Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer to question S7W-00376 on 8 June 2026. 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

As part of the 100-day manifesto commitment, Transport Scotland, Scottish Rail Holdings Group and Caledonian Sleeper Limited will work together to undertake a feasibility study into extending the Caledonian Sleeper service to Europe. This will include engagement with relevant rail infrastructure managers.

In January 2026, Ferguson Marine’s CEO formally wrote to the previous Scottish Parliament’s Net Zero, Energy and Transport (NZET) Committee advising the target delivery date for MV Glen Rosa has been further delayed to Q4 2026.

The yard remains firmly committed to delivering the vessel to the highest standard and their letter to the NZET committee in January also confirmed their confidence in this updated timeline and cost forecast.

The Scottish Government will continue to hold the yard to account for delivery, cost control, and full transparency as the project moves towards completion, while also ensuring Parliament is kept updated through formal reporting to the Committee.

Data on the number of people on a housing waiting list is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. Estimates of the proportion of households on a housing waiting list is published on an annual basis using data from the Scottish Household Survey (SHS). However, the SHS does not sample people living in communal establishments/temporary accommodation. Due to the impact of COVID-19 restrictions, SHS data is not available for 2020 and 2021.

The latest data can be found on our website Households in Scotland by housing tenure: Scottish Household Survey, 2024 - gov.scot. Previous years can be found here: Scottish Household Survey: results - gov.scot. Data for 2025 will be published later this year and a publication date will be announced on the Scottish Government’s Official statistics: forthcoming publications list: Official statistics: forthcoming publications - gov.scot.

The Scottish Government also publishes the number of applications for local authority housing on an annual basis. This can be found on the Scottish Government website here: Housing Statistics 2025: Key Trends Summary - gov.scot. Local authority level data can be found in the tables linked to this publication: Housing statistics: Management of local authority housing - gov.scot. Please be aware of the caveats stated in the publication – the data:

• Is not a complete picture for Scotland, as six councils with no local authority housing stock (so for example, Glasgow) do not provide us with data on waiting lists.
• Will include double counting, as households can apply to multiple lists.
• Will include applications where housing is no longer needed, however they may not be removed from the housing list immediately.

The Scottish Government has no plans to introduce congestion charges in cities.

The Scottish Government’s role is to provide strategic leadership for NHS Scotland to ensure a sustainable NHS workforce. Operational matters relating to staffing and the provision of specialist services, such as immunology and allergy services, are the responsibility of individual NHS Boards and will depend on service needs, taking account of national, regional and local priorities.

Boards are required to ensure that suitably qualified and competent staff are available in appropriate numbers to support safe, high-quality care and staff wellbeing, in line with the requirements of the Health and Care (Staffing) (Scotland) Act 2019.

To support them in this regard and in pursuance of our own legal duties under the Act, we keep under regular review NHS Scotland's requirement for immunologists through annual reviews of the number of specialty training places needed to meet anticipated future service demand and consultant need across all specialties.

As outlined in our manifesto, and as part of wider plans to support a just transition to net zero by 2045, the Scottish Government is committed to commissioning a feasibility study into the potential use of tram-trains on the South Suburban line in Edinburgh within the first 100 days of Government.

We are delivering at pace for Scotland, and will launch a public consultation on the retail display of vapes and nicotine products within our first 100 days in Government. This is part of our on-going implementation of the 2026 Tobacco and Vapes Act, and we will continue to work across the four nations where appropriate.

Decisions on further legislative restrictions on displays will be dependent on the outcome of this consultation.

Through targeted investment and service renewal, we will ensure no patient waits longer than 26 weeks for treatment by the end of this parliamentary term.

This follows a substantive and sustained period of improvement over the last year which saw waits over 52 weeks for New Outpatient decrease for 11 consecutive months and for Inpatient / Day-case by 15 months. We’re also seeing real progress in diagnostics, with activity in the latest quarter at its highest since reporting began in April 2024.

This progress was backed by more than £150 million additional funding in 2025-26, allocated to health boards to target the longest waits for planned care, and deliver on our Operational Improvement Plan commitment to provide an additional 150,000 appointments and procedures. The latest data show this target was surpassed with more than 168,000 additional appointments and procedures delivered.

We have already invested an additional £100 million this year to build on the progress made in the 2025-26 Operational Improvement Plan. We will build on this by creating additional capacity and deliver further reductions in waiting times, with a particular focus on those waiting the longest.

I refer the member to the answer to question S7W-00454 on 8 June 2026. 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.