Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is a key partner in the Save a Life for Scotland Partnership, which is working to ensure that all school aged children in Scotland will be given the opportunity to be equipped with CPR skills.

This has included delivery of Restart a Heart Day Live last year. This was a live stream CPR training event targeted at school-age children. The Scottish Government has committed to working with Save a Life for Scotland to deliver Restart a Heart Day Live again in 2025.

The Save a Life for Scotland partnership have a range of resources available on their website for both adults and children to safely learn how to perform CPR.

The following table shows the intake targets for medicine from 2019-20 to 2025-26.

For some, but not all, of the requested years, a minimum Scottish Domicile intake was set and where applicable this is indicated

The Scottish Government takes the welfare of all animals, including racehorses, very seriously and the fatalities that occurred are clearly distressing.

Horse racing in Scotland is already tightly governed and regulated by the British Horseracing Authority (BHA). The BHA aims to ensure racehorse welfare, including compliance with all aspects of the Animal Health & Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006, through its Rules of Racing, the licensing and inspection of participants, education, training and monitoring. The BHA also works closely with a range of animal welfare organisations such as World Horse Welfare to maintain and promote horse welfare and constantly reviews its rules and procedures to ensure that they are as effective as they can be in safeguarding equine welfare.

The BHA also seeks to minimise the risk of injury and fatalities to thoroughbred horses on racecourses, and records and analyses injuries sustained with a view to future prevention.

The Scottish Government has been clear that it does not support the development of new nuclear under current technologies. Small modular reactors, whilst innovative in size and location, present the same environmental issues as traditional nuclear power stations.

The purpose of the meeting on 26 February 2025 was to update myself and the Minister for Climate Action on the Review of Electricity Market Arrangements, the reform options being considered by UK Government, and the potential impact of those options for Scotland.

The briefing paper for this meeting, and list of attendees, including ministers, have already been released under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA). It is standard procedure for names of officials to be redacted in all FOIs under Section 38(1)(b), due to protections around the sharing of Third Party Data, whereby personal data is exempt from disclosure if disclosure would contravene any of the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the UK GDPR and in section 34(1) of the DPA 2018.

Upon review of the FOI, section 29(1)(a) was not cited as a redaction used. Information has been redacted under 30(b)(i), however, was redacted due to it relating to the free and frank provision of advice. This exemption recognises the need for Ministers to have space within which to seek advice and views from officials before reaching a settled public position.

In line with usual practice, details of individual tasks carried out by civil servants, including the number of hours spent on them, are not routinely recorded.

Decisions on the Review of Electricity Market Arrangements (REMA) are reserved to the UK Government. The UK Government has published impact assessments and is updating its analysis ahead of a final decision this summer. We are awaiting sight of this updated modelling.

In addition, a range of impact assessments have been carried out by consultancies and industry bodies.

We met with researchers, industry and consumer organisations – as well as international electricity market experts – in December 2024 to consider the evidence and have engaged extensively with stakeholders over the past two years to understand all impacts.

This is a complex area and the Scottish Government is clear that UK Government reforms must reduce costs for Scottish consumers, ensure Scotland’s communities feel the benefit of the energy transition and protect investment in our renewables industry and supporting decarbonisation.

We are unable to provide specific information on expenditure that exclusively supported new jobs. Successive budgets within the current parliamentary session have prioritised expenditure to support economic growth, including business growth and the jobs they generate.

In terms of ensuring people have the skills for jobs of the future, our 2025-26 Scottish budget allocates over £2 billion for colleges, universities, and the wider skills system, prioritizing support for students and ensuring access to education. We are focussing on maximising high-quality apprenticeships with an investment of over £185m to deliver 25,500 new Modern Apprentices, 5,000 Foundation Apprentices and 1,200 Graduate Apprentices, while continuing to support around 38,000 apprentices already in training.

Through the Just Transition Fund we've also spend £9.7 million on a package of skills interventions, including a digital offshore energy skills passport and the Energy Transition Skills Hub.

As part of the Falkirk and Grangemouth Growth Deal, we have committed £4 million for a Skills Transition Centre at Forth Valley College – to ensure that people can get the training they need for jobs in new and emerging sectors, including at the Grangemouth site. We have also allocated of up to £450k to support those workers who have been made redundant at the Grangemouth Refinery into new in-demand jobs. We are committed to ensuring that those highly skilled people continue to contribute to businesses in Grangemouth and the wider Scottish economy.

The support referenced about is not exhaustive. A diverse array of national, regional, and local support services are available across the public and private sectors, making a comprehensive overview impractical and information not all held by SG.

The purpose of the meeting on 26 February 2025 was to update myself and the Minister for Climate Action on the Review of Electricity Market Arrangements, the reform options being considered by UK Government, and the potential impact of those options for Scotland.

The briefing paper for this meeting, and list of attendees, including ministers, have already been released under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA). It is standard procedure for names of officials to be redacted in all FOIs under Section 38(1)(b), due to protections around the sharing of Third Party Data, whereby personal data is exempt from disclosure if disclosure would contravene any of the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the UK GDPR and in section 34(1) of the DPA 2018.

Upon review of the FOI, section 29(1)(a) was not cited as a redaction used. Information has been redacted under 30(b)(i), however, was redacted due to it relating to the free and frank provision of advice. This exemption recognises the need for Ministers to have space within which to seek advice and views from officials before reaching a settled public position.

In line with usual practice, details of individual tasks carried out by civil servants, including the number of hours spent on them, are not routinely recorded.

We have had extensive engagement with stakeholders to ensure we understand all perspectives in this debate and represent this in our engagement with the UK Government. The Scottish Government has not had specific discussions with Ofgem on the interaction between zonal pricing and transmission network use-of-system charges. Officials have been, and will continue to, work with UK Government, Ofgem and other industry stakeholders to ensure we fully consider the impacts of potential market reforms.

The Scottish Government’s budget for 2025-26 includes £412.2 million for the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) which is an increase of £18.8 million. This will enable SFRS to continue to deliver the high standard of services required to keep communities safe. This includes an increase from £43 million to £47 million in capital funding which will allow the service to invest more in property, fleet and equipment. The allocation of resources is a matter for the SFRS Board and Chief Officer.

The Scottish Government is committed to working with SFRS to ensure continuing priority is given to the implementation of its wildfire strategy. The Service’s planned spend is circa £1.6 million over the course of the 3 year roll-out of its strategy. New equipment, vehicles and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) continues to be rolled out and SFRS will fully implement its wildfire strategy during the course of 2025. Within it, SFRS is adopting ‘burn suppression’ techniques such as those in use in the new Mediterranean-style specialist wildfire units. Due to extensive training and the use of new techniques, SFRS’s ability to tackle wildfires has never been so advanced.