Chamber and committees

Since 8 March 2025, Transport Scotland have continued to engage with the Ferries Community Board, both in relation to performance management of the new contract, and also the nature of their ongoing role post-award. This was invaluable to inform the suite of performance indicators, and the role of the Ferries Community Board has been formally embedded within the new arrangements, ensuring that the Ferries Community Board will continue to be engaged on strategic matters throughout the life of the contract.

Since 8 March 2025 officials have engaged with local authorities, including at the Roundtable event on 19 March 2025, and through the Islands Transport Forum, local area ferry groups such as the Argyll Ferry Infrastructure Group and Western Isles Ferry Group, and vessel and infrastructure project working groups, but have not discussed the detailed specification with them; whilst CMAL, as owners of the fleet, have been engaged on a number of technical matters relating to the specification.

Well managed productive forestry plantations, along with native woodlands managed for habitat conservation, all provide environmental benefits. The Forestry Grant Scheme has committed £183.8m of support for woodland creation and sustainable forest management since 2021-22. £69.8m of this funding has supported solely native woodland creation and management, with the remaining £114m spent on activities supporting woodland creation and sustainable forest management across both native and productive woodlands. This includes sums on deer management, which takes place across both native and productive woodlands.

Transport Scotland engaged with a number of partners on the development of the specification. This included sharing the draft specification with CalMac Ferries Ltd, in addition to discussing specific elements with CMAL, to ensure that operational and technical issues were appropriately addressed to reflect current practice.

Some elements of the specification were also shared and discussed with the Ferries Community Board, specifically regarding key performance indicators and the embedding of the Ferries Community Board in the specification. This input was invaluable to inform the suite of performance indicators, and the Ferries Community Board will continue to be engaged on strategic matters throughout the life of the contract to provide us with an independent community voice.

We expect NHS Health Boards, including NHS Lothian, to identify aspects of their stroke services which do not meet the Scottish Standards and to work to improve their standards of care locally.

Every NHS Board now has an accountable senior individual responsible for standards of stroke care. I met with these leads in October last year and will be meeting them again in November to review progress.

The grant agreement containing the full CHFS3 specification has been published on the Transport Scotland website and we have intimated this by letter to unions amongst other bodies and welcome the positive statements made at publication by union representatives.

The Scottish Stroke Improvement Programme plays an important role in driving forward improvements in Stroke care, including thrombolysis, throughout Scotland. Regular reviews are held with the stroke services in every NHS Board, and improvements in thrombolysis and reasons for variations in performance are discussed at these meetings. We continue to expect Health Boards to work to improve their standards of care locally.

A dedicated thrombolysis improvement event has been arranged for 8 October. This will allow medical and nursing representatives from all NHS Boards to share good practice, assess reasons for disparities in thrombolysis performance and agree approaches to clinical improvement.

The Scottish Government has made no specific estimate of the economic impact of migraine on Scotland’s economy and workforce productivity, however information regarding the impact of migraine on workplaces and the economy has been published by organisations such as the Migraine Trust.

We are working to support people with health conditions, such as migraine, to play an active role within the economy. We are investing up to £90 million in 2025-26 for the delivery of devolved employability services, providing intensive and personalised pre-employment and in-work support for unemployed people with barriers to progressing within work, including disabled people and with those with health conditions.

The Scottish Stroke Improvement Programme report provides information on thrombectomy procedure numbers, and the latest report can be found at: Scottish stroke improvement programme annual report 2025 - Scottish stroke improvement programme - Publications - Public Health Scotland.

We are currently working with all NHS Health Boards to identify investment priorities across Scotland, that includes NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

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.

The Scottish Government is unable to disclose this information as it is considered commercially sensitive.