Chamber and committees

In October 2023, communities were invited to explore and develop proposals for their local area to be considered for designation as Scotland’s next National Park. The nomination phase closed on 29 February and nominations were received from Galloway, Loch Awe, Lochaber, Scottish Borders and Tay Forest.

The appraisal process concluded in May and the appraisal panel’s report has been published on our website: Scotland's New National Park Appraisal Panel: final report - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . On 22 July 2024, I announced that Galloway has been confirmed as the proposed location for Scotland’s next National Park. A Reporter process will now be undertaken by NatureScot to consider this proposal. That process will include extensive public consultation and engagement with local communities, stakeholders, businesses, landowners and managers and public bodies to discuss, test and further shape and refine the National Park proposal.

I have written to all nominating groups to offer meetings with Scottish Government officials to discuss the outcome of this process and any reflections they may wish to share following its conclusion.

On behalf of the Scottish Government, I would like to offer our thanks for the considerable time, effort and commitment that all the nominating groups and members of these local communities have invested in exploring and developing their nominations.

No additional funding has been confirmed as part of the Chancellor’s statement, with the consequential position, as per normal practice, confirmed as part of the Supplementary Estimates process in January/February 2025.

The Scottish Government will continue to work with the UK Government to seek clarity on changes that have an impact on funding.

Information on future year funding will be outlined as part of the UK Government Spending Review, the first two years of which will be published alongside the Autumn Statement on the 30th of October.

The Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy has regular meetings with SEPA which cover a wide range of topics related to SEPA functions. Most recently, Miri McAllan MSP met SEPA Chair, Lisa Tennant and Nicole Paterson, Chief Executive Officer on 13 June 2024.

Where new development proposals come forward, fourth National Planning Framework (NPF4), ensures that the impacts of proposals on communities and nature, including cumulative impacts, are important considerations in the decision-making process. All applications are subject to site specific assessments and the cumulative impacts of energy development proposals are also required to be considered through statutory Environmental Impact Assessment processes, where relevant and applicable.

The Scottish Ministers have an expectation that communities are engaged at an early stage and can meaningfully influence development proposals in their area. Where there is a need for co-ordination between applicants proposing development in the same area, all parties are expected to work together to co-ordinate development and minimise any impacts on communities and the environment.

When determining applications under the Electricity Act 1989, Scottish Ministers are required to seek advice from planning authorities to ensure that decision-making is co-ordinated to reflect local circumstances.

Since 2019, NHS Tayside has been focusing on developing and stabilising breast cancer services. They have successfully recruited new Breast Oncologists to their local service, including two Breast Clinical Oncologists who work solely for NHS Tayside alongside a joint Breast Medical Oncologist post with NHS Lothian.

NHS Tayside is replacing a radiotherapy linac machine, which has generated some constraints in physical radiotherapy capacity. To ensure patients can access radiotherapy in a timely manner, NHS Tayside has collaborated with NHS Highland to offer faster access to radiotherapy for a small number of patients with breast cancer. Once the linac is fully replaced, and with the new breast oncologists now in place, NHS Tayside will deliver the full pathway of Breast Cancer Care locally with a continued drive to improve patient experiences and outcomes.

The Scottish Government, through the Infrastructure Investment Plan 2021-22 to 2025-26 published in 2021, has enabled the upgrade to the Edinburgh Cancer Centre (ECC) at the Western General Hospital in NHS Lothian, which will complete this financial year.

Beyond this, given the extremely challenging financial position, all capital projects are now under review. Publication of the revised Infrastructure Investment Plan will be considered only once allocations from the new UK Government are confirmed and fully appraised by the Scottish Government.

We intend to resume Tranche 1 of the Sustainability Loan Scheme in 2024-25 once we have completed the disbursement of funds for those loans already completed and confirmed a budget. This will likely not be until midway through the financial year.

Our preference remains to continue the loan scheme into Tranche 2 and beyond – however, this is dependent on whether the UK Government resumes the allocation of Financial Transaction Capital to the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government works closely with third sector partners and all other agencies involved in supporting children and young people who are involved with the criminal justice system, their parents and carers.

We fund the Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice (CYCJ), who work with a number of third sector organisations providing a range of support services to both children and their parents. This includes Action for Children, Includem and Barnardos.

As part of their Promise implementation work, CYCJ is leading a project to engage directly with parents of children in conflict with the law. The aim of this is to develop a network of parents who can participate in the development of policy and practice. In order to reach these parents CYCJ is actively engaging with existing parenting networks such as Parenting Across Scotland and Families Outside.

We collaborate with third sector partners which seek to prevent at-risk young people from coming into conflict with the law by offering more targeted support to children and families. Preventing children and young people from going down a path where they are in conflict with the law and supporting them appropriately and effectively when they do – to help address their underlying needs – has been integral to Scotland’s youth justice agenda for over a decade.

This includes organisations such as Cyrenians and Aberlour, which receive funding through the Cashback for Communities programme. Cyrenians’ Keeping Families Together project works across Scotland in partnership with Scotland’s four secure centres, offering mediation, whole family support and conflict resolution workshops. The approach enables young people and families to improve communication, address underlying issues and build stronger, more positive relationships.

Aberlour’s project, Alternative Routes #CashBack, supports young people aged 10-25 and their families most at risk of being involved in antisocial behaviour, offending or reoffending. They use a whole system approach involving the whole family and community, which improves confidence in young people and provides them with opportunities to connect, flourish and achieve at home, school, and in the community.

Includem’s ADAPT project – funded through the Scottish Government’s Whole Family Wellbeing Fund – also focuses on young people who are in conflict or at risk of being in conflict with the law. The project works with young people and their families to help them navigate a way out of a variety of difficult circumstances by diverting them from criminal behaviour and a resultant trajectory into the criminal justice system.

We also ensure that child victims and their families are offered trauma-informed and person-centred support and advocacy through the Victim-Centred Approach Fund and the development of a Bairns’ Hoose model in Scotland. The Victim-Centred Approach Fund enables victim organisations to support provision of practice and emotional support to victims, survivors and witnesses of crime across Scotland, while Bairns’ Hoose provides trauma informed recovery, support and justice services for children who have been victims or witnesses of abuse or violence, as well as children under the age of criminal responsibility whose behaviour may have caused significant harm or abuse.

Scotland faces the most challenging budget settlement since devolution. Despite this Scottish Government remains committed to maximising the important contribution forestry makes in tackling the climate emergency. Unfortunately, with the available funding it will not be possible to achieve this year’s Climate Change Plan planting target of 18,000 hectares.

Woodland creation is funded through the Forestry Grant Scheme (FGS) which has made £39.4 million available to support woodland creation in 2024/25 and earlier this year Scottish Forestry introduced new measures to increase the area of woodland creation supported. These include:-

• working with applicants and landowners to maximise planting over multiple years, including bringing forward planting from 2024 into 2023, in order to fully utilise the available funding in 2023-24 and approve as much tree planting as possible in 2024-25;
• approving projects for future years, to maintain momentum and ensure we utilise all the available funding in 2024-25. This involves creating a bank of projects that are ready to implement and can be brought forward in the event that other projects are delayed or more funding becomes available;
• reducing grant payments where woodland creation projects have alternative sources of funding. By reducing grant rates for some projects, FGS funds will support a greater area of planting in 2024-25.

The above measures will allow Scotland to create 10,000 ha of new woodland this year. Putting this in context, we would expect this to make up the majority of tree planting across the UK and it will maintain the level tree planting close to the average achieved over the last 5 years.

Action to prepare and plan for this transition began prior to the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Act 2024 receiving Royal Assent, and is ongoing. To support the relevant commencement and transitional provisions laid in the Scottish Parliament yesterday, intensive engagement with relevant partners across the sector has taken place. This to ensure readiness and capacity within secure care and wider children’s services, so that the children being moved are safe and well supported. The action included officials recently visiting each of Scotland’s four secure centres to ensure any additional support could be identified and put in place, and regular ongoing engagement with key delivery partners, including the Scottish Prison Service, secure accommodation providers, the Care Inspectorate, Social Work Scotland, COPFS, and the Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service.

Each of the children currently in Polmont YOI has a bespoke “Child’s Plan”, grounded in the principles of Getting it Right for Every Child (GIRFEC), Curriculum for Excellence and the SPS Vision for Young People in Custody (refreshed in 2021). A tailored transfer, matching and orientation process is being prepared for each child to transition to secure accommodation, along with action to inform and reassure their families.