Chamber and committees

The 2025-26 Scottish Budget provides additional investment of £139 million for NHS infrastructure. This provides increased core capital funding for NHS Boards and, as a first step to lifting the capital pause, allows work on the replacement of some acute facilities to resume, as well as providing funding to address NHS Boards’ priority areas for infrastructure investment.

Despite this additional investment, the capital funding position remains challenging and there remains uncertainty in the longer-term funding position, as we await the outcome of the UK Government’s spending review. All due consideration will be given as to which projects are affordable, deliverable and provide best value, following the outcome of that review. This will include consideration of the National Treatment Centre programme.

Economic growth is and always will be a clear priority for the Scottish Government and we are committed to ensuring Scotland is one of the best places to do business. FSB are is a key voice for small business and work closely with the Scottish Government to support all of the sectors that they represent in Scotland.

We are acutely aware of the concerns raised by the FSB over rising energy costs, employers national insurance increases, and trade tariffs. We have carried out initial analysis of trade statistics to understand Scottish exposure to US trade across key products and where that may differ from the UK economy. The First Minister discussed this particular matter with the Prime Minister earlier this month and made clear that urgent action should be taken to protect Scotland’s economic interests. We have also consistently called on the UK Government to reverse in full its decision to increase employer national insurance contributions from April 2025.

Here in Scotland we have the most generous small business rates relief in the UK with a competitive non-domestic rates relief package worth an estimated £731 million in 2025-26. We will publish our Programme for Government next week, which will ensure that small businesses are able to thrive and grow.

The Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 requires Scottish Ministers to have regard to just transition principles in development of Climate Plans. The upcoming Climate Change Plan will outline how this government will take action to reduce emissions in a way which supports environmentally and socially sustainable jobs and supports low carbon investment and infrastructure. It will also set out an estimate of the costs and benefits associated with the polices contained. Furthermore, the final plan will be published alongside a series of impact assessments, which will look at the impact of climate policies on areas such as equalities, island communities and children's rights.

The Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) (Scotland) Act 1997 sets out that it is for planning authorities to issue a Building Preservation Notice, as such, any policy Historic Environment Scotland may introduce would be guidance only and would not supersede the legislation.

Designation is not a barrier to development proposals or to applications for planning permission, rather it is designed to ensure that appropriate consideration of the cultural, social, environmental and economic value of Scotland’s historic environment is taken into account during any planning process.

Access to skilled training pathways, including apprenticeships is vital for developing the young workforce. Apprenticeships play an essential role in giving young people a pathway into rewarding careers as well as enabling employers to invest in their staff.

Information on patient suicide in NHS mental health facilities is not held centrally.

Any suicide is a tragedy and should not happen when someone is in the care of the state. We are determined to do all we can to improve patient safety, and to reduce suicide deaths in NHS mental health facilities. Our ambitious suicide prevention strategy and action plan which we are delivering with COSLA, has a clear focus on preventing suicides in higher risk settings, including clinical services. We are working with NHS Boards to implement improvements.

The quality and safety of mental health estates is an important issue for the Scottish Government. Health Boards are expected to place significant emphasis on the safety of environments mental health services are delivered from.

The Scottish Government and NHS Assure have developed and piloted a tool to gather information on the built environment, including reviewing completion of ligature assessments. Wider roll out will begin in spring 2025.

Scottish Government is committed to the trustworthy, ethical and inclusive use of artificial intelligence (AI) in health and social care, where it can help to transform lives, increase healthy life expectancy and reduce health inequalities across Scotland.

There are promising examples of AI being developed to improve the accuracy and speed of diagnosis and in enhancing decision support tools.

The Accelerated National Innovation Adoption (ANIA) pathway is a programme funded by the Chief Scientist Office within Scottish Government. It has been established to provide a national approach to the identification and adoption of research and proven scientific and technological innovations. Governed by the Innovation Design Authority (IDA), it aims to support improved partnership working, system leadership and joint decisions on the progression of AI innovations across any health condition, including cancer.

Cancer remains a national priority, within the Scottish Government and across NHS Scotland. That is why we recently published our 10 year Cancer Strategy for Scotland 2023-2033 along with an initial three year Cancer Action Plan for Scotland 2023 – 2026 in June 2023.

The strategic aim and vision is to improve cancer survival and provide excellent, equitably accessible care across Scotland.

Scottish Government continues to positively engage with the UK Government, including on the development of the new UK Government National Cancer Control Plan 2025.

The allocations of activity at National treatment Centres (NTCs) for the year 2025-26 have been made. Please see table below:

NHS Grampian

I refer the member to the answer to the question S6W-36988 on 30 April 2025. 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