Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government recognises how vital Tourism is to both our national economy and to that of Glasgow as well.

Through our national tourism agency, VisitScotland, the Scottish Government is committed to helping grow the value of tourism across Scotland, including in our cities. VisitScotland promote Glasgow throughout the year across all of their channels and activity, focusing on driving visits at times of the year where there is capacity for growth. A live example is Glasgow being featured in current VisitScotland Expedia activity in the US and UK. Partnership working is a core part of VisitScotland’s approach, and they are guided by their Glasgow city partners and work with them on content planning and development.

VisitScotland also provide specialist support for tourism businesses in Glasgow – to help them develop quality experiences, build digital capability, reach new markets and move towards more sustainable practices. They work closely with partners to support delivery of the Glasgow 2030 Tourism Strategy, which is aligned with the national tourism strategy Scotland Outlook 2030, a key component of the National Strategy for Economic Transformation. In addition, VisitScotland will be a supporting partner in the delivery of the forthcoming Glasgow Events Strategy 2035 to maintain the city’s position as a leading global event destination.

Scotland, and in particular Glasgow, is a world-leading events destination with an annual portfolio of major events, These events contribute to a range of outcomes, including the Scottish Government’s ambition to grow the economy and showcase Scotland on the world stage.

The refreshed National Events Strategy Scotland the Perfect Stage 2024 – 2035, sets a clear vision for the events sector as a whole, reaffirming Scotland’s ambition for the events sector. The Scottish Government will continue to work with partners across the events sector to attract major events to Glasgow and Scotland.

Hosting the 2026 Commonwealth Games will deliver economic and sporting opportunity for Scotland and support a new future for the Games movement. The Scottish Government is pleased to be working alongside partners to once again welcome athletes, official and visitors to Glasgow and showcase all that Scotland has to offer. Commonwealth Games Scotland estimate the Gross Value Added from the 2026 Commonwealth Games to be in excess of £100 million. The capital investment funding will provide direct economic benefit for the Scottish supply chain and visitors to the event would be expected to provide further direct spending into the Scottish visitor economy.

In addition, Scotland will co-host EURO 2028 after UEFA confirmed the success of the joint UK and Ireland bid in October, 2023. Building on successfully hosting games at EURO 2020, matches in Scotland will be played at Hampden Park in Glasgow.

Although the Glasgow City Region Deal supports infrastructure projects and does not include any tourism projects in Glasgow itself, the £14.1m City Deal funded Ocean Terminal Project in Inverclyde, aims to provide a new Cruise Line Terminal including a berthing facility, state of the art visitor centre, gallery, and restaurant to boost the number of cruise ship passengers welcomed to Scotland through the facility operated by Peel Ports. It is estimated that over 150,000 passengers could pass through Greenock Ocean Terminal delivering £26 million in annual visitor and crew spend to the Scottish economy.

From 2026, the Visitor levy will have the potential to make a positive impact on Tourism in Glasgow. While it is up to Glasgow City Council to decide on whether to have a levy or not, the Act requires that funds raised by a visitor levy must be used to support the visitor economy. Funding raised by a visitor levy (net of local authority administrative costs) must be used for purposes related to developing, supporting or sustaining facilities or services substantially for, or used by, those visiting the scheme area for leisure and/or business purposes.

Glasgow’s rich heritage is also vital for promoting tourism. The Scottish Government delivers support for the Historic Environment through sponsorship of Historic Environment Scotland, who deliver over £13 million in grants each year for projects which conserve and enhance the sustainability of our historic environment. Amongst other grants awarded in the Glasgow area, Historic Environment Scotland issued over £2.5 million in grant funding to the Glasgow City Heritage Trust in the financial years 2023-24 and 2025-26. Historic Environment Scotland welcomed over 450,000 visitors to Glasgow Cathedral last year, demonstrating a 65% increase on last year, and is working alongside Glasgow Life on the retail offer in St Mungo's Museum of Religious Life and Art, sourcing from new Glasgow-based designers and suppliers to benefit locals and visitors alike.

By supporting the tourism industry both in Glasgow and nationally, the Scottish Government is investing in the livelihoods of countless individuals and the prosperity of the entire country. The money spent by tourists goes into our schools, healthcare, and infrastructure. Therefore, supporting the tourism industry is not just about spending; it's an investment that brings returns to our society as a whole.

The Scottish Government will continue to work with the culture sector to do everything within our powers and resources to help those most affected by current economic challenges.

Creative Scotland (CS), the public body that supports the arts, screen and creative industries in Scotland, continues to have regular discussions with Glasgow Life and the Centre for Contemporary Arts Board members and staff. CS have offered them flexibility in the use of existing regular funding they receive, together with support for external expertise to inform their future operating model when they reopen.

As part of the Cancer Action Plan for Scotland 2023-26, Scottish Government committed to “Invest in improving the pathways of less survivable cancers, particularly hepatocellular carcinoma and pancreatic cancer. This will shorten the time to staging and agreeing treatment options.”

Scottish Government invested in a pilot Scottish Care and Coordination Service for Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Cancers (SCOT HPB) as a potential way to achieve this action. Scottish Government commissioned the Scottish Cancer Network (SCN) to review the pilot to consider lessons learned and potential options for future delivery.

Following this and further expert engagement, we are considering how best to continue to improve patient pathways for those with Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary cancers in an equitable, evidenced and sustainable way.

The Scottish Government has received representations on the principle of making eligibility for business rates reliefs and licences to trade conditional on payment of the real Living Wage from a range of stakeholders, including retail representative bodies like the Scottish Retail Consortium, Scottish Grocers Federation and Association of Convenience Stores. Forums such as the New Deal for Business Non-Domestic Rates Subgroup, Retail Industry Leadership Group, Scottish Ratepayers Forum also provide a routine opportunity for stakeholders to make representations to Scottish Government.

The recently published Fair Work Convention Inquiry into the hospitality industry also made recommendations for the Scottish Government on fair work conditionality. The Scottish Government will undertake a programme of assessment and consider each of the recommendations carefully.

We know that some people are waiting too long for treatment, and we remain determined to provide the necessary support to drive improvements in waiting times. Across NHS Scotland, patients who require urgent care continue to be prioritised across services.

NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde have confirmed the average waiting time for an urgent neurology new outpatient appointment at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital (QEUH) is currently 20 weeks, however there are a small number of patients whose waiting time will be markedly longer than average due to an upgrade of their status from routine to urgent.

The Board have recruited additional consultants to the service which will deliver additional capacity at the QEUH site for general Neurology waits. They have also implemented Patient Focused Booking (PFB) into Neurology services to ensure optimum use of outpatient capacity and additional headache slots are being supported by GPs with special interest (GPSI), helping to free-up the consultant team to focus on general neurology longest waits.

More widely, NHS Scotland’s Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) has developed a strong clinically-led Specialty Delivery Groups (SDG) for Neurology which promotes multidisciplinary team working, and supports local adoption of service improvement programmes. The Neurology SDG has strong links with the National Advisory Committee for Neurological Conditions and includes third sector representation. The group has made considerable progress implementing Active Clinical Referral Triage (ACRT) pathways and Discharge Patient Initiated Review (PIR), helping to free-up capacity across NHS Scotland and support sustainable solutions for the future.

The Scottish Government is committed to using all levers at its disposal to extend Fair Work conditionality with clear standards and minimum requirements to cover all forms of Scottish Government support within the limits of devolved competence and this matter is still being considered.

The information requested is not held by the Scottish Government. These are operational matters for Police Scotland and local authorities.

The Scottish Government has ongoing dialogue with a range of partners regarding implementation of the new safeguards on XL Bully dogs.

My officials are continuing to engage with Police Scotland, local authorities, Scottish SPCA and other key dog welfare stakeholders about the impact of enforcing and implementation of the new safeguards, including ongoing consideration of kennelling provision and demand.

The Scottish Government does not hold any data on the number of households that currently have at least one person with an alcohol addiction.

Scottish Ministers are responsible for securing the provision of general medical, general dental and general ophthalmic services, and of pharmaceutical services.

Health Boards have a duty to provide those services in accordance with regulations.

Each set of regulations makes its own requirements of the contractors providing various primary care services. General Medical Services contractors, for example, must respond to undifferentiated presentations; patients who are ill or believe themselves to be ill and require diagnosis. This is necessarily a matter of judgement and the regulations do not set targets or particular goals for GP practices. By comparison, routine dental and ophthalmic examinations take place at intervals set by the Scottish Government in accordance with clinical best practice guidelines.

The Scottish Government places the upmost importance on planning accordingly to balance its budget. We originally assumed 3% per cent for pay awards at the time of the Budget, and a 2% +1% phased multi-year approach was confirmed as part of our 2024-25 Pay Policy.

The 3% was based on a range of judgements including affordability and on known funding at the time under the previous UK Government. The UK Government’s Autumn Statement was the worst-case scenario for Scotland and caused further uncertainty about future funding for public services from UK Government.

Stabilising economic conditions were also taken into account with inflation forecast to reduce to 2%. To those who believe we should set out our pay metrics earlier, it is worth remembering the UK Government does not set out its pay policy for the public sector and does not share the workings of the Pay Review bodies with us.