Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government fully condemn all forms of prejudice including sectarianism, racism and religious bigotry.

That is why we have consolidated legislative protections aggravated by protected characteristics, including race and religion, through the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 to support Police Scotland to deal with prejudice and discrimination and why we are currently working closely with Police Scotland and Scottish football authorities to assess the effectiveness of football banning order legislation.

Separately, we have invested over £5 million of funding since 2016 to tackle sectarianism through community based projects in schools, colleges, communities and workplaces. Organisations such as Nil by Mouth and Fair Play Foundation will continue to work with football clubs from grassroots to senior football in 2025-26 and Sense Over Sectarianism will continue to engage with Police Scotland to ensure the ‘Pitchin’ In’ programme is available for officers to use in schools to help develop pupils decision making and steer them away from prejudicial behaviour.

The Scottish Government understands the impact of retail crime on businesses and the concerns of retailers including the Scottish Grocers’ Federation.

Sufficient legislation already exists in order to prosecute those who are guilty of shoplifting.

Our Budget will make an additional £3 million available in 2025-26 to tackle retail crime. This is in addition to an investment next year of a record £1.62 billion for policing.

This funding will support the formation of a Retail Crime Taskforce which will provide a visible and measurable impact on retail crime and will deliver on the following objectives:

• Prevent: Stop people from becoming perpetrators of Retail crime by developing and implementing intervention and diversion mechanisms with partners.
• Pursue: Target retail crime by bringing perpetrators to justice, with a focus on repeat offenders and organised criminals.
• Protect: Strengthen the collective protections against Retail Crime by engaging directly with retailers on crime prevention and training.
• Prepare: Mitigate against the impact of Retail Crime by exploring innovate opportunities for direct reporting systems.

The Scottish Government continue to urge all retailers and their staff to keep reporting crimes. While it might feel like some minor incidents aren’t worth it, or individual retailers may feel like the police won’t be able to do anything, each crime report aids our collective understanding of who is doing this and why. Local officers may also well have intelligence they can use to catch the perpetrators.

The Scottish Government understands the impact of retail crime on businesses. Our Budget will make an additional £3 million available in 2025-26 to tackle retail crime. This is in addition to an investment next year of a record
£1.62 billion for policing.

This funding will support the formation of a Retail Crime Taskforce which will provide a visible and measurable impact on retail crime and will deliver on the following objectives:

• Prevent: Stop people from becoming perpetrators of Retail crime by developing and implementing intervention and diversion mechanisms with partners.
• Pursue: Target retail crime by bringing perpetrators to justice, with a focus on repeat offenders and organised criminals.
• Protect: Strengthen the collective protections against Retail Crime by engaging directly with retailers on crime prevention and training.
• Prepare: Mitigate against the impact of Retail Crime by exploring innovate opportunities for direct reporting systems.

New technologies will also be utilised to explore ways to make it easier for retail staff to directly report crimes to police, as well as capitalising on Police Scotland’s existing Digital Evidence Sharing Capability (DESC), to secure early criminal justice outcomes.

The Scottish Government continue to urge all retailers and their staff to keep reporting crimes. While it might feel like some minor incidents aren’t worth it, or individual retailers may feel like the police won’t be able to do anything, each crime report aids our collective understanding of who is doing this and why. Local officers may also well have intelligence they can use to catch the perpetrators.

There are no plans to update the current legislation regarding the protection of retail workers. Section 1 of the Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-restricted Goods and Services) (Scotland) Act 2021 already makes it a specific offence to assault, threaten or abuse a retail worker. Such behaviour can also be prosecuted using other, more general, offences including, for example, common law assault and the offence of threatening or abusive behaviour.

It is essential that those who perpetrate violence are held to account for their actions. Legislation and prosecution form part of our overall response to tackling violence, and sits alongside our preventative approach as set out in the Violence Prevention Framework for Scotland.

The Scottish Government is grateful to everyone who attended and contributed to the Responsible Dog Ownership Summit held in Edinburgh on 20 September 2024.

The Summit brought together attendees from a wide range of organisations.

The Summit was jointly chaired by myself and the Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity Jim Fairlie MSP.

The Summit Report is available on the Scottish Government website: https://www.gov.scot/publications/report-scottish-government-responsible-dog-ownership-summit-discussions-key-stakeholders-approaches-dog-control-dog-welfare-20-september-2024/

The Summit Report contains key outputs and recommendations from the Summit.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-36005 on 1 April 2025.

The Short Life Working Group was set up by the Scottish Government to review the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 (“the 1991 Act”).

The last meeting of the Short Life Working Group to review the 1991 Act was held on 1 June 2023.

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

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-35981 on 31 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

All funding provided towards the development of the app is currently interlinked with the piloting of the app, which will begin in Lanarkshire from 2025 and begin it’s rollout from 2026.

The Scottish Government and NES are also in the development stage of the full business case for Digital Front Door, therefore we do not yet have an agreed longer-term budget. Once it has been approved and a minimum viable product (MVP) has been produced this will inform future costs of a national roll out for Digital Front Door.

The Scottish Government provided £1.9 million (1,957,987.36) in associated costs to the New Scots refugee integration strategy intermediary/strategic funding through Equality, Connected Communities and Mainstreaming and Inclusion Budgets between July 2019 and March 2024. We do not currently plan to publish a further breakdown in costs.

The Office of the Chief Statistician published guidance for public bodies in Scotland on the collection of data on sex and gender in 2021. This guidance recommends that statistics producers should collect data that best serves the needs of users in their specific context, an approach with aligns with the guidance published by the Office for Statistics Regulation in 2024.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-36695 on 16 April 2025.

The Summit Report is available on the Scottish Government website: https://www.gov.scot/publications/report-scottish-government-responsible-dog-ownership-summit-discussions-key-stakeholders-approaches-dog-control-dog-welfare-20-september-2024/

The Summit Report contains key outputs and recommendations from the Summit, as well as the list of attendees.

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