Chamber and committees

A broadened role for firefighters remains an ambition for the Scottish Government, an element of which could be emergency medical response. Significant process has been made in embedding Naloxone into the operational capability of the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) Flexi Duty Officer (FDO) cadre and SFRS has trained 137 FDOs who now carry Naloxone and stop-the-bleed kits. Naloxone remains a key component of Scotland's harm reduction response, and we continue to support efforts to increase access to naloxone across healthcare, community, emergency service and third sector settings. Alongside this, we continue to invest in Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT), residential rehabilitation and recovery support services to help ensure people can access the support they need at the right time.

The deployment of resources is a matter for the Chief Constable based on operational priorities. This is also very clearly set out in the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012.

The consideration to use data acquired by Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology in combination with facial recognition and other biometric technologies would be an operational matter for Police Scotland, under the scrutiny of the Scottish Police Authority.

The level of detail requested is not held by the Scottish Government. Individual Health Boards are responsible for assessing condition of buildings within the Board’s control and the information would require to be requested for them.

Protecting, managing and restoring degraded peatlands is a vital part of mitigating and adapting to the linked climate and nature emergencies.

Improving the condition of degraded peatlands contributes to mitigation by reducing atmospheric greenhouse gases, and to adaptation by increasing ecosystem resilience and reducing flood risk and the severity of wildfires.

Our Climate Change Plan and carbon budgets incorporate the modelled emissions reductions associated with the measures we set out in the Plan to protect, manage and restore Scotland’s peatlands.

The Scottish Government remains committed to our longstanding intention to ban the sale of peat for horticulture, as set out in our 2026 Climate Change Plan.

Following discussion during passage of the Natural Environment Act 2026, and to overcome the challenges posed by the UK Internal Market Act, Scottish Ministers called on UK Ministers to support a collaborative cross-UK approach. We are now engaged in preparatory work with the other UK nations towards joint legislation to establish an effective ban.

I refer the member to the answer to question S7W-02471 on 3 September 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.

The procurement route will be considered as part of the finalised Outline Business Case.

Since the integration of health and social care, overall responsibility for the planning and delivery of adaptations, and for developing services to improve outcomes for people who require adaptations, lies with Integration Joint Boards through powers and budgets delegated from Local Authorities.

Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) are responsible for assessing the needs of their tenants including older tenants and disabled tenants, and RSLs will submit funding requests accordingly. The Scottish Government does not independently assess the funding requirements of individual RSLs. Instead, it seeks to distribute available funding in a fair and equitable manner across RSLs, with the aim of ensuring tenants can access necessary adaptations as promptly as possible.

Police Scotland have previously briefed Ministers regarding the different types of vehicles including Electric Scooters, Electric Motorcycles, and Electrically Assisted Pedal Cycles (EAPC, commonly known as e-bikes).

Officers have been issued with guidance on how to differentiate between legal and illegally modified EAPCs, and they only seize vehicles, including ones which fall into the categories described above, when they have the power to do so. Work is currently underway to assess devices and technologies which can help officers to detect illegal vehicles.

It is for Police Scotland to determine how best to record incidents. If a crime has been committed, this should be recorded in line with the Scottish Crime Recording Standard.

Yes, and the recently published Islands Connectivity Plan identifies that the priority for island communities is that ferry services should be reliable and resilient.