The draft 2025-26 Scottish Budget provides additional investment of £139 million for NHS infrastructure. This provides increased core capital funding for NHS Boards and, as a first step to lifting the capital pause, allows work on the replacement of some acute facilities to resume, as well as providing funding to address NHS Boards’ priority areas for infrastructure investment.

Despite this additional investment, the capital funding position remains challenging and there remains uncertainty in the longer-term funding position, as we await the outcome of the UK Government’s spending review. All due consideration will be given as to which projects are affordable, deliverable and provide best value, following the outcome of that review, this will include the National Treatment Centre in Livingston.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

HMP Glasgow is a nationally important infrastructure project which is committed to working with, and employing, local people.

Whilst this is a matter for the contractor, I understand Kier Construction has been actively engaged with representatives of Unite and met with them as recently as 1 April for further discussions.

It is not possible to provide all incidences where either REM or VMS indicated that a scallop vessel fished inside a nature conservation area since 2014. Our retention policy for camera data is one year and for position data as long as we feel necessary as per our privacy notice REM privacy statement found at: Remote Electronic Monitoring ("REM") systems on fishing vessels (2024): Privacy Notice - Fishing - remote electronic monitoring: privacy notice - gov.scot. We also do not have access to VMS data going back to 2014.

We can provide the number of detected cases submitted for enforcement action where VMS and/or REM was the initial method of detection since 2020.

2020 – 1

2021 – 2

2022 – 2

2023 – 2 (note these were for incursion into the Mull Crab box, designated to protect crab stocks)

2024 – 1

Net Zero Technology Centre will continue to be in receipt of funding from both Scottish and UK Governments through the Aberdeen City Region Deal until 2026-27. Discussions continue between Governments and the centre around its operations once Deal funding concludes. The economic impact NZTC has made to date within the region and the role it plays in the wider energy transition will be a feature of those discussions. This is alongside value for money considerations and the evolving delivery landscape in North East Scotland.

An interim evaluation of all Deal projects, including NZTC, is currently being carried out by regional partners. This will evaluate progress towards projects achieving objectives and outcomes as specified in approved business cases. An evaluation will also take place following conclusion of the Aberdeen City Region Deal.

Reducing health inequalities and supporting people to live longer, healthy and fulfilling lives remains a clear ambition for this Government.

Health inequalities in Scotland have widened in recent years in part due to the impact of austerity, Brexit, COVID and the subsequent cost-of-living crisis.

In order to tackle this mounting challenge, Scottish Government and COSLA, in collaboration with our wider partners, are developing a Population Health Framework to take a cross-government and cross-sector approach to improve the key building blocks of health.

These include: good early years and education; good work and income; healthy places; and equitable health care. Its purpose is to accelerate the recovery and improvement of population health in Scotland with a focus on whole system preventative action.

The Scottish Budget for 2025-26 sets out wide-ranging investment to continue supporting people with the cost of living and deliver progress on our national mission to eradicate child poverty, including:

• £768m to boost delivery of the Affordable Housing Supply Programme,
• up to £90m for the delivery of devolved employability services,
• continuing to invest around £1bn per year in delivering 1,140 hours of funded ELC to all eligible children, and
• committing more than £6.9bn for benefits expenditure including the Scottish Child Payment, almost £1.3bn more than the UK Government gives to the Scottish Government for Social Security.

In terms of planned care waiting times specifically, we are undertaking an Equality Impact Assessment (EQIA) as part of the refreshed NHSScotland waiting times guidance: November 2023, which will be published later this year.

The development of the EQIA has been informed by the public sector equality duty which requires the Scottish Government to pay due regard to the need to meet its obligations under the Equality Act 2010 when developing new and revised policies.

The EQIA will evaluate how the updated NHSScotland waiting times guidance may affect different segments of the population both positively and negatively, considering the protected characteristics of age, disability, gender reassignment, sex, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, and sexual orientation.

Concurrently, our Women’s Health Plan, published in August 2021, aims to reduce health inequalities and improve health outcomes for girls and women across their life course. We recognise women are disproportionately affected by gynaecology waiting times, and timely access to gynaecology services will be a priority as we continue to develop our Women’s Health Plan.

Public sources of information indicate that BAE Systems is among the contenders to supply new frigates for the Royal Norwegian Navy. No discussions have taken place between BAE Systems and the Scottish Government on whether a successful tender would produce subcontracting opportunities for manufacturing or fabrication businesses based in Scotland.

EY’s independent forecasts set out their estimates of future GVA growth across different parts of the UK. They forecast that Aberdeen’s GVA will grow on average 0.9% per annum between 2025 and 2028. The pace of growth in the region is largely expected to be impacted by their assessment of the long term decline in North Sea oil production and its impact on growth in the UK mining and quarrying sector.

The Scottish Government continues to support a just transition for Aberdeen and North East Scotland through the Aberdeen City Region Deal and Just Transition Fund (JTF). Through the Deal we are providing up to £125 million over 10 years to strengthen and diversify the regional economy. JTF is another 10 year programme supporting projects and communities to create jobs, support innovation and secure a highly skilled workforce. From this, £75 million has been allocated to date.

This is in addition to our recently completed Energy Transition Fund, protecting jobs, skills and knowledge in the region while supporting the creation of new jobs. Meanwhile, Aberdeen City has also benefited from £12.9 million Scottish Government regeneration investment since 2014. It will additionally benefit from our £400,000 commitment to support Our Union Street over 2024-25 and 2025-26.

All while we continue working with regional partners and UK Government to support the North East Scotland Investment Zone. This will include funding of up to £160 million over 10 years and the ability of the region to benefit from 100% retention of non-domestic rates. It will give partners the opportunity to invest in regeneration and infrastructure to support further growth within the Investment Zone.

The Scottish Government has published independent analysis on the Energy System and Just Transition and it is available online at https://www.gov.scot/publications/energy-system-transition-independent-analysis.

The analysis suggests potential growth sectors include wind, Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage and hydrogen and this is reflected in the Green Industrial Strategy which was published in September 2024. This Strategy’s mission is to ensure that Scotland realises the maximum possible economic benefit from the opportunities created by the global transition to net zero. In particular, with the right focus, support, investment and partnerships, Scottish businesses and workers can innovate, capture new markets, create new jobs and diversify the workforce during the energy transition.

There is significant uncertainty in the economic outlook and economic forecasts can be subject to revision. The Scottish Fiscal Commission provides the official forecasts for the Scottish economy. Their latest forecast from December projects Scotland’s economic growth to strengthen to 1.5% in 2025 and 1.6% in 2026. The forecast will be updated in May. In March, the Office for Budget Responsibility revised down its UK growth forecast for 2025 to 1%, half the 2% forecast previously in October 2024.

The Scottish Government continues to support a just transition for Aberdeen and North East Scotland as outlined in the answer to S6W-36119 on 10 April 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.

The Thistle operates like any other NHS facility, working closely with community safety partners to prevent and address antisocial behaviour, including the abandonment of drug paraphernalia. While the Scottish Government does not directly collect data on this, local partners such as Glasgow City Council and Police Scotland monitor and report on related public safety concerns. For example, the Council records incidents of discarded needles, and in 2024 Police Scotland reported the disposal of approximately 5,000 needles across two city locations. This data is used by local agencies as part of a coordinated approach to ensure safety.