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Since May 2021 Naturescot have invested nearly £4 million in rainforest restoration activities through the Nature Restoration Fund: £3,933,357 capital and £381,291 resource.

Scottish Forestry (SF) are not able to give the precise breakdown of funding as requested in the time frame required. This is because the data for grant support is not in a format that allows us to spatially analyse it quickly against the Atlantic Rainforest zone. However, since 2015 SF have committed £6 million of Forestry Grant Scheme funding for the management of existing native woodlands within the rainforest zone, with £1 million made available in 2023. This is all resource spending.

Forestry and Land Scotland have invested £6.14 million in rainforest restoration since 2022: £1,899,000 resource and £4,241,000.

The National Smart Ticketing Advisory Board will publish its first annual report in June, including progress on its year one 'Quick Wins'. This includes, for the first time, provision of digital integrated tickets for the Aberdeenshire and Dundee bus to bus schemes, due to launch this summer.

Consideration of a digital platform for our biggest national scheme, free bus travel, is also underway, with the intention of a pilot scheme in 2026, unlocking the use of mobile devices for concessionary travel. This aligns with the milestones as set out in our Smart Delivery Strategy in August 2024.

The Scottish Government actively promotes and supports the natural regeneration of woodland through the work of Scottish Forestry and the funding provided through the Forestry Grant Scheme.

Scottish Forestry actively encourages land managers to consider natural regeneration when developing woodland management plans and woodland creation proposals.

The Forestry Grant Scheme provides financial support for land managers to create the conditions necessary for natural regeneration and contributes to the costs of protecting natural regeneration. This includes reducing deer numbers and encouraging co-operative deer management without fences.

Support is also available for the management of existing native woodlands and reducing deer populations in the surrounding landscape.

The Forestry Grant Scheme has already supported over 9,000 hectares of new native woodland through natural regeneration with significant further projects in development.

The Forestry Grant Scheme is continually evolving to meet the needs of land managers in Scotland and as part of recent enhancements the grant rate offered for natural regeneration was doubled in 2023 to address increasing costs and encourage land managers to consider creating woodland through natural regeneration.

The Scottish Government is providing £23.4 million of funding in 2025-26, to the Regional Transport Partnerships and their local authority partners through the Active Travel People and Place programme. One of the key areas of investment in this programme is “Schools and Young People”, which targets investment in behaviour change initiatives to encourage more children and young people to use active travel as a way of travelling to school. The aim of this programme is to make sustainable travel choices the most desirable way to travel for young people and families by providing the necessary interventions and adaptations that make active travel more attractive.

This year, we will also increase our funding (to £2.5m) for Bikeability Scotland, the national cycle training programme for school aged children. Bikeability Scotland provides the next generation of cyclists with the skills and confidence they need to ride safely on our roads. In 2023-24, the last period for which data is available, more than 54,039 children received cycle training. We expect that figure to rise to 70,000 this year.

We allocated over £100 million across a number of infrastructure programmes to develop and deliver walking, wheeling and cycling infrastructure in 2024-25. This includes funding through the Active Travel Infrastructure Fund (ATIF), our primary vehicle for supporting infrastructure projects.

Through the ATIF, Transport Scotland directly funded 16 local authorities and one Regional Transport Partnership for projects that are: improving routes and junctions at various locations to ensure children can cross safely; addressing missing links; supporting safer routes to school; and enhancing safety by improving lighting.

The funding support provided through the Active Travel Infrastructure Fund will continue in 2025-26, giving local authorities the autonomy to support the design, development, and delivery of active travel infrastructure measures according to their individual local priorities.

The Scottish Government is providing £23.4 million of funding, in 2025-26 to the Regional Transport Partnerships and their local authority partners through the Active Travel People and Place programme. One of the key areas of investment in this programme is Schools and Young People, which targets investment in behaviour change initiatives to encourage more children and young people to use active travel as a way of travelling to school. The aim of this programme is to make sustainable travel choices the most desirable way to travel for young people and families by providing the necessary interventions and adaptations that make active travel more attractive.

Sustrans’ Children’s Walking and Cycling Index Scotland was itself funded by Transport Scotland, and serves as good example of the Scottish Government’s continued commitment to proactively listening to young people’s voices in transport decision making.

I have welcomed the report, which demonstrates the overwhelming support for safer walking, wheeling and cycling paths that children in Scotland are asking for. When we build active travel infrastructure, we are doing so not just for today, but for tomorrow, ensuring our young people can build and then maintain sustainable transport options into later life.

Beyond active travel, the Scottish Government has completed and published Child Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessments (CRWIAs) since 2015, to ensure children’s rights are taken into account in all legislation, policies, and strategic decisions. CRWIAs guidance provides advice on when and how decision makers must consult or engage with children and young people where decision will impact them.

This guidance applies to Transport Scotland in the exercise of its responsibilities in transport decision making, and it’s CRWIAs are included in the list of published child rights and wellbeing impact assessments available on gov.scot under the ‘transport’ theme.

An example of this was the development of the second Strategic Transport Projects Review in 2020-21, during which Transport Scotland actively engaged with a sample of primary and secondary schools across Scotland as part of a programme to understand young people’s views on transport. In total 30 schools and 655 pupils were involved, and their feedback was included in the development and appraisal of transport options considered during the review. The experience gained from this engagement programme will help inform future transport reviews of this type.

Another example of this in practice is our recent announcement of two new concessionary schemes for under-22 year old islanders, providing unlimited free travel on inter-island ferries within Orkney, Shetland and the Western Isles from 1 April 2025, and expanding the scheme providing 4 free journeys per year to/from the Scottish mainland to 16–21 year olds from 23 June 2025.

Eradicating child poverty is the single greatest priority of this Government and we are committed to giving all of our children and young people the very best chance to succeed in life. These commitments from the Islands Connectivity Plan will help to ensure public transport is available, accessible and affordable for children and young people, and will them to travel more often, improving their access to education, employment, training, health and social activities and much more.

There are no school streets or school safety zones on the trunk road network under the responsibility of Transport Scotland. In addition, there are currently no plans to increase the number of school streets and school safety zones on trunk roads in Scotland.

With regard to local roads, local authorities have a duty under the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 to manage and maintain local roads in their area and duties under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 to secure the expeditious, convenient and safe movement of traffic.

Each local authority would be able to advise how many school streets and school safety zones they have on their road network.