Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government meets regularly at both ministerial and official level with the UK Government to discuss matters relating to the Scottish Economy, including the ongoing situation with Liberty Steel.

It would not be appropriate for the Scottish Government to comment on an active investigation by the Serious Fraud Office

In line with recommendations made by the Scottish Shape of Training Transition Group following annual reviews (since 2014) of the number of specialty training places needed in order to meet anticipated future service demand and consultant need, the Scottish Government has funded two additional haematology specialty training places in 2024.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information. You should request this directly from the Scottish Ambulance Service.

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.

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.

Learning in the Social Studies curriculum area helps young people to develop important skills in research and evaluation, creativity, critical thinking and communication and it helps our young people develop as responsible, informed citizens with a global outlook covering important topics such as democracy and voting. In particular, Modern Studies helps to equip pupils with a range of Investigative and critical thinking skills; and English helps pupils to engage with texts of all kinds, critically evaluate the contents of those texts, and make informed judgements about the material they encounter on a day to day basis. SQA course specifications for Modern Studies and English are available at: A to Z of National Qualification (NQ) subjects - SQA To support learning and teaching, schools can already draw on a range of resources. For example, in relation to political literacy they can access the You decide - A political literacy resource | Resources | Education Scotland from Education Scotland, which provides guidance on how to ensure that learners use their voice, participate and contribute to decision-making processes.

The Scottish Government is providing funding to Time for Inclusive Education’s Digital Discourse Initiative. The resources provide teachers with the tools they need to teach core critical and digital media literacy skills, and to equip pupils with the necessary skills, knowledge and understanding they need to navigate digital media and counter the impacts of disinformation and online hate.

Later this year, Education Scotland will publish further professional learning resources on English, aimed at supporting teachers’ understanding of what critical literacy is and how they can support children to develop these crucial skills.

Finally, as the member may be aware, the Curriculum Improvement Cycle is also updating and strengthening the curriculum across all curricular areas.

There has been no direct assessment made about the impact of early release of prisoners on knife crime rates.

The Scottish Government’s actions to improve the efficiency of household recycling systems are set out in the Circular Economy and Waste Route Map.

In partnership with local authorities and other stakeholders, the Scottish Government is co-designing a new statutory Code of Practice for household recycling. The Scottish Government held co-design events with local government on 23 June and 22 July 2025. The findings from these sessions are being used to inform the planning of wider stakeholder engagement with business, the third sector and citizens. The new Code of Practice will be completed by the end of 2026, after which it will be made available for public consultation.

We are making one of the biggest investments in a generation to modernise recycling in Scotland through the Recycling Improvement Fund. A total of £66.6 million has now been allocated to 27 local authorities for 48 projects to increase the quantity and quality of recycling across Scotland.

Local authorities in Scotland will see around £150 million per year in funding to support collection for household packaging waste through extended producer responsibility (EPR) for packaging. These payments will start from November 2025

The Scottish Government continues to develop policy and legislation to reduce marine litter pollution and grow our circular economy by reducing waste which can become litter.

We know that a lot of our marine litter comes from single-use products and we are building on previous legislation to tackle more of these items in the future. We are working across the four nations towards legislation that will ban businesses from supplying and selling wet wipes containing plastic, with exceptions for medical or industrial use. We remain committed to the delivery of a successful deposit return scheme for single-use drinks containers, working closely with industry and the rest of the UK to launch this in October 2027. In addition, we have also consulted on proposals to introduce a minimum 25 pence charge on single-use drinks cups, with the aim of incentivising the use of reusable alternatives.

To reduce packaging waste an Extended Producer Responsibility scheme is being implemented in 2025 across the UK. It will move the full cost of dealing with packaging waste from households to the producers. It will also incentivise businesses to reduce excess packaging and to design packaging that is more easily recycled.