Chamber and committees

Between 2020 and 2022, ten projects received funding from the Scottish Government’s Decommissioning Challenge Fund. The Fund, which ran from 2017 to 2022, supported infrastructure upgrades and innovation in salvage and transport methods at Scotland’s ports and harbours as well as supply chain projects that aimed to strengthen Scottish decommissioning capabilities and capacities.

Additional support to companies engaged in oil and gas decommissioning activities is provided through Scottish Enterprise.

The Flood Risk Management (Scotland) Act 2009 allocates clear roles and responsibilities for managing flood risk in Scotland.

Local authorities are responsible for implementing and maintaining flood protection schemes. It is up to the local authority to determine what defence measures are appropriate as part of implementing any scheme and to consider the most appropriate arrangement for inspecting and carrying out any required work on their flood protection schemes.

Scottish Government regularly works in collaboration with local authorities, and other responsible bodies, to improve flood resilience in communities across Scotland, a significant and growing challenge, especially as climate change brings more severe and frequent flood events.

Air Weapons licensing statistics are published by Police Scotland annually, including details of outstanding applications. As of 7 August 2025 there are currently 12 applications that remain outstanding from 2024 for a variety of reasons. Police Scotland will process these applications in due course.

Published figures from Healthcare Improvement Scotland estimate that in March 2025, acute and older people’s Hospital at Home services provided care equivalent to approximately 575 beds with an assumed occupancy rate of 80%. This is similar to the size of Western General Hospital and larger than University Hospital Wishaw.

In 2024-25, it is estimated that Hospital at Home services prevented 15,470 people being admitted to hospital, reducing pressure on unscheduled care and delayed discharges.

Officials are working with PHS Scotland to develop a new national data set for Hospital at Home activity and related admission alternative services. Data collection is due to commence later this year and will be expanded to include other Hospital at Home pathways such as heart failure, respiratory, paediatrics and Outpatient Parenteral Antibiotic Therapy (OPAT). Public Health Scotland plan to publish figures as this develops during 2026.

Air Weapons licensing statistics are published by Police Scotland annually. Available data only reaches as far back as 2018, Police Scotland have granted the following amounts of applications for each year from 2018, including renewal applications:

2018-19 - 7,342

2019-20 - 3,341

2020-21 - 5,051

2021-22 - 7,622

2022-23 - 9,914

2023-24 - 6,608

2024-25 - 4,114

Air Weapons licensing statistics are published by Police Scotland annually. Available data only reaches as far back as 2018, Police Scotland have rejected the following amounts of applications for each year from 2018, including renewal applications:

2018-19 - 94

2019-20 - 35

2020-21 - 28

2021-22 - 51

2022-23 - 41

2023-24 - 35

2024-25 - 41

This is an operational matter for Police Scotland whose recent successes working with agencies in Scotland, the UK and internationally are helping to deliver on Scotland’s Serious Organised Crime strategy.

Operations including UK-wide Operation Venetic have seen the removal of significant quantities of illegal drugs from our streets and have led to numerous arrests in Scotland as well as the seizure of firearms, ammunition and explosives.

Other work includes the Scottish Parliament’s agreement to a Legislative Consent Memorandum on 26 June 2025 extending to Scotland the measures in the UK Government’s Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill which criminalise the supply or handling of items suspected for use in organised crime, including pill presses.

Scottish Government analysts have access to the Office for National Statistics Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR). The IDBR is a database of all businesses registered for Value-Added-Tax (VAT) and/or Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE) income tax. The IDBR includes address information, turnover and employment data for businesses operating in Scotland.

We cannot share information from the IDBR on individual businesses. All data on the IDBR are treated as restricted commercial and are protected by specific legislation. The disclosure of data relating to individual undertakings without consent is prohibited under the Statistics of Trade Act 1947.

The IDBR can only be used for valid statistical research purposes and the confidentiality of the data has to be preserved in outputs and publications. This includes, for example, the Scottish Government Business in Scotland publication, the latest edition of which can be found at: Businesses in Scotland: 2024 - gov.scot.

Scotland level information on costs for each of the years requested is not available. However, Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) commissioned Landman Economics to provide updated analysis on costs of smoking which was published in January 2025. This analysis estimates the UK wide costs of smoking on Social Care in 2024 were £16.541 billion. The Scottish Government undertook additional analysis of this data for the Public Service Reform Strategy. This estimated a public spending cost of smoking to Scotland, including wider costs to the health service, social care and responding to fire-related incidents, of £1.56bn in 2024, projected to reach £2.5 billion by 2035-36 unless further action is taken.

The Scottish Government is playing a key role in delivering Project Gigabit procurements in Scotland, alongside delivery of our own £600M+ Reaching 100% programme. As such, there are currently no plans to launch further procurements beyond those that are already underway.

The Highlands and Islands forms part of existing contracts and procurements, with premises across the region included in the R100 North contract, the nationwide Project Gigabit contract awarded to Openreach by BDUK last summer and a regional procurement currently underway to connect further premises in Orkney and Shetland. This is further supplemented by our Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme and improved 4G coverage provided by our Scottish 4G Infill programme.