Chamber and committees

Progress with investment plans is included in my regular discussions with the Scottish Rail Holdings Group of companies and I met with ScotRail representatives on 27 February 2025. Transport Scotland officials meet regularly with ScotRail, Caledonian Sleeper and Scottish Rail Holdings to discuss any plans to replace existing rolling stock.

We are working with various delivery partners to implement the commitments in the Respiratory Care Action Plan (RCAP), which runs into 2026.

We established the Scottish Respiratory Advisory Committee to provide expert support to the implementation of the RCAP. The Committee identified three initial areas of focus: child to adult transition, pulmonary rehab and respiratory data.

The Committee’s Child to Adult Transitions subgroup has produced a set of recommendations to ensure children with asthma and other respiratory conditions have the best possible care and treatment as they move into adult service.

To improve the data available on respiratory conditions and ensure people with respiratory conditions are receiving the right care and support, we are working towards establishing a national audit programme for respiratory conditions. We aim to progress this with Public Health Scotland in 2025/2026.

In 2024, we published the Quality Prescribing Strategy for Respiratory: A Guide for Improvement 2024-2027 that sets out our ambitions for better access to respiratory care. This can be found here – https://www.gov.scot/publications/quality-prescribing-strategy-respiratory-guide-improvement-2024-2027/

The Centre for Sustainable Delivery based at the Golden Jubilee National Hospital is developing national patient pathways for respiratory conditions including severe asthma, COPD and sleep apnoea. This work aligns closely with the commitments in the RCAP.

The RCAP also recognises the importance of commitments under the Scottish Government’s Cleaner Air for Scotland and Warmer Homes Strategies and the refreshed Tobacco Action Plan in preventing respiratory disease.

We remain committed to a tobacco-free Scotland by 2034 and welcome the re-introduction of the UK-wide Tobacco and Vapes Bill to UK Parliament, which will help us to achieve our ambitious target.

We are supporting the introduction of Low Emission Zones to improve air quality and protect public health.

We are also committed to supporting those living in fuel poverty or at risk of fuel poverty through installing insulation and heating measures into individual properties, known as the Warmer Homes Scotland scheme. Since the launch of the first Warmer Homes Scotland scheme in 2015, the scheme has invested around £289 million and helped over 39,000 households across Scotland to live in warmer, healthier homes which are more affordable to heat through both phases of the scheme.

Assumed council tax revenues are a key element of the needs-based distribution formula that is discussed and agreed with COSLA on behalf of all 32 local authorities each year.

The inclusion of Assumed Council Tax in the overall distribution calculations reflects structural differences in the housing stock across the country and ensures that local authorities with a greater proportion of houses in band A to C are not disadvantaged, relative to those with a higher proportion of their houses in band E to H.

The absence of an Assumed Council Tax adjustment in the formula would disproportionately benefit more affluent local authorities. By way of illustration, for every £1 raised on a band D council tax bill, more affluent authorities receive 50% more income than the least affluent authorities. Including Assumed Council Tax in the settlement calculations is therefore a critical element of the needs-based distribution by ensuring that the impact of those structural differences are partially redistributed.

Excluding Assumed Council Tax from the 85% floor would remove this partial redistribution and would therefore be incompatible with the concept of a needs-based distribution methodology.

Distribution involves a complex and dynamic calculation with the impact on subsequent years being influenced by prior year calculations, primarily through the operation of the main funding floor.

If Assumed Council Tax were excluded from the calculation of the 85% floor, in the past five years, a hypothetical static analysis would indicate that Aberdeen City would have additionally been below 85 per cent in 2021-22 and 2022-23, and City of Edinburgh would have additionally been below 85 per cent in 2023-24, 2024-25 and 2025-26.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information. The number of nursery service cancellations and registrations is a matter for the Care Inspectorate. The Care Inspectorate publish data on service cancellations and registrations (available here: https://www.careinspectorate.com/index.php/statistics-and-analysis, however the published data does not go back as far as 1999.

Replacement of the Marine Evacuation System is scheduled to begin in May 2025.

Since 2016, the Farming Opportunities for New Entrants (FONE) Group has been coordinating new entrant opportunities on publicly owned land in Scotland. FONE Group membership includes, but is not limited to, Forestry and Land Scotland, the Crown Estate Scotland, the Scottish Ministers’ Estate and Scottish Water.

Through the FONE group, over 80 new entrant opportunities have been provided across more than 8,000 hectares of publicly owned land.

Additionally, in December 2024, I wrote out to all Local Authority Leaders and Chief Executives asking that they engage with the Programme for Government commitment to maximise the opportunities on their land for agricultural new entrants.

I have called on all Scottish public bodies, with land, to a Landowner’s Conference in March to showcase and emphasise the importance of leasing public land to new entrant farmers and crofters.

Since 2016, the Farming Opportunities for New Entrants (FONE) Group has helped facilitate entry to over 80 new entrants across more than 8,000 hectares of publicly owned land in Scotland.

Instigated by the FONE Group and funded by the Scottish Government, the Scottish Land Matching Service (SLMS) provides a platform for opportunities for the next generation of farmers and crofters, by engaging with those seeking or offering joint venture arrangements in relation to land and facilities. To date the SLMS has facilitated over 300 individuals and formally matched over 50 joint-ventures, some of which includes publicly owned land.

The Scottish Government recognise the crucial role councils and their employees play in communities across Scotland. That’s why the Scottish Government has made available over £14 billion to local authorities this year, a real terms increase of 4.3 per cent, with a record £15 billion for 2025-26 set out in the Scottish Budget, a further real terms increase of 4.7 per cent.

In the context of that record settlement, the Scottish Government are committed to working in partnership with local government to ensure that children across Scotland continue to receive the high-quality education services that they deserve but it is the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, including on non-teaching staff, on the basis of local needs and priorities.

The most recent Instrumental Music Survey published in January 2025 shows the number of pupils accessing free instrumental music tuition was the highest on record since the survey began in 2012.

Since 2021-22 we have provided dedicated funding to local authorities to support the removal of fees for instrumental music and in 2025-26 we will provide £12m to support this policy.

Local authorities are responsible for delivering education and so it is for individual councils to make choices about levels and means of provision that meet their local circumstances and the needs of pupils. No Council has charged for IMT since 2020-21.

The Scottish Government has been engaging closely with EIS and a range of partners to implement our commitments on instrumental music tuition and will continue to do so.

The Scottish Government recognises that free bus travel has the potential to be transformative for people seeking asylum, who are among the most vulnerable in society.

At present, people seeking asylum in Scotland who are aged under 22, aged 60 or over or have an eligible disability are entitled to concessionary travel under existing national schemes.

The 2025-26 Scottish Budget, which was passed by the Scottish Parliament on 25 February 2025, has funding allocated to provide free bus travel for people seeking asylum who are not already eligible in the coming financial year.

We are committed to exploring if we can extend free bus travel to all people seeking asylum on a longer term basis before the end of the current parliamentary session, subject to an agreed way forward on the policy in terms of practical delivery.

Accordingly, my officials will be reconvening the Working Group with Third Sector representatives and other interested parties in order to consider delivery options. Further information will be provided in due course.