The Scottish Government is committed to considering options for a carbon land tax, to further incentivise peatland restoration and afforestation.

Any potential new measures must be rigorously assessed and based on strong evidence to ensure they serve their objective and avoid unintended consequences.

Internal policy discussions involving a range of departments and Scottish Government Agencies are ongoing to identify potential options for a carbon land tax.

We will soon begin work to consult with a range of stakeholders, including landowners, to explore all available options and to understand their potential impacts.

Scottish Government is working closely with ADPs to ensure further roll-out of Alcohol Harms Groups and Alcohol Death Reviews across Scotland.

The ADP Survey highlights that in addition to the 30% of ADPs with specific Alcohol Harms Groups in place a further third report having other structures in place for informing surveillance. These include multi-agency groups working on wider public health monitoring including drug and alcohol harms and sudden death groups whose remits include both death reviews and suicide reviews.

Several ADPs have indicated that alcohol harm and death review groups are currently in development.

Scottish Government is working in partnership with Alcohol Focus Scotland to ensure that all ADPs in Scotland have agreed processes to review alcohol deaths and build on the learning of the 27% of ADPs already delivering.

Scottish Government is working in partnership with ADPs and local Health Boards to develop a nationwide model for the early detection of alcohol-related liver disease.

This work will build on learning taken from the innovative intelligent Liver Function Testing (iLFT) pilot pioneered by NHS Tayside and Scottish Government through its national Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) has formed a Specialty Delivery Group for Liver Disease.

The first meeting was held on 6 November 2024 and Early Detection is one of the pathways being prioritised.

Scottish Government is working closely with ADPs to ensure further roll-out of Alcohol Harms Groups and Alcohol Death Reviews across Scotland.

We are working in partnership with Alcohol Focus Scotland is ensure that all ADPs in Scotland have structures in place to carry out alcohol death reviews and build on the learning of the 27% of ADPs already delivering these.

The goal of the Scottish Government is to help people live happier and healthier lives with higher living standards, building a fair, green, growing economy that promotes the wellbeing of all Scotland’s people. Therefore, we welcome Carnegie UK’s Life in the UK 2024: Scotland report as a valuable contribution to the evidence base in Scotland. The principles are closely aligned to the National Performance Framework (NPF), which monitors numerous wellbeing issues. We are alert to the issues raised by Carnegie’s report and are committed to tackling the challenges that disabled people face, as well as investing £3 billion a year to tackle poverty and help with the cost of living.

Employment in a good job can be an important factor in a person’s wellbeing. Through the Fair Work Action Plan, we have set out actions needed to promote fair and inclusive workplaces for all people across Scotland, including addressing persistent structural barriers such as those faced by disabled people. Our Fair Work First policy applies Fair Work criteria to as many funding streams, business support grants and public contracts as we can. We have included payment of at least the real Living Wage in the criteria for Fair Work First, and this is a key mechanism for driving fair pay in Scottish workplaces, helping to support improved income security and living standards.

To help address barriers in the labour market for disabled people, the Programme for Government contains a commitment to introducing enhanced specialist employability support for disabled people across all local authorities by next Summer. We are working across sectors to achieve our aim of halving the disability employment gap in Scotland by 2038, focussing on support for disabled people to both enter and progress in fair work. We will shortly issue a response to the Scottish Parliament Economy and Fair Work Committee’s recent report on its inquiry into the disability employment gap. We have also developed the Disability Plan, which will ensure disabled people have greater involvement and visibility in policy and decision-making processes.

We note the recommendations included in the report. Whilst we are not introducing a Wellbeing and Sustainable Development Bill at this time, we are committed to working across the chamber with Ms Boyack on her Members’ Bill as proposals develop. When these become available, they will be given due consideration. The NPF sets out our vision of societal wellbeing. We continue to advance the NPF, including working towards updating this in 2025 to ensure it reflects a unified vision for Scotland. We will also develop, as I confirmed to the Finance and Public Administration Committee on 8 October, an implementation plan to improve how the NPF is taken forward by public bodies, including the Scottish Government.

The goal of the Scottish Government is to help people live happier and healthier lives with higher living standards, building a fair, green, growing economy that promotes the wellbeing of all Scotland’s people. Therefore, we welcome Carnegie UK’s Life in the UK 2024: Scotland report as a valuable contribution to the evidence base in Scotland. The principles are closely aligned to the National Performance Framework (NPF), which monitors numerous wellbeing issues. We are alert to the issues raised by Carnegie’s report and are committed to tackling the challenges that disabled people face, as well as investing £3 billion a year to tackle poverty and help with the cost of living.

Employment in a good job can be an important factor in a person’s wellbeing. Through the Fair Work Action Plan, we have set out actions needed to promote fair and inclusive workplaces for all people across Scotland, including addressing persistent structural barriers such as those faced by disabled people. Our Fair Work First policy applies Fair Work criteria to as many funding streams, business support grants and public contracts as we can. We have included payment of at least the real Living Wage in the criteria for Fair Work First, and this is a key mechanism for driving fair pay in Scottish workplaces, helping to support improved income security and living standards.

To help address barriers in the labour market for disabled people, the Programme for Government contains a commitment to introducing enhanced specialist employability support for disabled people across all local authorities by next Summer. We are working across sectors to achieve our aim of halving the disability employment gap in Scotland by 2038, focussing on support for disabled people to both enter and progress in fair work. We will shortly issue a response to the Scottish Parliament Economy and Fair Work Committee’s recent report on its inquiry into the disability employment gap. We have also developed the Disability Plan, which will ensure disabled people have greater involvement and visibility in policy and decision-making processes.

We note the recommendations included in the report. Whilst we are not introducing a Wellbeing and Sustainable Development Bill at this time, we are committed to working across the chamber with Ms Boyack on her Members’ Bill as proposals develop. When these become available, they will be given due consideration. The NPF sets out our vision of societal wellbeing. We continue to advance the NPF, including working towards updating this in 2025 to ensure it reflects a unified vision for Scotland. We will also develop, as I confirmed to the Finance and Public Administration Committee on 8 October, an implementation plan to improve how the NPF is taken forward by public bodies, including the Scottish Government.

Third Sector organisations play a key role in civil society and we welcome any insight and challenge they bring to public policy. The Scottish Government appreciates discussion around public policy and view it as an essential part of the democratic process.

To ensure funding is awarded on a fair and equitable basis by officials, The Scottish Public Finance Manual (SPFM) is issued by the Scottish Ministers to provide guidance to the Scottish Government and other relevant bodies on the proper awarding, handling and reporting of public funds. It sets out the relevant statutory, parliamentary and administrative requirements, emphasises the need for economy, efficiency and effectiveness, and promotes good practice and high standards of propriety.

Additionally, internal governance procedures are in place to ensure funding is awarded without prejudice or a single point of influence. These include an internal audit system, a governance and accountability team and accountable officer processes that ensure funding is awarded on the basis of value for money as well as outcomes and objectives that best serve the people of Scotland.

There are three key parts to our national approach to achieving improvements in treatment options and recovery pathways for residential rehabilitation; Investing in a significant increase in the capacity of residential rehabilitation services; Improving pathways into, through and out of rehabilitation services, in particular for those with multiple complex needs; Developing a standardised approach to commissioning residential rehabilitation services.

Scottish Government asked Public Health Scotland (PHS) to investigate the apparent decline in alcohol treatment numbers and PHS will publish their findings on 3 December 2024.

We are continuing to work with partners and stakeholders to develop a national specification for alcohol and drug treatment in Scotland. The national specification will build on the forthcoming UK Clinical Guidelines for Alcohol Treatment which will support the improvement of alcohol treatment in Scotland, mirroring the use of the Orange Book Guidelines for drug treatment.

In 2024-25, £112.9 million is being made available to ADPs. This funding is used to ensure that local services meet the needs of people who experience alcohol and drugs harms.

In 2023-2024, the number of statutory-funded residential rehabilitation placements increased to 938, the majority of which included alcohol use or co-dependency. This shows that we are on track to meet our commitment to 1000 people accessing public funding for residential rehabilitation by 2026.

The NRAC formula is an objective measure of the need for health care services across Scotland.

Under the existing formula the additional cost of providing health services in remote and rural areas is factored within one of the key components in determining funding allocations, with the formula giving greater weights to areas where there is evidence of unavoidable excess costs of supplying healthcare services.

The Scottish Government have committed to continually review the funding formula. This process is managed by the Technical Advisory Group for Resource Allocation (TAGRA) and supports vital work to reduce health inequalities; ensuring that we continue to allocate funding according to the relative need for healthcare in each Board area. Work is underway to review this, however, funding formulas are inherently complex and the review will take time.