Chamber and committees

In line with the Scottish Government’s policy, Scottish Enterprise does not provide support for the manufacture of munitions and responsibility for issuing export licenses remains with the UK Government.

Scottish Enterprise’s expectation is that businesses should undertake carbon footprint exercises in advance of developing their own net zero plans, particularly where one of the benefits of a project is an absolute or relative improvement in emissions.

For companies that Scottish Enterprise works with, and where appropriate, evidence of these benefits would be validated by one of Scottish Enterprise’s sustainability specialists using a recognised carbon calculation methodology.

The statutory responsibility for delivering, commissioning and providing appropriate social care services at a local level lies with local authorities and Health and Social Care Partnerships taking account of local population needs. However the Scottish Government understands the growing concerns about the challenges around the availability of social care services, particularly in rural areas, and is committed to developing a sustainable health and social care system that ensures people get the right care, at the right time, in the right place.

That is why the 2025-26 budget includes over £15 billion for the Local Government Settlement and almost £2.2 billion for social care and integration – exceeding our commitment to increase funding by 25% by almost £350 million. At £21.7 billion, the overall financial envelope for Health and Social Care also reached record levels.

Furthermore in the Programme for Government 2025 to 2026, we have committed to ensuring that social care workers, who are delivering direct care in commissioned services, continue to be paid at least the Real Living Wage.

We do however recognise the considerable current financial pressures facing the care home and wider social care sectors. These pressures have been significantly compounded by decisions taken by the UK Government, such as the increase in employers National Insurance contributions (eNICs) and changes to the social care visa system and salary threshold levels.

The Scottish Government and COSLA continue to press the UK Government to fund the impacts of these changes on Scottish public services in full; this includes the vital services provided on behalf of local authorities by social care providers in the private and third sectors.

The Scottish Government is undertaking a programme of work to understand and respond to these pressures facing the sector. This includes a new social care Financial Viability Response Group, which has met weekly since February 2025 and comprises sector representatives such as Scottish Care, Coalition of Care and Support Providers in Scotland (CCPS), Care Inspectorate and local leaders.

As well as this I, alongside the COSLA Health and Social Care Spokesperson, jointly host a monthly roundtable meeting with sector partners to consider the potential impacts of the eNICs and financial viability pressures on the social care sector.

That work is ongoing, but the Scottish Government is committed to working closely with partners to continue to identify the pro-active steps that can be taken to mitigate these impacts, protect services and support the people in receipt of care.

Scottish Government officials are involved in a number of initiatives with UK Government focussed on the interaction between on and offshore windfarms and aviation radar systems.

Officials from the Scottish Government work with stakeholders, including the Ministry of Defence and industry representatives, through the Offshore Wind Industry Council (OWIC) Aviation and Radar sub-group. For offshore wind farms, the Ministry of Defence has launched Programme Njord to identify, procure and implement mitigation to resolve issues with military radar. The full costs of the long-term radar mitigation solutions identified by Programme Njord will be funded via an alternative route and the funding requirement is therefore removed from offshore wind developers.

The Scottish Government is also working with UK Government to ensure alignment between the Onshore Wind Sector Deal and the UK Government’s Onshore Wind Taskforce to help develop consistent and transparent aviation mitigation processes and deliver the deployment of onshore wind while ensuring safe aviation operations.

The Grangemouth Flood Protection Scheme (GFPS) as proposed by the council, is exceptional in terms of scale and financial cost and requires careful consideration to ensure that it delivers for the local community.

The Scottish Government must weigh up any investment decision both in terms of the impact to the individual project, but also to the impact any individual project has on its ability to invest in other areas. As such, in 2023, Ministers and Falkirk Council agreed that the Grangemouth Flood Protection Scheme would be removed from consideration as part of the existing national funding agreement with local authorities for flood protection schemes because its size had a distorting effect on the affordability of the overall programme.

A Task Force approach has instead been used to examine how to take forward improved and affordable flood resilience for Falkirk and Grangemouth residents and local communities.

The next steps in the process for the Grangemouth Flood Protection Scheme are to be undertaken by the local authority.

Should Falkirk Council confirm the scheme in its current form and wish to access further Scottish Government funding, it will be necessary to demonstrate that the scheme, in whole or phased elements, is value for money, and assessed against other flood protection schemes across Scotland.

As set out in the answer to S6W-37296 on 13 May 2025, given the legitimate concerns from the local community a decision on the licence application was unable to be made ahead of the beaver kit dependency period.

This period offered an opportunity for further engagement to be undertaken to fully explore these concerns. NatureScot will publicise their decision on the licence once it has been determined.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

The SPS seeks to be as open and transparent as possible, while also upholding our statutory obligation to protect the personal information of those in our care.

This information requested is not information held by the Scottish Prison Service.

As set out in answer to question S6W-37425, which was answered on 2 May 2025, due to the short amount of time left in this parliamentary session, there is insufficient time for a Misogyny Bill to be finalised and introduced. Therefore, the Scottish Government has decided not to proceed with this Bill in this parliamentary session.

However, in order to allow for the protected characteristic of ‘sex’ to be added to the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 so that women and girls have the same protections as other groups protected by that Act, we will lay before the Scottish Parliament in September a proposed draft of an SSI under the powers within the Act. This will allow for views to be offered on the approach taken before a finalised SSI is then subsequently laid which will, if agreed, result in new protections for women and girls being introduced.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

The maintenance of the valuation roll, including the collection of evidence, valuation of properties, and decisions on the removal of properties, are the responsibility of the independent Scottish Assessors, in accordance with the legislative framework established by the Scottish Government.

Table 1 shows the number of self-catering properties removed from the non-domestic rates valuation roll since 2020-2021, by the financial year from which the decision was made effective. The Scottish Government does not have information relating to how many operators were the ratepayers for these subjects.

Decisions to remove a property from the valuation roll are generally retrospective, and the financial year from which a property is retrospectively removed from the valuation roll may precede the year in which this decision is made.

This table may also include some properties which were later reinstated to the valuation roll, and may count them more than once, for example if a property was removed, re-added, and removed again.

Figures are rounded to the nearest 10.

Table 1: Self-catering properties removed from the valuation roll, by year for which the deletion was effective

The Scottish Government has published a range of fire safety guidance applicable to a wide range of premises types, including existing high rise domestic and existing non-residential buildings. Given the complex nature of individual buildings of a height over 60m, specialist fire safety advice should be sought by the duty holder/s if required, including a robust fire risk assessment carried out by a competent assessor who will focus on the nature, use and specific circumstances pertaining to that particular building, as this will vary from one premises to another.