Chamber and committees

The Field Readiness Hub is not a healthcare facility and does not provide clinical care or treat patients. It is a specialist facility based in Dundee that allows healthcare infrastructure to be assembled, tested and refined before deployment into complex humanitarian setting. This includes testing clinical layouts, power and water systems, biomedical equipment integration, staff workflows and maintenance arrangements, helping to identify and resolve issues before facilities are deployed overseas.

This step is critical as problems with infrastructure and equipment are exponentially harder to resolve once deployed into complex settings. Therefore, testing them in advance helps ensure teams are provided with facilities that are safe, practical and ready to save lives as soon as possible.

Therefore there are no patients treated at the Hub

However, the purpose of the Hub is to improve the safety, quality and operational readiness of healthcare facilities that will subsequently deliver care to patients elsewhere.

It may be helpful to explain that the investment is already contributing to several healthcare projects, including:

• A modular paediatric surgical facility in Jericho, West Bank.
• A modular paediatric surgical facility in Juba, South Sudan.
• Further projects at early development stages in Syria, Kenya and Bangladesh.
• The ongoing Gaza HOPES hospital programme, for which the Hub was originally established to support testing, configuration and operational planning.

The impact of the Hub should therefore be assessed through the healthcare capacity and patient care it enables in deployment settings, rather than by the number of patients treated within the Hub itself.

Aberdeen Airport will benefit from the Scottish Government’s decision to extend the Air Departure Tax (ADT)Highlands and Islands exemption to the carriage of passengers on routes from all Scottish airports to airports in the Highlands and Islands. This includes routes such as those from Aberdeen Airport to Sumburgh and Kirkwall.

The Glasgow Airport Express Service 500, operated by First Glasgow, is included in the Strathclyde £2 Bus Fare Cap scheme. For eligible journeys, operators are reimbursed at 90% of the difference between £2 and the standard single fare, subject to checks and validation. This reimbursement rate applies to all participating operators, although Grant Agreements contain a comfort clause which may adjust the percentage reimbursed in exceptional circumstances.

Those eligible for free bus travel through the National Concessionary Travel Schemes may also use this bus service. The reimbursement rates for all participating operators for the current financial year are:

• Older and Disabled Persons’ Scheme – 53%
• Young Persons’ Scheme (aged 5-15) – 48.1%
• Young Persons’ Scheme (aged 16-21) – 72.5%

The Government is pursuing a suite of action to protect young people from online harm. By way of example, by late Autumn 2026, Education Scotland will commence a focused programme of work to support educators in learning about online harms and online safety, the identification of risks and how they can respond to concerns. The work will involve pre and post participation evaluation to assess participant understanding of the online harms that young people are facing, and of their confidence to recognise and escalate concerns appropriately through established child protection procedures.

Education Scotland currently supports educators through providing information and links to resources via their Safegaurding and Child Protection webpages, one of which is specifically focused on Online Abuse and Exploitation. They also link closely with partners across child protection agencies, law enforcement and the third sector to ensure that their networks are provided with timely information and advice in relation to emerging threats and current online harms.

The Hub is an initiative developed and operated by Kids Operating Room from its Centre for Global Operations in Dundee, drawing on the charity’s existing team of specialists in areas including healthcare infrastructure, biomedical engineering, logistics and operations. This means the Hub builds on skilled jobs and specialist expertise already based in Dundee, with staff contributing to its work as part of their wider roles. No staff are employed exclusively by the Field Readiness Hub.

Responsibility for ensuring and monitoring effective safeguarding practice rests with local Child Protection Committees, local authorities and their child protection partners, operating within the national child protection framework. The Scottish Government considers evidence from a range of existing assurance, inspection and review activity to inform understanding of safeguarding arrangements. This includes the recently published National Review of Group-based Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation, which found that Chief Officers’ Groups reported confidence that education services had established policies, procedures, guidance and learning to identify children and young people at increased risk of significant harm.

Work on the Commission continues to progress well. This includes agreement between the Chair, Fiona Taylor, and the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, of the Commission’s Remit and Terms of Reference. These were published on 26 August 2026 and are available at Criminalisation of the Purchase of Sex in Scotland: Independent Commission - terms of reference - gov.scot

Work is actively underway for the consideration and appointment of expert panel members to the Commission. The Commission’s substantive work and first meeting will take place once members have been appointed. Updates will be provided to the Commission’s website in due course.

The Commission will undertake its work independently of government.

Ten child patients and their families arrived in Scotland in Autumn 2025, under the UK Government medevac scheme and are receiving NHS treatment. Some of the 27 siblings who accompanied them have also required NHS treatment since arriving in the UK.

Scotland has committed to supporting up to 20 child patients and their families and we stand ready to receive further arrivals. The Programme for Government 2026 – 2031 also commits the Scottish Government to providing continued support for the people of Palestine.

The Scottish Government’s human rights due diligence guidance sets out recommendations on how we, executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies should undertake due diligence on an individual or company’s human rights record before entering into an “investment relationship”.

This should include an assessment of whether an individual or company, including any parent or subsidiary, has been associated with human rights abuses anywhere in the world.

It is for the accountable officer of each agency and non-departmental public body to ensure that their organisation complies with guidance issued by Scottish ministers.

Following a debate in Parliament in February 2025, a Parliamentary motion (S6M-16571) was passed calling on Scottish Enterprise to: “review its human rights due diligence checks to ensure that they take account of where products’ end use is, and that they fully comply with legal obligations under the Export Control Act 2002 and international law”.

Scottish Enterprise confirmed in November 2025 that its updated human rights due diligence policy and procedure was finalised and being operationalised in a phased manner. The former Deputy First Minister updated Parliament on 11 December (S6W-42527) outlining the improvements confirmed by Scottish Enterprise, which included:

• An increase in the frequency of human rights due diligence checks, to every 12 months to maintain ongoing vigilance and responsiveness.
• Removal of previous exemptions and broadening of the scope of human rights due diligence checks.
• Enhanced online screening, supplemented by follow-up engagement with customers as necessary.
• Introduction of targeted customer checks, including the requirement for a customer statement specifically addressing items and activities governed by the UK Strategic Export Controls regime.
• The establishment of an internal Senior Review Group to provide strategic input and support operational decision-making.

Separately, in September 2025, the Scottish Government paused payment of new business grants to, or investment in, companies involved in the design, production, supply, and support of military equipment, technologies and services whose products or services are provided to specific identified countries, where there is plausible evidence of genocide being committed by that country.

I refer the Member to the answer to question S7W-00647 on 11 June 2026. 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.