Chamber and committees

The Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland (the ALLIANCE) has continued to support the Women’s Health Plan through their dedicated lived experience programme. This has included the development of the conversation café toolkit, available for anyone to use, to encourage information sharing and peer support on areas of women’s health including menstrual health and endometriosis.

More information can be found in the ALLIANCE Final Report on Women’s Health Plan.

Menstrual health and wellbeing education is a key part of relationships, sexual health and parenthood (RSHP) education. RSHP education is an integral part of the health and wellbeing area of the Scottish curriculum, Curriculum for Excellence.

An online RSHP teaching resource, (www.rshp.scot) was published in 2019 and provides age and stage appropriate learning activities on RSHP education for use in all education settings and is aligned to Curriculum for Excellence. This resource includes learning activities on menstruation from second level (P5 to P7), with endometriosis introduced at third/fourth level (S1 to S3).

The following table includes estimated costs to extend the 40% relief for hospitality premises liable for the Basic Property Rate to retail premises liable for the Basic, Intermediate and Higher Property Rates respectively. These costs are in addition to the forecast cost of the 40% relief for hospitality premises liable for the Basic Property Rate and are net of existing reliefs (such as the Small Business Bonus Scheme) that we expect businesses to be awarded in 2025-26. A £110,000 cap has been applied at business level and a take-up adjustment of 70% has been applied, which is consistent with the Scottish Fiscal Commission’s forecasts.

When considering relief for properties liable for the Intermediate and Higher rates, the estimated costs are additional to the cost of relief for retail properties liable for the lower rate(s). Offering 40% relief for retail properties liable for Basic and Intermediate Property Rates, capped at £110,000 per business, for example would cost an estimated £52m (in addition to the cost of offering 40% relief to hospitality premises liable for the Basic Property Rate, capped at £110,000 per business).

Relief cost estimates are based on the property classification as per the valuation roll. Properties could be used for other purposes, however. It should be noted that use-based non-domestic rates relief is only available where a property is wholly or mainly used for a specific purpose.

Source: Scottish Assessors’ Valuation Roll as at 1 October 2024; local councils’ billing information as at 1 June 2024

On 4 December 2024, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance & Local Government announced a draft Scottish Budget for 2025-26. Included in the draft Budget was the commitment to continue mitigating some of the negative impacts of UK Government policy decisions, including the bedroom tax and benefit cap, and a new commitment to develop the systems necessary to effectively scrap the impact of the two-child limit in 2026. The Child Poverty Action Group has estimated that the change could lift 15,000 children in Scotland out of poverty.

Subject to the approval of Parliament, the Scottish Government will invest over £97 million in Discretionary Housing Payments in 2025-26 to mitigate the bedroom tax and benefit cap and provide additional housing support. This is an increase of nearly £7 million over 2024-25 and more per person than any other UK nation.

In addition to the above support, an additional £20 million was recently added to the Scottish Welfare Fund to enable councils to provide more vital support to people in crisis, bringing the total investment for 2024-25 up to £61 million. Shortfalls in the UK social security system have contributed to an increased demand on the fund, and we will continue to closely monitor spend and demand trends as we look ahead to the next financial year.

Anyone, including students from outside of Scotland, that is a resident of Scotland for the majority of the year and aged 5 to 21 is eligible for the Young Persons’ Free Bus Travel Scheme.

The Scottish Government do not calculate or hold information on the cost of delivering the scheme on a per person basis.

Initial views were sought on the criteria for the Changing Places Toilets (CPT) Fund at the CPT Cross Party Group on 14 November. We will not be undertaking a formal consultation on the draft criteria, but we will share them with key interests, including the Cross Party Group, in the New Year.

In addition to funding to support the expansion of access to diabetes technology already announced in the financial year 2024-2025, the draft Budget for 2025-2026 contains funding to support continued policy development for long term conditions including diabetes, respiratory conditions, chronic pain, neurological conditions, heart disease and out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.

In line with our Green Industrial Strategy, we are continuing to support Scotland’s energy transition. The draft 2025-26 Scottish Budget includes an allocation of £25m to support the development of hydrogen and carbon capture technologies, as well as initiatives to support Scotland’s businesses and industries to decarbonise and innovative projects such as the Energy Transition Zone in Aberdeen.

Two pilot incentive schemes led by NatureScot were launched in early autumn to provide financial incentives to deer managers to increase deer culls in specific parts of Scotland.

The schemes are operating well with 22 deer controllers signed up across 19 properties in Central Scotland and 25 deer controllers signed up across 12 properties in South Loch Ness. Some of the cull thresholds, which are the triggers for incentive payments to be made, have now been met in both pilot areas with payments issued in November 2024.

The Scottish Government has provided £80,000 through the Covid Recovery Plan Opportunities Fund to create new local chill and processing units for wild venison in Argyll, Moray and Dumfries and Galloway.

Separately, NatureScot is beginning a partnership project with the Scottish Agricultural Organisation Society to look at the venison chain supply issues, barriers, and opportunities for investment into processing infrastructure and community larders.

In addition to this, Forestry and Land Scotland are considering providing a limited number of people from a small number of local communities with the opportunity to help them deliver sustainable deer management this would include allowing access to cull on FLS land and having access to their larders.

My answer here is the same as that set out in S5W-23733 on 21 June 2019.

The rules for how the Scottish Government is funded are set out in the Statement of Funding Policy. Changes in Scottish Government funding are determined by applying the Barnett formula to changes in UK government departmental spending, rather than allocating a proportion of revenues raised through the UK Soft Drinks Industry Levy. There is therefore no direct link between the revenue raised by the UK Government through the Soft Drinks Industry Levy and any element of the funding allocated to Scotland. The Scottish Government spends its money in accordance with the published budget as agreed by the Scottish Parliament.

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