This search includes all content on the Scottish Parliament website, except for Votes and Motions. All Official Reports (what has been said in Parliament) and Questions and Answers are available from 1999. You can refine your search by adding and removing filters.
To hear directly from local communities, the Committee visited Aberdeen Science Centre on 19 January 2026, where members met around 25 participants from local community groups.
This was supplemented with an ‘indicative’ vote amongst nearly 1000 pupils visiting parliament for education sessions, on a ‘yes/no’ vote, for a wider but less in-depth overview of young people’s attitudes to the issue.
Should we—perish the thought—have a new wave of Covid, or a new variant of Covid, as we go into the winter, how practical and realistic would it be for you to staff up again to the numbers that we have seen previously?
The committee has also questioned the comparator information that is being used. For the 2025-26 budget, we are working hard to adjust that information, which will show the budget after transfers have taken place.
We have worked closely with SDS and the SFC to refine the figures and, with the latest information, I am pleased to emphasise that the upper cost estimate has reduced by around a third to around £22 million.
As Fulton MacGregor stated, there has been excellent progress in recent years. I saw that at first hand when I visited Roslin primary school last year, a visit that I have spoken of previously in the chamber.