Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is committed to improving our existing funded ELC offer and to delivering a childcare system that is both fair and affordable, giving children the best possible start in life and supporting parents and carers to work, train and take up education opportunities. I welcome any work that considers how we can further our goals of improving children’s outcomes, supporting family wellbeing and addressing the determinants of child poverty.

The Scottish Government continues to take a range of actions to ensure families have access to affordable, flexible, high-quality childcare, despite the challenging financial circumstances we are operating in. We have invested around £1 billion every year in funded early learning and childcare since 2021. This is fundamental to giving children the best start in life, and instrumental in working to eradicate child poverty, which is this Government’s national mission.

We are currently working with all NHS Health Boards to identify investment priorities across Scotland, that includes NHS Fife.

Historic real terms cuts to our block grant from the UK Government have put pressure on our capital budget and we have only recently received clarity from the UK Treasury for our capital and FT funding up to 2029-30.

As part of our own Scottish Spending Review, we are undertaking a full review of our capital spending to prioritise available funding towards projects that drive progress against our priorities. We will provide clarity over which projects will receive funding in the medium term when we publish this review, alongside our new Infrastructure Pipeline.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

HMP Glasgow’s design is built on lessons learned from previous builds and other jurisdictions. The design utilises a formation of smaller household units. This structure support safety and provides flexibility to contract or expand in line with operational and regime requirements.

The 5 residential houseblocks will have 20 cells within each of the 3 spurs. Each spur will have 18 single cells of 9.44 m² and 2 double cells of 13.60 m².

In 2016, Scottish Government legislation came into force that increased the maximum sentence for weapons possession from four years to five years. The average length of custodial sentence for weapons possession in 2022-23 was 332 days; this compares with 218 days in 2007-08 and represents an increase of 52%.

The prosecution of knife crime is an independent operational matter for COPFS.

The Scottish Government has not had any recent discussions with airport operators in relation to drop-off fees for blue badge holders.

Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Prestwick, and Inverness Airports already offer free access to allow drop-off and pick-up for Blue Badge holders. Further information is available on the relevant operator websites.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-40445 on 19 September 2025. 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.

I don't recognise the member's timeframe of 3 months. As Independent Contractors, it is the responsibility of NHS dentists to manage their patient lists in line with clinical guidelines.

However, I can advise that the Scottish Government is taking several steps to improve access to NHS dental services across Scotland.

Public Health Scotland statistics published in August show that over 7 million courses of NHS dental treatment have been delivered to patients since the introduction of payment reform in November 2023, demonstrating that our policy is delivering on our aims to sustain NHS dental services. The 2025/26 Budget reinforces our commitment to NHS dentistry, with an increase of almost 15% in funding for primary care dental services agreed - taking total funding to over half a billion pounds for the first time.

Furthermore, our recently published Operational Improvement Plan sets out a package of funded actions to bolster the NHS dental workforce and support increased access now and into the future. Within this we will:

• support the dental workforce pipeline through i) the immediate expansion of domestic dental student numbers and ii) the development of an innovative new training package to support international dentists in joining the NHS Scotland workforce; and
• support the ongoing sustainability of practices through revision of our existing allowances to secure and improve access in Scotland’s most rural communities.

Scottish Government maintains a regular dialogue with BDA Scotland; and is committed to addressing oral health inequalities.

The latest Public Health Scotland statistics to June 2025 show that NHS patient registration in SIMD 1 areas is higher than the Scotland-wide average. This report also indicates that children and adults from the most deprived areas were less likely to have had contact with NHS primary dental care than those living in more affluent areas.

The latest National Dental Inspection Programme results show that the gap between P1 children with no obvious tooth decay, living in the most and least deprived areas, is at its lowest on record – decreasing from 32.2 percentage points in 2010 to 23.5 percentage points in 2024.

Building owners should refer to the existing guidance on Large Panel System (LPS) buildings, which has been available for several years. This guidance supports the investigation of the building’s condition and structural performance, and where necessary, outlines appropriate mitigation measures.

Legislation does not require Scottish Ministers to consult before using the Emergency Early Release (EER) power contained within the Prisoners and Criminal Proceedings (Scotland) Act 1993 (as inserted by Section 11 of the Bail & Release from Custody Act 2023) due to its emergency function.