Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government published the herbal smoking products, heated tobacco devices, vaping and nicotine products - display restrictions: partial business and regulatory impact assessment (BRIA). This sets out our initial assessment of the business and regulatory impact of proposals to regulate the display of herbal smoking products, vaping products, nicotine products, and heated tobacco devices. The partial BRIA relates to the display element of the 4-nations consultation "Tobacco and Vapes: packaging, appearance and display", which includes questions and information on herbal smoking products. The UK Government published consultation stage impact assessments alongside this consultation which relate to herbal smoking products.

As hybrid closed-loop (HCL) systems become embedded within routine diabetes care, funding for their ongoing provision, including £14.4 million for consumable costs, has been incorporated into NHS Board baseline allocations for 2026-27 as part of the wider £17.6 billion allocated to NHS Territorial Boards.

NHS Territorial Boards are responsible for planning and delivering services in line with national clinical guidance and local need. On 29 May, Ms Constance wrote to Boards making clear the expectation that funding transferred into baseline allocations should continue to support people with type 1 diabetes using closed-loop systems and seeking assurance that it is being used as intended.

To inform future decisions on access, the Scottish Government commissioned the Centre for Sustainable Delivery at NHS Golden Jubilee to examine options for further expansion of HCL systems. This work has been completed and is being considered as part of planning for the 2027-28 Budget.

There are currently no plans to establish national targets or timelines for further rollout.

The Public Sector Food Procurement Taskforce has been established to make recommendations to Ministers on strengthening public sector food procurement of local food.

The Taskforce's remit includes identifying barriers to local procurement, considering the capacity and capability of Scottish producers and processors to meet public sector demand, and identifying opportunities to strengthen routes to market for local suppliers.

Whilst decisions on menu content are made locally, the Scottish Government is undertaking a range of activity to support greater uptake of venison across the public sector. The Scottish Government is already working with industry partners to support growth in the venison sector and explore opportunities to increase demand, including through public sector catering and procurement routes.

The Scottish Government is supporting activity to strengthen the Scottish venison sector and increase market opportunities. This includes funding of £75,000 in
2026-07 to Scottish Venison and Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society (SAOS), for a range of marketing and supply chain activities including work to increase awareness of venison amongst public sector buyers.

Alongside this, recent awards through the Food and Drink Processing Scheme Scotland have provided over £200,000 to three venison processing businesses to support equipment and infrastructure upgrades.

The Retail Crime Taskforce was established following the launch of Police Scotland's action plan to tackle retail crime in March 2025. Operating under four key objectives – Prevent, Pursue, Protect, and Prepare – the Taskforce focuses on stopping people from becoming offenders, bringing perpetrators to justice, strengthening protections for retailers, and developing direct reporting systems.

The Taskforce works alongside the Scottish Government in the Scottish Partnership Against Acquisitive Crime (SPAACE), a Police Scotland-led initiative that brings together retail groups and partners to tackle a range of acquisitive crimes including theft and housebreaking. Scottish Government has committed funding of £3 million in 2026-27 and in each of the following two years to support this work.

The Scottish Government and industry partners receive updates on the progress of the retail crime taskforce. The most recent update in July 2026 provided a summary of the results delivered in the first year of the taskforce.

In total the RCTF recorded over 16,044 results across all KPI recorded activities in its first year of operation. This includes:

• 5,760 Shoplifting Charges/Detections
• 1,542 Intelligence Logs Submitted
• 648 Retail Worker Offence Charges
• 1,330 Arrests Made
• 3,151 Suspects Identified by RCTF
• 41 Organised Crime Groups (OCGs) Identified
• 268 Electronic Briefings Disseminated
• 128 Disruptions Against OCGs

The Local Government funding formula provides a complex but objective assessment of need and uses the most up to date information for the full range of indicators, including biodiversity and greenspace.

Since 2023-24, as part of work to deliver the National Litter and Flytipping Strategy, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) has identified at least 300 online profiles advertising potentially illegal waste services and secured the closure of 81 profiles. Through this digital disruption activity, SEPA has also undertaken 136 direct interventions with unlicensed operators, issued 13 Information Notices and 7 Fixed Monetary Penalties, published 164 public deterrence posts, and received 11 waste carrier registration applications.

Comparable data is not held for earlier years, as this specific activity commenced in 2023-24. Annual information on the activity is included in the National Litter and Flytipping Strategy updates, available on the Scottish Government’s website.

SEPA’s assessment is that social media and online advertising platforms can provide unauthorised waste operators with a means of accessing customers. Its interventions have disrupted this activity, although there is evidence that some operators have moved into closed or private social media groups, making investigation more difficult. SEPA has also engaged with platforms, including Gumtree, to support the removal of adverts placed by unauthorised operators.

Following the recommendation by the Scottish Medicines Consortium that obesity medicines should be available for routine use within the NHS, the Scottish Government issued a national consensus statement to Health boards in September 2024.

This recommended the introduction of obesity medicines in a phased manner depending on a patient’s body mass index and any obesity-related conditions such as Type 2 Diabetes.

The Scottish Government regularly engages with obesity experts and stakeholders from NHS health boards through a range of forums to share learning and support access to these medicines for people living with obesity in Scotland.

We are also funding the Accelerated National Innovation Adoption (ANIA) programme which offers an intensive weight management programme for remission to 3000 more people in Scotland with newly or recently diagnosed type 2 diabetes, from 2025 to 2028. A national digital Type 2 Diabetes Prevention programme is expected to launch next year which will support up to 13,500 patients with a recent diagnosis of prediabetes or a history of gestational diabetes, to prevent or delay the onset of type 2 diabetes, and up to 1,500 people diagnosed with primary hypertension.

The Scottish Government has not undertaken a recent assessment, taking account of the current composition of the fishing fleet, of the potential impacts of reallocating access from mobile to static gear in parts of Scotland's inshore Nephrops fisheries on (a) fishing revenue, (b) gross value added, (c) employment or (d) the proportion of fisheries income retained within coastal communities. The reallocation of access from mobile to static gear is not current Scottish Government policy.

The Scottish Government did, however, publish research in 2020 exploring optimisation modelling in the Scottish Nephrops fleet. The research concluded that there was potentially an opportunity for economic gains if access to fishing grounds was redistributed between and within the Nephrops creel and trawl fleets, with potential increases in gross value added and employment.

However, the research also identified a number of important limitations. It did not take account of the costs to businesses of changing fishing patterns, the management and compliance costs associated with any redistribution of access, or wider environmental and social considerations. The research further noted that it was unclear whether the modelled outcomes could be achieved in practice.

The research is available https://www.gov.scot/publications/exploration-optimisation-modelling-scottish-nephrops-fleet-policy-brief/documents/

The Scottish Government monitors NHS Boards' progress in developing specialist support services for long COVID, ME/CFS and other similar conditions through ongoing engagement with boards and by reviewing the plans they submitted as part of the allocation of the £4.5 million annual specialist support services funding.

I appreciate that the cost of childcare can be challenging for many families across Scotland, and that there can be an impact on family circumstances as a result of a multiple birth. Every child in Scotland deserves the best start in life, which is why the Scottish Government is committed to eradicating child poverty and giving families the support they need. Each year since 2021 we have invested around £1 billion in the delivery of high quality ELC to all eligible children and we are continuing to do so in 2026-27.

With respect to future plans, we are seeking to transform Scotland’s childcare offer to better support families with the cost of childcare, for children from 9 months to the end of primary school. As this Parliament agreed in May, this is a priority, and must be informed by learning from the expansion to 1140 hours and the voices of those who use and deliver childcare in Scotland. This includes families with multiple births.

Our Programme for Government set out our intention to publish and consult on a blueprint for the future, building on learning from the last ten years of childcare design and delivery. This will be published next year. I would encourage anyone with an interest, including families with multiple births, to participate in this consultation.