Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that people living with long term conditions like inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, can access high-quality, person-centred care.

We have provided additional investment to NHS boards since 2015 to support clinical nurse specialist provision and care. Boards make the decisions on where to prioritise this funding based on local need.

The Scottish Government expects NHS boards to ensure that patients with specialist conditions have appropriate access to a range of professionals, including specialist nurses, to ensure the best management of their condition. NHS Boards have been asked to work in partnership with third sector organisations, social care partners and patients with specialist conditions in designing and delivering services.

The operation of Police Scotland, including the deployment of staffing, is a matter for the Chief Constable, who is supported by the Scottish Government to shape the workforce in response to operational needs. The latest official statistics show there were 16,553 FTE police officers in Scotland on 31 March 2025.

There are already a wide range of effective actions currently available to Police Scotland to prevent and reduce bike theft, empowering officers to lawfully pursue and tactically engage thieves, where it is deemed necessary. Theft is a criminal offence under Scots law, which has developed over centuries through operation of the courts rather than being provided for in statute.

The Scottish Government does not hold this data centrally. However, Public Health Scotland (PHS) publishes limited provisional information relating to ‘Acute hospital activity and NHS beds information’ in their annual and quarterly reports, relevant information from that publication is set out in the following table.

It should be noted that palliative care can be delivered in other acute specialties as well.

The Scottish Green Public Sector Estate Decarbonisation Scheme (GPSEDS) acts as the main government-led capital funding mechanism to support leadership for decarbonisation of buildings owned by the public sector. A breakdown of GPSEDS funding received per public body is set out in the following table.

The Scottish Government has overall responsibility for health and social care policy in Scotland; however, the statutory responsibility for delivering or commissioning services at a local level lies with local authorities, NHS Boards and integrated health and social care partnerships. Operational decisions, including whether there is a need for additional specialist nurses, are therefore matters for those bodies.

We have undertaken a full policy development process in order to reach a finalised position of no support for coal extraction in Scotland, in line with statutory requirements. The first step in this process was the launch of a call for evidence which ran from 21 June to 02 August 2022, which invited stakeholders’ views and expanded our evidence base in this policy area.

We have undertaken a full policy development process in order to reach a finalised position of no support for coal extraction in Scotland, in line with statutory requirements. The first step in this process was the launch of a call for evidence which ran from 21 June to 2 August 2022, which invited stakeholders’ views and expanded our evidence base in this policy area.

The Scottish Government recognises that the work of universities, research institutes and industry play a valuable role in the development of the hydrogen sector, and we routinely engage with relevant academic outputs of universities as we continue to develop our policies and assess research needs in this emerging sector.

Hydrogen policy officials met recently with several of the academics from Manchester University who contributed to the collection of papers in their wide ranging ‘On Hydrogen’ report and will take these papers into consideration as part of the broader research landscape in the hydrogen sector. The Scottish Government continues to welcome engagement with universities regarding hydrogen and is fully committed to helping the Scottish hydrogen sector develop and grow.

We have undertaken a full policy development process in order to reach a finalised position of no support for onshore conventional oil and gas extraction in Scotland, in line with statutory requirements. The policy position was subject to statutory and other assessments, including before finalisation. This included in our draft Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan (ESJTP), and our National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4).NPF4 is publicly available here: National Planning Framework 4 - gov.scot.The draft SEA of the draft ESJTP is publicly available here: strategic-environmental-assessment-draft-energy-strategy-transition-plan-environmental-report.pdf. The partial Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment of the draft ESJTP is publicly available here: Regulatory Impact Assessment Template.

Hydrogen policy officials met recently with several of the academics from Manchester University to discuss the findings in the On Hydrogen report and we will take these papers into consideration as part of our ongoing studies of the broader research landscape in the hydrogen sector.

Our industrial clusters will play an important role in achieving our vision of a decarbonised, successful, industrial sector. In some cases, decarbonisation will mean adoption of a range of new technologies, including low carbon hydrogen.