Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government funds two programmes targeting households living in or at risk of fuel poverty, Warmer Homes Scotland and Area Based Schemes. Since 2022 these programmes have adopted a `whole house retrofit’ approach based upon national retrofit standards (PAS2035 published by the British Standards Institution). Relevant improvements are installed based upon an individual assessment of the property; in line with technical and regulatory requirements (such as building standards); as well as to reflect the different needs and circumstances of householders.

Since 2022 the Warmer Homes Scotland scheme has delivered retrofit improvements to 8,507 households to this standard (WHS2).

The Scottish Government, in collaboration with the enterprise network and UK Government, held exploratory discussions with local authorities last year to establish their interest in submitting an Expression of Interest to the AI Growth Zones opportunity. We subsequently wrote out to local authorities to notify them of the launch of the UK Government’s call for sites, encouraging them to participate in the initiative. 41 Scottish Expressions of Interest were received by the UK Government in the initial call. We will continue to engage with the UK Government on this welcome interest from Scottish Local Authorities with a view to establishing at least one AI Growth Zone in Scotland and securing the economic opportunities that brings.

We are very aware of the significant opportunity which AI presents in relation to the delivery of better and more efficient public services, and work in this area has been on-going since the launch of Scotland’s AI Strategy in 2021.

We also have a long standing commitment to listen to the people of Scotland and through our recent CivTech challenge process, focused on delivering innovative technical solutions to real world public service challenges, we have looked for technology to help us better reach and learn from citizens.

As a result, Comhairle is a new digital platform being developed by Scottish based technology company, CrownShy. Comhairle connects existing open-source civic technologies into a unified interface that will allow the Scottish Government to scale the number, scope and quality of its public dialogues, and guide users towards best public engagement practice.

We have been working closely with colleagues in the UK Government to help to trial and improve their AI driven Consult tool. Making use of Large Language Models (LLMs) Consult can expedite the identification and collation of consultation responses, facilitating a faster and more insightful response when dealing with large response volumes.

As well as being trialled by policy teams, our social research teams have offered their statistical and research expertise to help develop and improve the products output quality. Working as part of the pilot team for this product has allowed the Scottish Government to help contribute to the development of a tool which we hope will be able to be used across the public sector.

We are also making use of externally supplied AI driven consultation tools to help transcribe lengthy interviews and then to aid with the faster analysis of their out puts. By investing in these products we are able to free up staff time to focus more effort on developing our responses and actions rather than the administrative side.

All of these tools are being delivered with a strong focus on openness about situations where AI is being used, and an infrastructure which offers the strongest possible security and protection for our citizen’s data.

I engaged with the Lord Advocate, Solicitor General and the Crown Agent during the 2025-26 budget process which informed the allocation to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. The portfolio received a resource budget of £225.2 million for 2025-26, an increase of 10.7% compared to 2024-25. The funding uplift was allocated to support the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service to manage a range of demand led pressures

This information is not held centrally. However all recommendations are published on the website of the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service and are publicly available.

This information is not held centrally. However all recommendations are published on the website of the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service and are publicly available.

This information is not held centrally. However all recommendations are published on the website of the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service and are publicly available.

Alcohol sales are subject to VAT, whilst any profits made by businesses selling alcohol are subject to Corporation Tax. Both of these taxes remain fully reserved to the UK Government. Scotland receives a share of UK-wide VAT and corporation tax, regardless of the place of purchase of products or location of businesses, as part of the annual block-grant allocation. The Public Health Scotland evaluation of MUP concluded from a range of studies that “some evidence of cross-border purchasing was identified, but its extent was observed to be minimal.

I engaged with the Lord Advocate, Solicitor General and the Crown Agent during the 2025-26 budget process which informed the allocation to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. The portfolio received a resource budget of £225.2 million for 2025-26, an increase of 10.7% compared to 2024-25. The funding uplift was allocated to support the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service to manage a range of demand led pressures.

The following table provides the amount of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) consumed by the MV Glen Sannox for the period covering December 2024 until March 2025.