Chamber and committees

Over the current parliamentary term, we estimate that the total spend through the capital budget will be £31.1 billion. This is based on the latest figures available. The following table sets this out in detail.

Table 1: Total capital spending between 2021-22 and 2025-26, £ millions

Audit Scotland published a report on the Scottish National Investment Bank’s performance on Thursday 15 May (Scottish National Investment Bank | Audit Scotland). Page 16 details the Capital and Resource allocations by year since the Bank was launched in November 2020:

This Government is committed to building a vibrant, sustainable, and inclusive rural economy.

We are widening participation in entrepreneurship, giving more people the opportunity to start, grow and scale their business. To date we have supported a range of programmes, including the South of Scotland Enterprise regional Pathways Pre-Start programme and the Pathways Funds. We are investing a record £6 million to support further Pathways implementation in the current financial year, transforming the number of women who start and scale businesses and widening participation in entrepreneurship.

Alongside this, we are supporting rural entrepreneurs through our Ecosystem Fund, which has invested a total of £2.6 million across 75 innovative projects since 2021, through our Techscaler network, through our wider support for our enterprise agencies, and through delivery of our National Innovation Strategy.

The Rural Entrepreneur Fund was a 2021-22 Programme for Government commitment to invest £20 million over the lifetime of the current parliament. However, in light of the challenging financial environment, the Scottish Resource Spending Review prioritised investment plans to ensure that they were deliverable, impactful and affordable. Consequently, there has been no money invested in the Rural Entrepreneur Fund to date.

The Scottish Government is committed to advancing women’s entrepreneurship and fostering an inclusive business environment, through implementation of the recommendations of the Pathways report on women in entrepreneurship, which consulted extensively to identify impactful measures that would address the gender gap.

To date we have supported a range of programmes including the South of Scotland Enterprise regional Pathways Pre-Start programme and the Pathways Funds. We are investing a record £6 million to support further Pathways implementation in the current financial year, transforming the number of women who start and scale businesses and widening participation in entrepreneurship.

The Scottish Government has set the goal of establishing Scotland as one of Europe's leading start-up economies, fostering an environment where innovation and high-growth businesses flourish. Within this parliamentary term it has spent over £60 million to aide these ambitions with at least a further £23 million committed by the end of the Parliamentary term.

These figures do not include spend from our Enterprise Agencies or Entrepreneurial Education. In addition this does not include spend for financial year 2026-27 due to our single year budgeting process.

Gender equality is at the heart of the Scottish Government’s vision for a fairer Scotland. We want women of all ages to be empowered to exercise equal rights and opportunities, and to have equitable access to economic resources and decision making.

Eradicating child poverty is the top priority across all of government, with wide ranging action being taken to tackle poverty – including through investment in funded childcare, devolved employability services, and social security benefits such as our Scottish Child Payment.

We recognise that child poverty and women’s poverty are inextricably linked and that children in lone parent families, of which around 90% are headed by women, are at greater risk of poverty. Best Start, Bright Futures, our Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan for 2022-26, outlines our focus on ensuring that policies and approaches effectively tackle the challenges and barriers faced by families at greatest risk of poverty, including lone parents. We will continue to use evidence, both qualitative and quantitative, and are increasingly taking an intersectional approach, to understand the challenges and needs of particular groups and ensure effective action is taken, including for lone parents.

The Scottish Government also recognises the positive contribution older people make to their communities and sees the value in bringing generations together. We aim to enable better access to a range of services for older people as and when they need them. We want to ensure people are financially secure and supported as they age.

The Scottish Government’s ‘A Fairer Scotland for Older People: framework for action’ contains a dedicated strand focused on activity we are undertaking to ensure people are financially secure and supported as they age. In addition, we provide funding of £2.2 million, through the Equality and Human Rights Fund, to older people’s organisations and age equality projects. This funding is delivering a range of initiatives that tackles poverty among older people.

Projects such as Inch Cape Offshore Wind Farm have the potential to boost local and national supply chain growth and support high-quality, sustainable jobs.

The UK Government is responsible for monitoring Supply Chain Plans as part of the CfD scheme.

The expansion of offshore wind represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create thousands of jobs that drive growth, foster innovation, and generate wealth. The Scottish Government is doing everything within its power to ensure that the offshore wind opportunity for Scotland is realised so that projects and the associated economic benefits we all want to see are delivered.

The Scottish Government recognises the imperative to put heat network developers on a similar statutory footing as other utility providers, and our Heat Network (Scotland) Act 2021 enables this.

My officials have been developing proposals for the requisite regulations and guidance to implement this part of the Act. However, we have not yet proceeded to consultation as we consider the implications of the UK Government’s developing plans for heat network regulation, as well as ensuring that the licensing authority can perform its functions in practice.

As such, my officials have been examining potential opportunities to amend proposals – and possibly the Act – to ensure we deliver a regulatory system which is proportionate, and which interoperates with related UK Government legislation to ensure the right networks are built where they can have most benefit and are operated in the right way.

Notwithstanding this, the intention remains to implement the special rights and powers which our Act foresees for Scottish heat network developers. My officials continue to carry out stakeholder engagement on proposals to implement this part of the Act.

The Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (Open-Ended Investment Companies) (Scotland) Regulations 2015 were made in exercise of the powers conferred by section 46 of the 2013 Act.

In respect of section 47 of the 2013 Act, no regulations have been made to date.

The Scottish Government has no duty to conduct an assessment of the impact of the UK Government’s Employment Rights Bill with regard to offshore energy workers or seafarers or any other sector, but we welcome the Bill and continue to work with the UK Government to ensure it has a positive impact across Scotland. The Scottish Government supports the strengthening of fair work and workers’ rights and will continue to use our Fair Work policy to drive up labour market standards for workers across the Scottish labour market, whilst advocating for devolution of employment law to best protect Scotland’s workers.