Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government recognises the value and special characteristics of Scotland’s traditional and protected buildings, and we are taking a range of action to ensure they are preserved in a way that supports the reduction of carbon emissions. Traditionally built properties make up around 18% of all homes in Scotland. These homes may have different requirements to other homes based on their construction type, location or status.

In 2025-26 the Scottish Government is investing over £300m in heat and energy efficiency programmes, including for traditional properties. Households can access advice and funding through Home Energy Scotland, funded by the Scottish Government.

Home Energy Scotland specialist advisors are trained to provide advice on traditional homes, working closely with Historic Environment Scotland, who we continue to work closely with to ensure that Scotland’s traditional and protected buildings are properly maintained and preserved. Through Historic Environment Scotland’s Grants programme, we invest around £13.5 million a year to support building repairs, ancient monuments, archaeological work, and conservation.

The Scottish Government also continues to work to ensure the availability of the traditional skills needed to undertake retrofitting work. On 3 April 2025 it was announced that a new national training centre for Scotland, focused on traditional skills, had secured £3.7 million of National Lottery support.

The Scottish Government will also continue to make representations to UK Government requesting the implementation of a VAT reduction in the context of encouraging maintenance and energy efficiency improvements in traditional buildings.

This information is not held centrally. However all recommendations are published on the website of the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service and are publicly available.

Community pharmacists and pharmacy technicians gained access to the Emergency Care Summary (ECS) on 2 October 2023. The ECS provides information on recent acute and repeat prescriptions and allergies. They also have access to the Key Information Summary (KIS) where available, which provides information about a person’s health issues, a carer’s name and contact details, preferences on how a person would like to be cared for, the treatment they would like and where they would like to be cared for.

In addition, several health boards are providing community pharmacists access to their clinical portal which provides additional clinical information. Clinical portals support Health Boards to allow healthcare professionals to access information about an individual, including in some cases those from other Health Boards when required, with their permission.

Community pharmacists can create, read and edit Pharmacy Care Records (PCRs) to record details of consultations they have undertaken (for example Pharmacy First consultations) as well as details of any items that have been prescribed and/or dispensed in their community pharmacy. The PCR also allows them to create a structured report which can be sent to any other healthcare organisation.

The Scottish Government has no current plans to introduce a moratorium on battery energy storage system developments. There is a statutory structure that must be followed for all decision-making. Where new development proposals come forward, each application must be considered on its individual merits.

Where the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) receive information about a proposed BESS site they refer those duty holders (site operators) responsible for the plant to the National Fire Chief Council's (NFCC) Grid Scale Planning Guidance for FRS. These guidelines detail, amongst other elements, minimum standards for fire safety systems and design features, water requirements for firefighting, and access requirements.

BESS sites also fall under special fire precautions which are regulated by the Health and Safety Executive under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 due to the equipment used to collect, store and release electricity as required.

I engaged with the Lord Advocate, Solicitor General and the Crown Agent during the 2025-26 budget process which informed the allocation to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. The portfolio received a resource budget of £225.2 million for 2025-26, an increase of 10.7% compared to 2024-25. The funding uplift was allocated to support the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service to manage a range of demand led pressures.

Scottish Ministers have granted a limited trial to undertake a pilot project with a number of inshore vessels to help gather further information to support a longer-term policy development on fishing for squid under the North Sea Cod Avoidance Plan (NCAP).

There is currently limited evidence about the impacts of the squid fishing on cod stocks and bycatch of non-target stocks. This project would look to address some of these limitations and seek to evaluate the evidence, once collected.

Through this project, it is hoped that further information will be provided to help inform the balance between environmental, economic and social objectives and development of the squid fishery.

Scottish Government officials have been working in collaboration with stakeholders from industry and eNGOs as part of a co-management group to develop a squid fishing trial; this includes representatives from Shetland.

The inshore squid fishing season is yet to be underway, therefore no data has yet been collected in the trial. Work on the trial has concentrated on establishing and developing the project, and officials in Marine Directorate will provide further updates once the season has commenced and data has been gathered.

On 3 April I announced the intention to bring forward a revised Heat in Buildings Bill to set a new target for decarbonising heating systems by 2045 alongside continuing work to reduce fuel poverty.

In 2023-24 spending on additional support for learning reached a record high of over £1 billion. This includes a continued investment in pupil support assistants, by providing authorities with £15m each year, specifically to support schools and authorities to respond to the individual needs of children and young people.

In 2025-26, an additional £28m will be invested in additional support for learning, to support the recruitment and retention of the ASN workforce at a local level. A further £1 million will be provided to support national initiatives to help recruit and train more ASN teachers.

Funding to local authorities has also been increased this year to £186.5 million, as part of our agreement with COSLA to restore teacher numbers to 2023 levels.

Table 1 presents the estimated gross cost of setting the Higher Property Rate equal to the Standard Multiplier in England, from 2016-2017 until 2020-2021.

The Higher Property Rate in Scotland was 1.3p higher than the Standard Multiplier in England from 2016-2017 until 2018-2019, and 1.2p higher in 2019-2020 and
2021-2022. The Higher Property Rate and the Standard Multiplier in each year are shown in Table 2.

Figures for years from 2021-2022 until 2025-2026 are available in answers to questions S6W-25972 on 18 March 2024, S6W-25588 on 1 March 2024 and
S6W-32778 on 7 January 2025.

In 2016-2017, the threshold for the Standard Multiplier was £18,000, while the threshold for the Higher Property Rate was £51,000. Both thresholds were set to £51,000 from 2017-2018 until 2019-2020. From 2020-2021, the threshold for the Higher Property Rate was increased to £95,000, while the threshold for the Standard Multiplier remained at £51,000.

All figures are gross estimates, and are not adjusted for any relief. Figures are broken down by property class, as the Scottish Government does not hold property-level data on industry sectors. Property class is a classification used by Scottish Assessors to describe the type of property, and does not necessarily accurately reflect the use of a property.

This table is based on the valuation roll as at 1 October 2016, 1 October 2017, 1 October 2018, 1 October 2019, and 1 October 2020.

Figures in this table are rounded to the nearest £1,000, and may not sum due to rounding.

Table 1: Estimated gross cost of reducing the Higher Property Rate to the level of the English Standard Multiplier (£), broken down by property class