Chamber and committees

Our Women’s Health Plan 2021 – 2024 identified the need to shift the perception of heart disease in women. We delivered a successful awareness campaign throughout February 2023. In 2024, we worked closely with the ALLIANCE Scotland to improve awareness and engagement with women’s heart health through online webinars and resources.

More information can be found in the Women's health plan 2021 to 2024: final report - gov.scot.

We made clear commitments to tackling the inequalities faced by women with heart disease in our Women’s Health Plan, published in August 2021. Actions taken and progress are outlined in the Women's health plan 2021 to 2024: final report - gov.scot.

Our ambition is that women and girls enjoy the best possible health, throughout their lives. This remains the ambition of the Scottish Government, and will continue to be our guiding principle as we develop the next phase of the Women’s Health Plan.

Any future priorities will be determined in partnership with our stakeholders.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-32831 on 16 January 2025. 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 Women’s Health Plan set out actions which aim to address women’s health inequalities by raising awareness around women’s health, improving access to health care for women across their lives, and reducing inequalities in health outcomes for women and girls.

Through the Plan we have appointed Scotland’s first Women’s Health Champion; created a Women’s Health Platform on NHS Inform, commissioned NHS Education for Scotland to create bespoke training packages on menstrual health for general practice and there is now a menopause and menstrual health workplace policy for NHS Scotland.

In addition we funded the Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland to deliver our Women’s Health Plan lived experience programme. This has included webinars, videos, a toolkit and our Lived Experience Stakeholder Group to raise awareness of women’s health topics and ensure women and people with lived experience are meaningfully involved in decision making and priority setting.

Our Women’s Health Plan 2021 - 2024 Final Report on progress provides further details of our work to date.

Our ambition is that ‘women and girls enjoy the best possible health, throughout their lives’. This remains the ambition of the Scottish Government, and will continue to be our guiding principle as we consider the next phase of the Women’s Health Plan.

The National Child Sexual Exploitation Working Group published its final report on delivery of actions contained in the National Action Plan to Tackle Child Sexual Exploitation in July 2020. This sets out the range of achievements and activity to prevent and tackle child sexual exploitation delivered since the publication of the updated National Action Plan on Child Sexual Exploitation in 2016 as well as ongoing improvement and development work related to the actions in the updated plan. For further information on how the Scottish Government has continued to deliver action on child sexual abuse and exploitation since this period, I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-32827 on 16 January 2025. 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

Transport Scotland has received considerable feedback and input through the Community Needs Assessment report, user survey, and community engagement events. This information has now been reviewed and a decision on the future service design for the Gourock-Dunoon passenger ferry service will be made shortly.

Preferred vessel options for the Gourock to Dunoon ferry service are being considered as part of the outline business case and this work is ongoing. Any investment in new vessels and infrastructure must offer value for money and be affordable.

The Patient Rights (Scotland) Act 2011 and supporting legislation, provides a specific right for people to make complaints, raise concerns, make comments and give feedback. The Act also places a duty on NHS Boards to thoroughly investigate and respond to any concerns raised, to take improvement actions where appropriate and to share learning from the views they receive. When a person has concerns about their treatment or care, this should be addressed at a local level through the NHS complaints procedure. When resolution is not possible the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (SPSO) is the second and final stage in the complaints process.

The SPSO is independent from the provider of healthcare and Ministers, and looks into complaints about most organisations providing public services in Scotland.

We are committed to openness and transparency in an NHS that welcomes all forms of feedback and uses it to inform continuous improvement.

More broadly, the Women’s Health Plan set out actions which aim to address women’s health inequalities by raising awareness around women’s health, improving access to health care for women throughout their lives, and reducing inequalities in health outcomes for women and girls.

Our Women’s Health Plan 2021 - 2024 Final Report on progress provides further details of our work to date.

The majority of Registers of Scotland fees are set by Order which is subject to the affirmative procedure. The fees were last updated in April 2021. In making a fee order, Ministers will seek to balance affordability with covering the costs of running the registers. RoS is continuously working to improve its efficiency, and thereby keep its running costs as low as possible. 

In October 2024 the average house price for Scotland from UK HPI was £197,000. The RoS fee for a house of this value is £400, which represents 0.2% of the purchase price. 

NPF4 places climate and nature at the centre of our planning system and makes clear our support for all forms of renewable, low-carbon and zero emission technologies. Potential impacts on communities and individual dwellings are important considerations in the decision-making process and all applications are subject to site-specific assessments.

Where new development proposals come forward, the planning system requires decision makers to weigh up all relevant policies, as well as relevant material considerations, in applying balanced planning judgement.

While Scottish Ministers can decide to amend the NPF or review it in full at any time, having an established and consistent policy framework enables confidence in the planning system and so we expect to exercise this power sparingly. We have no current plans to amend NPF4.

I wrote to the UK Minister for Energy Consumers on 17 October 2024. Scottish Ministers proposed changes to the ECO4 scheme to enable ECO financed work to benefit from stronger management and quality control as part of local and national fuel poverty schemes in Scotland. Scottish Ministers emphasised the need to re-build public trust in the reliability of `government backed’ schemes, citing the inappropriate use of spray foam insulation in lofts as an example.

The UK Minister for Energy Consumers replied on 19 December to say that the UK Government was reviewing the current consumer protections in place for retrofit work and how they could be strengthened. They advised that any changes in their approach to consumer protection will form part of the UK Government’s Warm Homes Plan.

We will continue to press the UK Government to allow a better managed approach to ECO4 delivery in Scotland and request further details about any proposed changes to consumer protections.