Chamber and committees

The information requested is not held centrally; this is a matter for individual non-departmental public bodies. You can find links to each body’s website at National public bodies: directory - gov.scot where there will be further information.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally.

The most recent Instrumental Music Survey published in January 2025 shows the number of pupils accessing free instrumental music tuition was the highest on record since the survey began in 2012.

Since 2021-22 we have provided dedicated funding to local authorities to support the removal of fees for instrumental music and in 2025-26 we will provide £12m to support this policy.

Local authorities are responsible for delivering education and so it is for individual councils to make choices about levels and means of provision that meet their local circumstances and the needs of pupils. No Council has charged for IMT since 2020-21.

The Scottish Government has been engaging closely with EIS and a range of partners to implement our commitments on instrumental music tuition and will continue to do so.

The Scottish Government recognises the vital role English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) plays in supporting people whose first language is not English, equipping them with the communication skills necessary to contribute and integrate economically, culturally and socially in Scotland.

The Scottish Government is committed to ESOL and welcomed the independent review of community learning and development (CLD) which followed with a report, Learning: For All. For Life report. The report provided 20 recommendations, including on ESOL, varying in complexity and scope.

The Scottish Government and CoSLA accepted recommendation 1.1 to set up a joint CLD Strategic Leadership Group (SLG). The SLG will play a central role in developing our detailed response to the remaining recommendations.

This academic year, Scottish Government provided £500k for ESOL in Glasgow. This is in response to the review report calling for immediate action to address the exceptional pressures and need for ESOL, which disproportionately impacts Glasgow.

I have also written to the Scottish Funding Council with supplementary guidance to ensure ESOL remains a priority for colleges in the forthcoming academic year 2025-26.

Colleges are responsible for decisions on course provision and are best placed to respond flexibly to local ESOL need alongside partners including local authorities and the third sector. Local authorities themselves play an important role in delivering their CLD Plans, which supports the provision of community based ESOL.

The Scottish Education Exchange Programme Test and Learn Project (SEEP) has been developed in partnership with colleges and universities and over the first 2 years has supported 56 projects focusing on closing the shortfall between the UK Government Turing Scheme and Erasmus+.

Applications for the SEEP must be submitted by a Scottish college or university. The amount of funding for each institution is capped at £25,000. Each applicant has the opportunity to apply for an additional (up to) £10,000 to partner with a recognised Scottish youth work organisation.

Whilst the first year of SEEP focused on staff mobility, criteria in year 2 was extended to include short-term mobility opportunities for Scottish students, addressing a gap in the Turing Scheme. These projects are live, institutions will provide student participation data once the projects conclude in March 2025.

An evaluation of the programme has been commissioned and will be published this summer.

We are carefully considering the recommendations in the UK Farm Animal Welfare Committee report from 2014 and its updated opinion of February 2023, in conjunction with the Scottish Parliament’s Rural Affairs and Islands Committee’s follow-up inquiry report into fish farming that was published on
17 January 2025.

The welfare of farmed fish at the time of slaughter is assured by Article 3.1 of retained Council Regulation (EC) 1099/2009 and as such we have no immediate plans to introduce further legislation. However, once engagement with the industry and other stakeholders is complete, the guidance we intend to publish will provide flexibility for the industry to quickly adopt new technology and management techniques to improve fish welfare at time of slaughter.

To drive progress towards our circular economy goals, Scotland had a set of waste and recycling targets in place over the past decade running to 2025, and spanning the waste hierarchy.

As our Circular Economy & Waste Route Map set out, while these previous 2025 targets have provided a good platform for progress over the past decade, they are not universally the best indicators to deliver our circular economy, emissions and nature objectives.

By 2027, we will set new statutory circular economy targets, using powers from the Circular Economy (Scotland) Act 2024. These targets will follow the development of a monitoring and indicator framework to allow for more holistic tracking of Scotland's consumption levels and wider measures of circularity, and will take into account the waste hierarchy.

We did not expect to consider a change of ownership as part of the business case work, and this alternative approach has not been taken lightly. Transport Scotland and CMAL were formally advised to take forward initial discussions with Peel Ports Group in November 2024.

These initial discussions had progressed to a more advanced stage which allowed for the recent update to Parliament. Intensive commercial negotiations are ongoing.

The Scottish Government has not had specific discussions with North Lanarkshire, South Lanarkshire or Falkirk Council about underage vaping, including the sale of vapes to young people.

We work closely with the Society of Chief Officers of Trading Standards in Scotland (SCOTSS) on underage sales of vapes. SCOTSS provides an overview of the action taken at a local level on underage sales of vapes and provides an opportunity for concerns to be raised.

As members of the COSLA Trading Standards Policy and Co-ordination Group we are able to work with a range of stakeholders at national and local level on the topic of youth vaping.

Officials spoke with Glasgow City Council on 27 February 2025 following the decision to retract the proposal to close the Glasgow School of Sport. The Scottish Government understands that the proposal is no longer under active consideration.