks ADPs to report on progress against their own local strategies.

The Scottish Government has committed to providing guidance to ADPs through the development of a national Service Specification and follow-up national Standards for Alcohol and Drug treatment. This will be informed by the forthcoming UK Clinical Guidelines for Alcohol Treatment and the recently published Public Health Scotland review into Alcohol Brief Interventions as well as key independent reports such as Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems (SHAAP) paper on alcohol use disorder in the justice system.

In November last year we published a plan setting out a suite of 20 actions being taken to improve GP recruitment and retention.

We have also reactivated the GP Sustainability loans scheme for GP premises and invested an additional £73.2 million in General Practice this financial year to provide a pay uplift for GPs and to support GP practices to retain and recruit key staff. The uplift includes £7.6 million to cover population growth.

The third sector plays a critical role in the Scottish Government’s ambition to improve outcomes for children, young people, families and adult learners particularly given the ongoing cost of living crisis. Since 2016, the Children, Young People and Families Early Intervention and Adult Learning and Empowering Communities (CYPFEI & ALEC) third sector fund has supported 122 organisations with just over £112m in funding. Since 2022, the Scottish Government has supported a further 22 organisations, providing core funding of over £6m, through the Children, Young People, Families and Adult Learners (CYPFAL) third sector fund. Core funding delivered through these funds has helped to support a range of action to deliver on priorities including tackling child poverty, supporting Children’s Rights, Keeping the Promise and promoting positive mental and physical health and wellbeing.

The Scottish Government appointed a fund administrator – the Corra Foundation – to work closely with all 137 organisations to support delivery of the funding outcomes that were set out in grant offers. As part of the conditions of grant, funded organisations are required to report on their progress towards delivery of the agreed funding outcomes. In the most recent reporting period from April to September 2024 around 1.3 million people – children, families and adult learners - across Scotland were directly supported as a result of this funding. Some of the key benefits of the funding identified by the Corra Foundation through their support for organisations include high quality support for children and families; improved knowledge and confidence in children, families and adult learners; improved outcomes for families, and enhanced partnership working across the third sector.

The Scottish Government is in the early stages of considering afresh the purpose and potential benefits a unique learner number could bring including the role, if any, of existing reference numbers held on data sources.

It is not yet possible to say if legislation is required.

The Housing (Scotland) Bill includes provisions to remove the ability of the rent officer or tribunal to determine a rent that is higher than that requested by the landlord.

Ministers have no plans to seek to accelerate the current timescales of the bill, however, we will seek to commence these provisions as soon as possible after royal assent.

The commercial harvesting of wild Atlantic salmon in Scotland is now very limited consequent to conservation measures. It is unlikely that wild Atlantic salmon from Scotland will appear in UK supermarkets.

Whether farmed or wild caught, the origin of unprocessed and certain types of smoked fish, including imported salmon, should be included on the product label or on display if sold loose. There is a general requirement that food information must not mislead consumers as to the characteristics of the food, its nature, identity, country of origin or place of provenance, method of manufacture or production.

Increasing housing supply is key to reducing levels of homelessness. In 2024-25, we made additional funding of £40 million available to local authorities, taking investment in affordable housing to almost £600 million. 80% of the additional funding has been targeted to areas with the most sustained temporary accommodation pressures to increase the supply of social and affordable homes through acquisitions and to bring long term empty social homes back into use. This will help to increase the supply of settled homes of the right type and size, including larger properties suitable for families.

The 2025-26 budget of £768 million represents a 38% increase when compared to the 2024-25 original published budget of £555.8 million – an increase of £181 million capital (44%) and an increase of £30.8 million (63%) in financial transactions. Supported by our guidance on the planning and delivery of the affordable housing supply programme, this investment is estimated to enable the delivery of approximately 8,000 homes while contributing towards our target of 110,000 affordable homes by 2032. This significant increase in our budget will allow us to prioritise proposals that aim to reduce the number of families with children in temporary accommodation. To the end of September 2024, 24,382 homes have been delivered towards this target, of which 18,539 (76%) are homes for social rent. And an estimated 2,776 households with children have been helped into affordable housing in the year to September 2024.

Our long term commitment of £100 million over several financial years for mid-market rent will, with institutional investment, grow to at least £500 million and will support the delivery of around 2,800 affordable homes.

Through our engagement with local authorities, we know that efforts are being made at a local level to help reduce the time between a household accepting an offer of settled housing and moving into their home.

However, the most effective way to reduce the flow of households into the homelessness system is to prevent homelessness from happening in the first place. The measures in the Housing (Scotland) Bill are designed to make the prevention of homelessness everybody’s business and to ensure that people get the help they need to prevent their homelessness earlier.

The Project Willow study has concluded and the publication of a “Public Information Document” is now available on Scottish Development International’s website. Ernst & Young Parthenon (EY) supplied the study to the Grangemouth Refinery owner Petroineos and the work was co-funded by the Scottish Government and the UK Government.

The Project Willow Public Information Document illustrates that a transformative future for the existing Grangemouth Refinery site is possible if the public and private sectors work together. It outlines nine low carbon projects that could be progressed at Grangemouth subject to public and private sector investment, and policy and regulatory changes.

Scottish Enterprise and the UK Office for Investment will now work together to identify and attract investors to support the deployment of the technologies highlighted in Project Willow.

The Public Information Document can be accessed here: https://www.sdi.co.uk/invest-in-scotland/invest-in-projects/project-willow-grangemouth.

Subject to the agreement of Parliament, I will make a statement to Parliament in due course on the conclusion of Project Willow and the next steps being taken by this government to secure a long term and sustainable future for Grangemouth.

The Scottish Government does intend to bring forward new legislation to regulate canine fertility businesses. Draft regulations will be laid before the Scottish Parliament for its consideration in due course.

Decisions around how much is spent on mental health and child and adolescent mental health services is dependent on the financial decisions taken by NHS Boards and their partners, on the continued local investment needed to achieve the targets. It is important that Boards retain flexibility in their spending decisions to meet specific demands, including making progress towards the 1% and 10% targets

Boards should be commended for the increases in spend on mental health. While some have gone above the 10% and 1% targets.

Looking forward we expect spending on Mental Health between the Scottish Government and NHS Boards, to be around £1.5 billion in 2025-26 based on recent Health Service cost book data.