Seòmar agus comataidhean

The fiscal regime for offshore oil and gas, as well as the regulatory regimes for licensing and consenting, are all matters that are currently reserved to the UK Government.

We continue to call on the UK Government to listen carefully to concerns being expressed by businesses and trade bodies around the impacts of its Energy Profits Levy.

We are now awaiting the UK Government’s response to its recent consultation, which must clearly set out how a stable and long-term fiscal regime will be used to deliver business and investor certainty for the North Sea. The Energy Profits Levy was always supposed to be a temporary measure and we must see the earliest possible end date, as it is now affecting investment and jobs in the North East.

Our social security policies have been designed to provide much needed support for the most vulnerable in our society and people can be entitled to support whether they are in work or not.

For example, our Job Start Payment helps young people who are returning to work with the costs of starting a new job, support that is only available in Scotland. The Adult Disability Payment can help to reduce the barriers that prevent some disabled people from working and we recognise that it supports many disabled people to stay in employment. Additionally, findings from the evaluation of our Five Family Payments, published earlier this month, showed that for some recipients, the Scottish Child Payment is easing work costs related to travel and childcare and giving some families greater choice and flexibility to balance work, education, and caring responsibilities.

Through the Scottish Government’s No One Left Behind approach, person-centred employability services are available in every local authority area for people of all ages who experience structural barriers to participating in the labour market. Over 156,000 people have accessed these services since powers were devolved around aspects of employability support.

The Scottish Government remains committed to ensuring that Scotland’s prison estate is safe, secure, and fit for purpose. In 2025-26, the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) was allocated £355m of capital funding to enable them to progress the major projects HMP Highland and HMP Glasgow, as well as wider estate maintenance.

HMP Highland, which will replace HMP Inverness, is expected to be completed in 2026. HMP Glasgow, which will replace HMP Barlinnie, is expected to be completed by 2028. The wider maintenance programme encompasses a range of activities aimed at ensuring the continued safety, functionality, and efficiency of the physical estate, including asset replacement, building fabric maintenance, surveys and condition assessments and compliance and safety works, with varying time-scales for delivery.

Future capital funding for the Scottish Prison Service is being considered as part of the annual budget process and the Scottish Spending Review, due to be published alongside the 2026-27 Scottish Budget.

The provision of opioid-substitution treatment in prisons is a matter for local services. The Scottish Government notes that the transition from prison to the community is a high-risk event in a recovery journey and welcomes moves to join up prison health services with the support available in local communities.

Through the National Naloxone Programme, we work in partnership with the Scottish Prison Service, NHS Boards and third sector partners to ensure Naloxone is routinely offered prior to liberation. The number of take-home naloxone kits issued by SPS is published quarterly by Public Health Scotland through the programme’s Quarterly Monitoring Bulletin, which provides data to track trends, compare outcomes over time, and assess the impact of the programme on preventing overdose deaths.

Further integration across services and consistent data collection are essential to fully assess the impacts on post-release relapse and re-offending rates.

The fiscal regime for offshore oil and gas is reserved to the UK Government.

We have continued to call on UK Government to listen carefully to concerns being expressed by businesses around the impacts of its Energy Profits Levy, this was repeated by the Deputy First Minister at Offshore Europe on 2 September.

We are now awaiting the UK Government’s consultation response, which must clearly set out how a stable and long-term fiscal regime will be used to deliver business and investor certainty for the North Sea. The EPL was always supposed to be a temporary measure and we must see the earliest possible end date, as it is now affecting investment and jobs in the North East.

Scottish Government Ministers and officials engage with UK Government, including HMT Treasury counterparts and a wide range of stakeholders when considering all of these issues and will continue to do so.

In February 2025, the Scottish Prison Service published a report on the number of prisoners released under emergency early release (EER) in June-July 2024, who returned to custody before the date when they would originally have been liberated had EER not been implemented. The report shows that 61 of the 477 prisoners (13%) released under EER returned to custody before their original planned release date. The report can be found here - Returns to Custody Analysis .

The establishment of the National Social Work Agency is underway. It will be an Executive Agency of the Scottish Government and will be established by Spring 2026. The Agency will be created from within existing budgets and will not add any additional cost to the public purse. Future budgets will be subject to annual budget process.

In 2023 the Scottish Government commissioned a Scottish Expert Advisory Group (SEAG) to inform implementation considerations for a targeted Lung Cancer screening programme.

The SEAG provided the Scottish Government with an evaluation of costs and set out detailed considerations around the scale of workforce, equipment and IT requirements. It acknowledged that UK-wide challenges securing both staff and equipment are potentially rate limiting factors, and these in part contribute to the overall time frame for rolling out a full programme. This reflects the experience of England, which has been piloting lung checks since 2019, but still anticipates national coverage will not be achieved until 2030.

The planned 2027 pilot will support a real world understanding of constraints and limitations, and will inform long term planning for national implementation. For further information on the pilot, I refer the member to the question S6W-40236 on 16 September 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 provision and procurement of police uniform and equipment for officers is a matter for Police Scotland and the Chief Constable. I am clear that police officers and staff should be provided with the correct tools for the job.

Our record £1.64 billion investment in policing is helping equip officers with modern tools like body worn video, ensuring they have the right resources to keep communities safe.

To maintain a safe and secure prison estate, the Scottish Government increased Scottish Prison Service (SPS) investment by 10% to £481.5m in 2025-26. SPS has invested in a range of initiatives aimed at tackling violence across the prison estate, including body worn cameras, a revised control and restraint model, and body scanners. SPS are also working to mitigate the risks presented by the threat of drones and uses various technologies and intelligence - such as advanced scanners, detection technology, window grilles and sniffer dogs – to prevent illegal substances entering prisons.

The Scottish Government has also increased 2025-26 funding to the Scottish Recovery Consortium to embed a person-centred recovery focused approach in prisons and have supported the National Prison Care Network to develop a Target Operating Model for healthcare delivery in prisons. This sets out a nationally consistent service model for the delivery of the range of clinical services provided in prisons, including drugs and alcohol services.

Future resource and capital funding for the SPS is being considered as part of the annual budget process and the Scottish Spending Review, due to be published alongside the 2026-27 Scottish Budget.