Chamber and committees

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

SPS Women’s Strategy delivers a focus on both therapeutic and trauma informed environments for women in our care, and through individualised case management processes, women’s safety is managed in a way that is sensitive to their individual and gender specific needs and risks.

SPS’ person-centred approach and Women’s Strategy acknowledges that safety and wellbeing needs can be different for each woman, and traumatic experience can show that one woman’s feeling of safety and secure looks very different from another’s.

In practice our approach allows us to create an environment that promotes safety in a way that is sensitive to individual past experiences of distress, abuse and trauma.

Additionally, SPS are acutely aware of the Supreme Courts Judgement regarding the ‘biological definition’ of a woman and are currently considering any impact this may have on existing policies and operations.

The Scottish Government thanks the Marine Conservation Society and all the many volunteers for their excellent work in monitoring beach litter and cleaning our shores. Citizen science is valued, and in combination with data from our scientists and our wider international monitoring programme, it is useful in helping us prioritise policy development to effectively reduce marine litter.

The Scottish Government thanks the Marine Conservation Society and their volunteers for their considerable efforts in gathering the data within the State of Our Beaches 2024 report, and also removing beach litter during these surveys. Their citizen science is vital in helping us prioritise future policy and legislation development.

We recognise that marine litter is an important national and international problem and have prioritised action through the Marine Litter Strategy for Scotland to ensure that the amount of litter entering the marine environment is minimised to bring ecological, economic and social benefits.

We published our refreshed Marine Litter Strategy in September 2022, which sets out a co-ordinated approach to address the amount of litter entering the marine environment, and supports the removal of debris that is already there. The updated strategy contains multiple actions on the most problematic types of marine litter including sewage-related debris and wet wipes. We are working across the four nations to put an end to pollution caused by wet wipes containing plastic, with legislation forthcoming.

The Scottish Government routinely engages with Welsh Government officials on a range of animal welfare issues, however, there has been no specific engagement on the commitment made to phase out greyhound racing in Wales.

The Review of the Animals and Wildlife (Penalties, Protections and Powers)(Scotland) Act 2020 was published on 4 April. In that review we committed to consult on prohibiting the use of remote control static pulse training collars. We are currently working to regulate the activities of the canine facility sector. We are also developing a Code of Practice that will ensure the transparent and safe transfer of ownership of any puppy and dog, as required under the Welfare of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2025.

The Minister for Victims and Community Safety regularly meets with the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) Chief Officer and Board Chair where a wide range of issues are discussed, including the capital budget allocation and the SFRS estate. The Scottish Government is aware of the condition of fire stations and has increased the capital funding for SFRS from £32.5m in 2023-24 to £43m in 2024-25 and to £47m in 2025-26. The allocation of resources is a matter for the SFRS Board.

Health Improvement Scotland are working with all NHS boards and partner organisations to standardise the reporting of adverse events, and have developed a national framework which was published in February 2025.

This also includes a standard review process through the development of a national Significant Adverse Event Review template with associated guidance and national learning summary. The category of violence and aggression (which includes instances of sexual violence) is a priority category.

The safety of staff and patients is the responsibility of the individual Health Board. We expect Health Boards to make every effort to keep staff, patients and service users safe and to report incidents to the police where appropriate.

The courts have extensive powers to deal robustly with sexual offending. All instances of such behaviour should be reported and escalated to Police Scotland as quickly as possible for consideration of necessary action.

The Scottish Government continues to engage with all our partners to call for a long-term return to tariff free trading that has been mutually beneficial for the Scottish and US spirits sectors, as part of a wider UK-US negotiated solution. I met with the UK Minister for Trade Policy and Economic Security on 2 April to discuss this. The Deputy First Minister met with the US Chamber of Commerce on 3 April and the First Minister met with senior figures in the whisky sector in New York on 7 April to hear directly from the business leaders involved and hosted a business round table which included the Scotch Whisky Association and the Food and Drink Federation on 16 April. The First Minister also met with the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, on the 11 April to discuss tariffs amongst other topics.

We expect Health Boards to write to patients when the patient is added to a waiting list for treatment to provide an estimation of their treatment date. In circumstances in which this cannot be provided, Boards are expected to signpost patients to an online platform where the patient can access further information about the waiting time for their agreed treatment in the responsible Health Board.

The revised Waiting Times Guidance, published in December 2023, includes a standard package of communications that all Health Boards should be providing. This ensures that patients are provided with clear communications throughout their care journey setting out what they should expect and their responsibilities while they are waiting for their appointment, test or treatment.

The guidance also makes clear that communications can be in any form that the patient has consented to, including via telephone, electronically or by post. It is important that patients are asked to confirm their needs at the beginning of their journey and their preferred format when receiving communication from the Health Board.

The standard of fitness required for firefighters is an operational matter for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service.