Chamber and committees

The fiscal regime for offshore oil and gas is reserved to the UK Government.

We have continued to call on UK Government to listen carefully to concerns being expressed by businesses around the impacts of its Energy Profits Levy, this was repeated by the Deputy First Minister at Offshore Europe on 2 September.

We are now awaiting the UK Government’s consultation response, which must clearly set out how a stable and long-term fiscal regime will be used to deliver business and investor certainty for the North Sea. The EPL was always supposed to be a temporary measure and we must see the earliest possible end date, as it is now affecting investment and jobs in the North East.

Scottish Government Ministers and officials engage with UK Government, including HMT Treasury counterparts and a wide range of stakeholders when considering all of these issues and will continue to do so.

I refer the member to my response to the answer to question S6W-38163 on 17 June 2025. We remain committed to ensuring that women across Scotland have timely access to sexual and reproductive health services. As part of our Sexual Health and Blood Borne Viruses Action Plan 2023-26, we are carrying out visits to all 14 NHS Boards.

All women and girls who are pregnant in any part of Scotland will continue to have the full range of maternity care provided to them. Our NHS Boards continue to look to improve the range of maternity and neonatal care that can be provided locally to meet the needs of their rural populations. When specialist maternity or neonatal care is required which cannot safely be delivered locally, women and babies may need to travel to access that care, and we expect Boards to facilitate seamless delivery of this care.

Within the policies we set, NHS Boards have responsibility for the design and delivery of services to meet the needs of their local populations and deliver safe, high-quality care. We recognise the particular challenges faced by rural NHS Boards. I met with staff, service users, local elected representatives and community group members at Caithness General Hospital’s maternity service on 30 July and welcome NHS Highland’s ongoing engagement with the local community in Caithness to inform continuous improvement activity. Following this visit, I wrote to NHS Highland to seek assurance from the Board that key issues raised during the visit will be explored fully and further detail of work underway.

The Scottish Government continues to progress a range of actions in collaboration with justice partners to support a sustainable reduction in the prison population, whilst maintaining a focus on protecting the public.

At present, Community Payback Orders (CPOs) are the most commonly used alternative to a custodial sentence, with over 15,100 commenced in 2023-24. CPOs are a flexible and robust disposal which make people pay back to their community and can include one or more of a range of requirements which can be tailored to fit the circumstances of individual cases (including unpaid work, supervision by justice social work, and addressing addiction issues). The evidence shows that community-based interventions and sentences can be more effective in addressing offending behaviour and assisting with rehabilitation than short-term custodial sentences, leading to fewer victims and safer communities.

We have increased community justice funding by £25 million over two years, bringing the total to £159 million in 2025-26. This has increased the use of alternatives to custody and supports a range of community justice services, including diversion from prosecution, alternatives to remand and community sentencing.

Looking ahead, we have also established an independent Sentencing and Penal Policy Commission, with final recommendations to be presented to the Scottish Government by the end of this year to help ensure that Scotland has a sustainable prison population over the longer term. This important work will consider how imprisonment and community-based interventions are currently used and what improvements can be made in dealing with offending behaviour in an effective and proportionate manner.

The provision and procurement of police uniform and equipment for officers is a matter for Police Scotland and the Chief Constable. I am clear that police officers and staff should be provided with the correct tools for the job.

Our record £1.64 billion investment in policing is helping equip officers with modern tools like body worn video, ensuring they have the right resources to keep communities safe.

NHS boards exercise responsibilities in relation to planning, commissioning and delivering healthcare services, and take overall responsibility for the health and wellbeing of the populations they serve. NHS boards are discrete legal entities and legally accountable and responsible for how they carry out their functions, services, duties and responsibilities.

Prosecutions are considered as those cases reported the Crown Office Procurator Fiscal Service, they do not include penalties issued under the Fixed Penalty Notice provisions.

There were nine prosecutions with seven convictions, these were by year, 2019 X2, 2020 X0, 2021 X3 including one which resulted in a not guilty verdict, 2022 X1, 2023 X2, and in 2024 there was one case dropped by the Procurator Fiscal.

The Scottish Government does not have records relating to breaches of the Marine Scotland Act earlier than 2017.

There were 21 Marine Licensing offences detected under the 2010 Act, these were by year, 2017 X1, 2018 X5, 2019 X1, 2020 X2, 2021 X2, 2022 X5, 2024 X5.

Additionally, there were 50 breaches of Nature Conservation Orders which are enabled by the 2010 Act. These were by year, 2017 X3, 2018 X4, 2019 X7, 2020 X5, 2021 X11, 2022 X9, 2023 X5, 2024 X6, 2025 none as yet.

The current guidance for Scotland was published in 2021 in the ‘Cycling by Design’ document and includes recommendations for incorporating cycling facilities where these interact with bus stops.

The Scottish Government recognises the challenges that cycle infrastructure at bus stops, including bus stop bypasses and shared use bus boarders, can present for some people. It is also conscious of the benefits that connected, coherent and protected cycle networks can achieve. Recognising this complexity Transport Scotland commissioned independent research in 2021, which was jointly funded by Department for Transport, to investigate issues of inclusion where bus stop bypasses have been introduced. The study reported in 2023, with recommendations on developing the design guidance in Scotland to enhance bus stop accessibility.

The forthcoming updates to Scotland’s design guidance, supported by this research and ongoing engagement including with disabled people, are to focus largely on emphasising best practice messages. Transport Scotland will continue to engage directly with UK Department for Transport and review any updated guidance from Active Travel England, in relation to the UK Government Bus Services (No. 2) Bill.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that the opinions of disabled people, including those with sight loss, are fully considered in the design and approval of active travel infrastructure. The second National Transport Strategy sets out key priorities for the transport system in Scotland, including ‘reducing inequalities’ and ‘improving our health and wellbeing’ as two of its key priorities’, and places inclusive design at the heart of transport planning. When considering designs such as bus stop bypasses, delivery partners are required to ensure that funded projects have undertaken all statutory procedures, including but not limited to an Equality Impact Assessment. Through this process, the Scottish Government expects delivery bodies to undertake meaningful engagement with equality groups to ensure that lived experience, including that of people with sight loss, directly informs design choices. This helps to ensure that active travel infrastructure supports safe, independent and confident travel for everyone.

The Scottish Fiscal Commission’s recent Fiscal Sustainability Report included long term projections of social care spending (including but not limited to care home expenditure). The SFC projected, based on current levels of provision, that social care spending in Scotland would increase in real terms from £5 billion in 2029-30 to £11 billion in 2074-75.

Under the Care Reform (Scotland) Act 2025 the Scottish Government will, before the end of 2026, prepare and make publicly available a report on projected social care needs in Scotland over the ten-year period from 2027. Work is underway to plan the and deliver evidential work for this reporting requirement. Further, the recently published Service Renewal Framework sets out commitments to develop population level strategic needs assessments for health and social care. It is expected that these areas of work will add to the current evidence - such as the SFC's long term projections - and give a fuller picture of the demands for social care services in the coming years.