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This Government is committed to building a vibrant, sustainable, and inclusive rural economy.

We are widening participation in entrepreneurship, giving more people the opportunity to start, grow and scale their business. To date we have supported a range of programmes, including the South of Scotland Enterprise regional Pathways Pre-Start programme and the Pathways Funds. We are investing a record £6 million to support further Pathways implementation in the current financial year, transforming the number of women who start and scale businesses and widening participation in entrepreneurship.

Alongside this, we are supporting rural entrepreneurs through our Ecosystem Fund, which has invested a total of £2.6 million across 75 innovative projects since 2021, through our Techscaler network, through our wider support for our enterprise agencies, and through delivery of our National Innovation Strategy.

The Rural Entrepreneur Fund was a 2021-22 Programme for Government commitment to invest £20 million over the lifetime of the current parliament. However, in light of the challenging financial environment, the Scottish Resource Spending Review prioritised investment plans to ensure that they were deliverable, impactful and affordable. Consequently, there has been no money invested in the Rural Entrepreneur Fund to date.

The Scottish Government has set the goal of establishing Scotland as one of Europe's leading start-up economies, fostering an environment where innovation and high-growth businesses flourish. Within this parliamentary term it has spent over £60 million to aide these ambitions with at least a further £23 million committed by the end of the Parliamentary term.

These figures do not include spend from our Enterprise Agencies or Entrepreneurial Education. In addition this does not include spend for financial year 2026-27 due to our single year budgeting process.

Data on full-time equivalent (FTE) secondary teachers by main subject taught and Local Authority is available in the Teacher Census Supplementary Statistics, here:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/teacher-census-supplementary-statistics/

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

The Scottish Government have not issued any guidance in relation to enforcement or prosecution of the sale of illegal vapes.

This information is not held centrally. Under the Education (Scotland) Act 1980, education is the responsibility of local authorities.

The Scottish Government does hold information on entries to courses and qualifications. This is not necessarily the same as the number of schools offering these courses as a school may offer a course, but no learners choose to take it.

The following table shows the number of (a) publicly funded and (b) grant-funded schools with entries to Economics courses at (i) National 4, (ii) National 5, (iii) Higher and (iv) Advanced Higher level in 2024.

As part of the 2020-21 Programme for Government, the Scottish Government introduced the Green Jobs Fund, an investment of up to
£100 million aimed at supporting new and increased opportunities for green job creation across Scotland.

The Green Jobs Fund supported businesses and their supply chains to help them better transition to a low carbon economy. The support provided by the fund, all of which was capital, aimed to create green employment through investment in equipment, premises, and research and development.

Since its creation, between the Enterprise Agencies and Scottish Ministers, the Green Jobs Fund has provided £38.7 million in grant funding to support 122 projects. Figures provided by the recipients of these awards estimated that these projects will support up to 7354 jobs over the life of the individual projects.

The Green Jobs Fund has been discontinued. In addition to financial pressures associated with its continuation, the Fund formed a relatively small part of the Scottish Government’s broader investment in the transition to net zero. This includes many institutions, funding packages and investment vehicles which provide advice, support, and financial assistance for businesses at the forefront to building Scotland’s green economy.

The Green Industrial Strategy provides further strategic direction on how such investment supports the development, growth and scale-up of existing and new businesses seeking to take advantage of the global opportunities of the transition.

The Scottish Government has not had any engagement with the Bank of England, regarding support to train and recruit more economics teachers in Scottish schools.

We are aware of the Bank of England’s new jointly funded initiative with the University of Manchester, which will see existing teachers offered training to deliver A Level economics alongside their core subject. We will note feedback as the pilot programme progresses and consider if there is applicable learning for the Scottish education sector.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

Spend on digital connectivity infrastructure for the current parliamentary session and projected spend for the remainder of the session is set out in the table below by financial year. The Scottish Government has also secured UK Government funding for investment in digital infrastructure through the Project Gigabit programme which will further increase planned digital spend in 2025-26.