Chamber and committees

As Scottish Government functions have increased and matured, the volume and complexity of outsourced legal work has also evolved. This work is procured and we are now utilising the third iteration of a framework providing Legal Services to the Scottish Government and the wider public sector. The current Legal Services Framework is divided into 6 Lots by subject matter:

The Scottish Government has no functions in relation to the windfall tax. The oil and gas fiscal regime - including the Energy Profits Levy or "windfall tax" - are wholly reserved to the UK Government, as are decisions on how to spend the revenues raised.

The SG has today published a Legal Aid Reform Discussion Paper which sets out the three areas of work the Scottish Government will be undertaking to improve legal aid. We will bring forward Regulations by the end of 2025 to simplify the regulatory framework which governs the eligibility for legal assistance and to improve the application process, reducing the burden on both solicitors and those that need legal services and ensuring funding is provided as quickly and easily as possible.

We will also resume work to conduct research on legal aid fees and to implement changes informed by that research. Both of these areas of work will make it easier for solicitors to work with legal aid funding and for those who need help to obtain it.

Longer-term we will take forward a review of the whole system to ensure that it is adaptable, flexible, affordable and sustainable for the future.

We are committed to working with private sector law firms, third sector organisations and users of legal assistance services to develop that system and identify what primary legislation would be required to deliver it.

I refer the member to the answers given for S6W-35156 and S6W-35159 on 27 February 2025. This information is not held centrally.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

The Scottish Government is fully committed to keeping The Promise by 2030. Given the cross Governmental scope of the activity related to The Promise, the First Minister regularly discusses the commitment and has undertaken various engagements with the care community, meeting with children and young people with care experience, and the workforce who support them. To mark the recent 5th anniversary of the Promise the First Minister wrote to the care experienced community re-enforcing his commitment to The Promise and met with students with care experience at Glasgow University to discuss their experiences. The First Minister also chairs the Cabinet Sub-Committee on the Promise which was established to guide and support the cross-portfolio focus needed to deliver The Promise.

The Budget 2025-26 freezes the Basic Property Rate for properties with a rateable value up to and including £51,000, delivering the lowest such rate in the UK for the seventh year in a row. It also provides a package of non-domestic rates reliefs worth an estimated £731 million, including the most generous small business rates relief in the UK, a 40% relief for hospitality premises liable for the Basic Property Rate, capped at £110,000 per business, and a continuation of 100% relief for hospitality premises located on islands as defined by the Islands (Scotland) Act 2018, and in prescribed remote areas (Cape Wrath, Knoydart, and Scoraig), capped at £110,000 per business.

Based on Scottish Government analysis, using the non-domestic rates valuation roll and a snapshot of councils’ billing systems, Hospitality Reliefs in Scotland could benefit up to 13,000 properties, including up to 5,000 hotels, public houses and restaurants. Of these, we estimate that this relief, in combination with existing reliefs, could allow up to 300 hotels, public houses and restaurants to pay no rates at all in 2025-26 with up to 300 more benefiting from the 100% relief for hospitality premises in island and specified remote areas.

The precise number of premises that will benefit from these measures will depend on take-up of the relief and the ways in which businesses with more than one eligible property choose to claim relief in cases where the value of their relief is limited by the £110,000 per-business cap.

Further information on impacts with respect to the 100% relief for hospitality premises on islands and in specified remote areas has been published in an Island Community Impact Assessment which is available at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ssi/2025/40/resources.

There are a number of factors which make it challenging to estimate the full economic impact of non-domestic rates relief. These include:

?where a relief is available nationwide comparisons with a control group of similar non-domestic properties would be limited by important differences, such as being a different property type or being outside of Scotland, allowing few meaningful comparisons;

• differences in the characteristics of businesses and organisations eligible for a particular relief;
• the unpredictability of the behavioural response to any changes in tax liabilities;
• the effects of a relief on businesses or organisations that have multiple properties, not all of which qualify for a given relief, or may be subject to the cap on the overall value of relief;
• difficulties in matching non-domestic rates valuation roll data to business level datasets to understand the effects of a relief on businesses economic outcomes and behaviour makes a business-based analysis resource intensive.

If concerns are raised with Ministers regarding a medical setting, such as Skye House, the Scottish Government would direct correspondents to their NHS Health Board complaints process, as patient care and service delivery are the statutory responsibility of local healthcare providers.

Freight Facilities Grant (FFG) was introduced in recognition that taking freight off roads and moving it by rail or water can have environmental and wider social benefits but can be more expensive.

With all applications, Transport Scotland officials are available to discuss any proposal and provide assistance on what information should be included in an application and what evidence is required prior to any formal decision being made on awarding a grant.

The Freight Facilities Grant scheme is demand-led. All applications are assessed on their own merits. There is no specific consideration given to freight in urban areas.