Chamber and committees

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.

We will comply with all aspects of the reporting and authorisation requirements detailed in the Scottish Public Finance Manual, which includes notification to the Finance and Public Administration Committee. Scottish Government does not intend to advise the Scottish Fiscal Commission on this question separately. All contingent liabilities are disclosed in the Scottish Government's annual report and accounts.

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.

We encourage all businesses to report any instances of criminality to Police Scotland. As well as enabling the perpetrators to be caught and being prevented from committing further crimes, such reports also ensure Police Scotland has the best possible intelligence on incidents in particular areas. The Scottish Government would also urge retailers to engage with the Scottish Partnership Against Acquisitive Crime (SPAACE) in order to help safeguard their business and the people that work there. The SPAACE Strategy outlines a partnership approach to the prevention, deterrence, and enforcement around a range of crimes including housebreaking and theft.

NHS Boards have reporting systems to capture data on violence and aggression - including sexual assault. I strongly encourage staff to report any and all instances of violent and aggressive behaviour.

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.

This details the importance of national standards of reporting and the requirement for monitoring and publishing of data. This will facilitate the collation of accurate data nationally.

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 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.

Scotland’s partnership with Pakistan is long-standing, with a highly active diaspora, and Pakistan being the 4th largest international student community in our own universities. Our commitment for the Scotland Pakistan Scholarships for Young Women and Girls has been to provide £400,000 a year, through British Council Pakistan who manage the scholarships, though we have provided further financing in year 2022 to support women and girls affected by floods, and year in 2023-24 and 2024-25 because the high level of demand on the scheme.

This is in a country with significant gender disparities in education ranking 145 out of 146 countries on the Gender Parity Index for literacy and educational attainment (in 2018 that was 146 out of 148 countries). Pakistan has the world’s second-highest number of out-of-school children with an estimated 22.8 million children aged 5-16 not attending school, close to 60% of which are girls. Pakistan has one of the highest amount of out of school girls. Only about 22% of the workforce are women while women's representation in professional and managerial positions remains low, with only 7.4% of STEM professionals being female.

Inspired by a courageous campaign for better education for girls in Pakistan led by Malala Yousafzai, a young female education activist and the youngest Nobel laureate who was shot by the Taliban, the Scottish Government set up the Scotland Pakistan Scholarships for Young Women and Girls to support equality for women and girls in Pakistan. Since 2013, I am proud to say that Scottish Government has supported over 20,000 women and girls to get Secondary education and a further 2,000 to attend University education including at postgraduate level (16300 for secondary education and 1,200 for University in the last 5 years).