Chamber and committees

The latest Poverty and Inequality Statistics in Scotland publication can be accessed here: https://data.gov.scot/poverty/

The publication reports that 75% of children in relative poverty were living in working households in the period 2021-24.

The current Muirburn Code: https://www.nature.scot/doc/guidance-muirburn-code is a non-statutory Code which sets out both the law and good practice relating to muirburn and applies to all moorland managers and includes farmers, crofters, shepherds and gamekeepers.

A new licensing scheme for muirburn, as introduced by the Wildlife Management and Muirburn (Scotland) Act 2024 is expected to come in to effect later this year. NatureScot are currently consulting on a new statutory Muirburn Code that will accompany the licensing scheme. It will set out where and when muirburn can be carried out, the required notifications before setting muirburn and necessary safety measures.

As with all laws, enforcement is a matter for Police Scotland. NatureScot will also have statutory powers to modify, suspend or revoke a licence for non-compliance of the Act.

Alan Gray, Director of Health and Social Care Finance, wrote to Chief Executives of NHS Scotland on 04 December 2024 to provide the details of the indicative funding settlement for NHS Boards in the Scottish Government Budget 2025-26. This letter set out the Scottish Government position that brokerage would not be available in 2025-26.

NHS Borders are at Level 3 of the NHS Support and Intervention Escalation Framework. and the Board continue to receive enhanced monitoring and support commissioned by Scottish Government’s NHS Scotland Finance Delivery Unit; to support the Board to return to financial sustainability.

Under the terms of this support, the Scottish Government’s NHS Scotland Financial Delivery Unit maintain frequent contact with NHS Borders Executives regarding its financial position. At present, these conversations are focussed on securing a credible path to balance and, once this has been established and on course to be achieved, conversations will commence on brokerage repayment.

The amount of brokerage owed by each NHS Board is outlined in the following table:

The Fraser of Allander Institute said in an article, published on 26 March, that “we'll have to wait until the OBR has been able to look at the whole policy package in aggregate before we understand the full scale of the impact both on the UK and Scotland”.

The Scottish Government published analysis of the impact of the Scottish Child Payment (SCP) on Scotland’s labour market in July 2024; Scottish Child Payment and the labour market - gov.scot and concluded it had not negatively affected labour market outcomes at scale in Scotland’s economy, while supporting the families of nearly 330,000 children.

Our analysis shows that typically around 2% of Scottish households in receipt of Universal Credit (UC) with children aged under 16 have low monthly UC awards of less than £100. This suggests very few families experience the high effective marginal tax rates that can be present when low UC awards and therefore SCP are close to being withdrawn due to the earnings of a household.

The Scottish Government continues to assess how SCP is interacting with the labour market. A further evaluation of SCP is due to be published this summer and will include a survey of recipients including questions about how and why SCP has affected their labour market activity.

There are robust measures in place in Scotland to help all social and private sector tenants in rent arrears, including those with children, to sustain their tenancy. Pre-action requirements/protocols for tenants facing eviction for rent arrears are in place in both the social and private rented sectors. This ensures that social landlords have exhausted all attempts to resolve rent arrears with the tenant before taking action to evict and that tenants in rent arrears in the private rented sector are provided with information and sign-posted to support to sustain their tenancy wherever possible.

Tenancy sustainment is also a key outcome which social landlords must aim to achieve for their tenants and other customers as part of the Scottish Social Housing Charter. This includes tenants who may be in, or at risk of falling into, arrears with their rent and who may need support to maintain their tenancy. The Scottish Housing Regulator monitors social landlord performance against the standards and outcomes in the Social Housing Charter on an annual basis to help drive up performance.

We have strengthened the protection against eviction for tenants in the private rented sector. In line with the social rented sector, all grounds for eviction are now discretionary. This enables the First-tier Tribunal to consider the specific circumstances of each individual case, including how an eviction order would affect both the tenant and the landlord, before making a decision on whether an eviction order should be issued.

We have also committed to further rented sector reform and the Housing (Scotland) Bill 2024 includes provisions to further strengthen eviction protections in both the private and social rented sectors by placing a duty on the Court and Tribunal to always consider whether there should be a delay to the enforcement of an eviction order granted on rent arrears grounds based on the circumstances of the individual case.

£1,116.7m was allocated to General Medical Services in Scotland for the financial year 2025-26, an increase of 7.1% on the previous year.

We will continue to focus on reform and improvement of the performance of our services by deploying existing resources more efficiently and effectively and working to identify funding to support actions that deliver against our reform vision. This will include measures to improve population health, to intervene earlier with preventative measures delivered through effective primary and community care services and making changes to how we deliver services that will improve quality and access.

The First Minister has committed to a greater proportion of new NHS funding going to primary and community care so that GPs and services in the community will have the resources they need for their essential role in our health system. This increased investment will result in GP services that are easier for people to access.

We will continue to invest in, strengthen and improve the performance of our NHS. The 2025-26 budget supports the expansion of primary care, including new core funding to General Medical Services to deliver enhanced frailty, cardiovascular disease and other essential services in General Practice.

The Scottish Public Finance Manual (SPFM) requires that all land or property not needed are declared as surplus and should be disposed of as quickly as possible. The SPFM sets out a number of ways disposals can achieve best value for money and wider public benefit.

As recent examples, Scottish Government officials discussed Knocknagael Farm, Inverness with Highland Council. As part of the local development plan, some land at the farm was zoned for housing which was sold to Knocknagael Ltd via community asset transfer.

Dumfries and Galloway Council is updating its local development plan and have issued a call for sites. Scottish Government officials submitted an application in March 2025 and have suggested that land at Crichton Farm, Dumfries could be zoned for residential development or economic development.

NHS Boards are responsible for the management of their administrative assets and for identifying restructuring requirements. Any such costs would be met from Boards’ delegated budgets.

The Scottish Government is committed to the sustainability of frontline GP services and has increased the budget for General Medical Services by more than £227 million since 2020-21.