Chamber and committees

Falling birth rates are a demographic trend replicated across many high-income countries, with significant future implications for our economies, communities and public services.

The Family Friendly Nation strand of our Population Strategy sets out our ambition to ensure Scotland is the ideal place to raise a family. In delivering this, in November 2022, the Ministerial Population Taskforce published ‘Attitudes to Family Formation in Scotland’ to update our evidence base about family planning and ideal family size.

Next steps are being considered by the Taskforce, including scoping potential policy lessons from international comparators to support people to have the number of children they wish to have.

In his latest letter to the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee (NZET) on 11 October, Ferguson Marine’s interim Chief Executive reported that recent acceptance sea trials were successfully completed and assured the Committee that a definitive handover date will be provided as soon as it is confirmed. I will then write to the NZET Committee to give the Scottish Government’s response to the latest progress update on the delivery of MV Glen Sannox. The vessel is now in the final stages of delivery, with all parties collaborating to complete the remaining technical details.

The Scottish Government does not comment on the internal affairs of non-SG bodies.

The Scottish Government is fully committed to improving and protecting the welfare of all animals in Scotland. The Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006 protects animals in Scotland, including livestock, and in November 2023 we published our own pig welfare guidance to further improve the welfare of farmed pigs. The Welfare of Farmed Animals (Scotland) Regulations 2010 was updated to include this updated guidance.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) will provide updates on HIV statistics as part of the HIV in Scotland annual surveillance report. The latest report was published in September 2024 and the next release will be in Autumn 2025.

The HIV Transmission Elimination Delivery Plan was launched in March 2024. PHS is developing a monitoring and evaluation plan to assess progress against this plan and the Scottish Government will update Parliament on this in due course.

The independent Pathways review and recommendations were developed through extensive consultation and engagement with entrepreneurs and analysis of data on women in entrepreneurship.

Activity within the South of Scotland Enterprise Pilot pre-start programme and projects funded through the Pathways Fund will be evaluated to determine effectiveness and to support the development of further implementation of the Pathways recommendations.

We want Scotland to be the best place in the world to grow up. As part of our approach, we recognise that online platforms, including social media, can have both a positive and negative impact on children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing and that it is important to support people to use social media in a healthy and balanced way.

Keeping children and young people safe online is a priority for the Scottish Government and while we recognise that regulation of the internet remains a reserved matter, we have successfully engaged with the previous UK Government to strengthen protections for children in its Online Safety Act. The Minister for Victims and Community Safety and I met with the online safety regulator Ofcom in August to discuss their strategy for online safety in Scotland.

Following the appalling acts of violence and disorder seen elsewhere in the UK over the summer, the First Minister wrote to social media companies Misinformation, racism and hateful material online: letter to social media companies - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) asking them how they are combating the spread of misinformation and steps being taken to address racist/hateful speech across platforms, and officials are considering responses. Our commitment to this work was further set out by the First Minister recently in response to a question on this issue in Parliament Written question and answer: S6F-03493 | Scottish Parliament Website

We have provided over £400,000 to children and young people’s organisations since 2020, to fund a range of initiatives including the Young Scot Aye Feel online hub and the Mind Yer Time resource, with some of the work focusing on addressing social media usage amongst children and young to help them navigate online spaces and use screen time in a healthy and positive way.

Additionally, our national resource for parents - Parent Club - has a range of information and advice to support parents to manage their child’s screen time, and to have informed conversations with their children on screen time, social media and internet use. The Scottish Government funded public awareness campaigns in 2022 and 2023 to inform parents and carers about the risks of online harm and how to protect their children online which linked to Parent Club resources. In addition, the Scottish Government has recently published guidance for schools on the issue of mobile phones in schools, which supports education authorities and schools in their consideration of limiting access to mobile phones in schools.

In September 2021, the Scottish Government published the National Neurodevelopmental Specification for Children and Young People: Principles and Standards of Care: Children and young people - national neurodevelopmental specification: principles and standards of care - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) which sets out seven standards for service providers to ensure children and young people who have neurodevelopmental profiles receive support that better meets their needs. This recognises neurodevelopmental differences are estimated to affect around 10% of pupils in Scotland’s mainstream schools, and their additional support needs.

We are working with Health Boards and Local Authorities towards implementing the Specification in full. As part of this, we have provided over £1 million to fund five pilots which are focusing on various aspects of the Specification, including implementing our Getting It Right For Each Child approach and multi-agency working. We are working to share the learning from these with all appropriate stakeholders to support wider implementation of the specification across Scotland and inform future service improvements.

More broadly, every child and young person should be able to access support for their mental health and wellbeing when and where they need it. Since 2021, we have provided local authorities with £15 million per annum to deliver community-based mental health and wellbeing supports and services for 5-24 year-olds and their families.

At this time we cannot provide an update further to that of S6W-26556, as we await the publication of the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission’s (SAWC) Responsible Cat Ownership Working Group report.

The Scottish Government is committed to the plans for a National Care Service, and Scottish Ministers are continuing work on progressing this as quickly and effectively as possible.

A Scottish Government official met with pupils and representatives of the Council, at Beath High School on 18 March 2024. This was an opportunity for pupils to present on their concerns and for them to get an understanding of the School Food Regulations and that flexibility exists for Fife Council to address the issues raised by the pupils in a way that balanced local preferences alongside nutritional needs. Following the meeting, Fife Council and the pupils were to discuss matters further to identify what changes could be made to the meals offer in their schools.

Public Health Scotland have produced regular Official Statistics post introduction of NHS dental payment reform. The most recent version was published on 27 August 2024 and provides the activity levels for all treatment items, each month since introduction. Statistical information will form the basis of ongoing monitoring of dental sector activity.