Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government’s Natural Capital Market Framework applies only to investment within Scotland and, where relevant, to governance within the wider UK for UK emissions and impacts.

Responsible private investment in Scotland’s natural capital through the Peatland Code (PC) and the Woodland Carbon Code (WCC) is already supporting our response to the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss. The WCC and PC generate high-integrity, independently verified carbon units from woodland creation and peatland restoration respectively. Companies can use these units to support appropriate neutrality or net zero claims on their UK-based carbon emissions.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-35046 on 5 March 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.

Debt repayments put extra burden for low-income countries and take way resources from much needed investment in key areas such as health and education. The Scottish Government is committed to supporting our partner countries in efforts towards SDGs with funding for programmes focused on health, inclusive education, equalities, renewable energy, and climate justice.

The Scottish Government has continued to raise with UK Government the financial pressures on global south countries, including Scottish Government partner countries, through the reduction of aid, eg UK Aid from 0.7% to 0.5% of GNI.

We have also consistently called for funding to address loss and damage to be provided as grants, not loans, so that vulnerable communities can access support without adding to their debt burden. However, we have not had discussion with the UK Government regarding the live Cancel Debt, Choose Hope campaign to demand action on unjust debt.

Thank you for your question to the SPCB. We will provide a response to your question as soon as possible.

A scheme was developed in 2017 in conjunction with the Armed Forces in Scotland to enable Members to visit defence bases in Scotland to help Members better understand the range of social and welfare issues relevant to armed forces personnel, and their families, within their community.  These visits are open to all Members and are arranged through the different service secretariats based in Scotland.   

It was agreed that this scheme would be a better fit for the Parliament than the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme that operates in the House of Commons and the House of Lords, and there are no plans to review the scheme at this time. 

Since 2017, many Members have taken part in the Armed Forces Visits Programme, visiting defence bases across Scotland.  In 2018 and 2024, the Scottish Parliament hosted a reciprocal inward visit for representatives from the armed services in Scotland, providing them with an opportunity to meet and shadow Members.  There have been a number of outward visits this session and parliamentary officials are currently liaising with the Armed Forces to arrange the next series of outward visits before the end of 2025.

In addition, the Presiding Officer and Clerk/Chief Executive regularly arrange events at the Scottish Parliament for the armed forces to brief Members on current issues and parliamentary officials are currently looking to arrange another event in a few months.

Public Health Scotland's (PHS) Stage of Treatment (SoT) publication provides statistics on the length of time patients wait to be seen as a new outpatient or admitted for treatment as an inpatient or day case. The latest publication release contains data up to quarter ending 31 December 2024

Statistics relating to the total number of ongoing waits and the number of waits with a wait length over 52 weeks by specialty from 31 December 2019 can be found in the ‘Waits over 52 weeks’ data table in sheets ‘Table 3.1.1’ for new outpatient appointments, and ‘Table 3.2.1’ for inpatient or day case admissions:

Stage of treatment waiting times - Inpatients, day cases and new outpatients quarter ending 30 December 2024 - NHS waiting times - stage of treatment - Publications - Public Health Scotland

Longer trend information can be found in the following tables:

New outpatient appointments (‘1.6 Table’): https://publichealthscotland.scot/media/31761/newop_mar25.xlsx

Inpatient or day case admission (‘2.6 Table’): https://publichealthscotland.scot/media/31760/ipdc_mar25.xlsx

The Scottish Government provided funding to Chest Heart and Stroke Scotland in 2018 to support a stroke awareness campaign. This was managed by Chest Heart and Stroke Scotland and delivered via NHS Boards. Scottish Government does not hold an evaluation of this campaign.

Chest Heart and Stroke Scotland launched a public FAST awareness campaign on 30 October 2024; World Stroke Day. Further information can be found at:

https://www.chss.org.uk/news/chest-heart-stroke-scotland-launches-new-f-a-s-t-campaign-to-improve-stroke-awareness/

More frequent and meaningful budget engagement with COSLA and Councils was fundamental to informing the record funding settlement made available to Local Government in the Scottish Budget 2025-26.

That engagement included consideration of financial viability, the importance of sustainable local services and the critical need for transformation.

The Local Government Settlement was significantly more generous than Councils were expecting based upon the trajectories set out in previous Medium Term Financial Strategies. Despite this, all local authorities, along with the rest of the public sector, are facing difficult decisions as part of their budget setting processes including on how to meet the increased costs of employer National Insurance Contributions following the UK Budget in November 2024.

Whilst no specific concerns over financial viability in 2025-26 or 2026-27 have been raised since the Scottish Budget was published, Scottish Ministers remain committed to deepening and broadening budget engagement to ensure the sustainability of local services in the long term.

The national action plan on relationships and behaviour published in August 2024. The first published progress report will publish in the coming weeks.