Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Scottish Government is aware of the concerns raised by the Foreign Affairs Committee regarding equipment manufactured by Hikvision, and other such companies, where such companies are subject to the National Intelligence Law of the People’s Republic of China

Scottish Government, as part of the already underway replacement integrated security system, decommissioned all Hikvision cameras across its estate last year.

As indicted by the First Minister’s answer to S6F-03667 on 9 January 2025, any decision on security cameras used by other public sector organisations is for them to make. Although public agencies may choose to follow the Scottish Government’s lead in decommissioning all Hikvision cameras in the Scottish Government estate, they are under no obligation or duty to do so.

We encourage all organisations to follow National Cyber Security Centre supply-chain security guidance when selecting a technology supplier. The guidance clearly sets out the security standards that suppliers should meet and the considerations that organisations should make during the procurement process.

All answers to oral Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for the Official Report can be found at Official Report: search what was said in Parliament | Scottish Parliament Website

My December 2025-25 Budget announcement included the commitment to conduct our first five-year review of LBTT by the end of this Parliament, to support an evaluation of key aspects of the tax legislation, including the application of the ADS where exceptional circumstances and events occur.

As part of this review, officials will engage a range stakeholders and members of the public on a range of general and specific relating to the LBTT and Additional Dwelling Supplement legislation.

The upcoming review will in part look to build further understanding on the impact of the ADS where difficult or exceptional circumstances apply, as well as understanding any complexities and uncertainties for the tax system for accommodating any subsequent changes.

The review, which will commence this coming spring, will support decisions in the next Parliament on the case for any legislative changes.

We must ensure our children and young people learn about the issues affecting their daily lives, including consent and healthy relationships. The concerns raised by the Young Women's Movement and NSPCC around the consistency in delivery of RSHP education highlight the need for us to ensure we get the revision of the RSHP guidance right.

However, that should not restrict the professional judgement of our teachers who are able to use a range of resources to deliver age-and-stage appropriate education on consent and healthy relationships in a way that enables children and young people to make informed decisions about their lives. That can include using the excellent resources developed by the Young Women's Movement through their Young Women Know campaign.

As confirmed in the latest Programme for Government, we will implement the Curriculum Improvement Cycle (CIC), with work already underway on a number of curricular areas, including health and wellbeing. The CIC introduces a systematic approach to ensure that Scotland's curriculum remains relevant, forward looking, clarifies knowledge and ultimately support high quality teaching and learning. We will ensure this important work aligns with the work to update the RSHP teaching guidance to help ensure consistency in delivery of learning and teaching.

The relationships, sexual health and parenthood consultation report is now being prepared for publication. I am grateful for the extensive contributions to the consultation and the report will be published shortly.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring all children and young people receive high quality relationships, sexual health and parenthood (RSHP) education, which is an integral part of the Health and Wellbeing area of the curriculum.

The current Curriculum for Excellence Experiences and Outcomes for Health and Wellbeing set out specific learning outcomes on respect, boundaries and behaviours and what constitutes a healthy relationship. They also include learning outcomes on consent, gender stereotypes, power dynamics in relationships and where to access support if required. To support learning and teaching of these experiences and outcomes, RSHP lesson plans are available, from Education Scotland's website, that include learning about the importance of the principle of consent.

The Scottish Government has also published a resource for professionals to help them support young people aged 11-18 in their understanding of healthy relationships and consent. The Healthy relationships and consent: key messages for young people resource sets out that relationships should be mutually respectful, consensual, positive, healthy and enjoyable.

The Local Government Pension Scheme in Scotland is in a very strong position and the Scottish Government continues to engage with the 11 Scottish Local Government funds, which each have responsibility for their own investments.

We are monitoring developments in England and Wales to inform decisions around our approach to Scotland.

The Scottish Government has made £2,877,287.97 of funding available to local authorities to enable them to cancel school meal debts within their respective local areas. This sum represents the entire amounts bid for by each local authority.

29 local authorities made bids to the Scottish Government’s School Meal Debt Fund and we issued grant offer letters to them on 3 December 2024.

The amounts awarded to each local authority is set out within the following table:

The summary report on access to counsellors in secondary schools and children and young people’s community mental health services for the period January to June 2023 has now been published on the Scottish Government website at: Access to counsellors in secondary schools and children and young people’s community mental health services – summary reports - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Medical packaging, such as blister packaging, is not easily recycled due to strict regulatory requirements for pharmaceutical packaging set by the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. However, the Scottish Government is taking steps to encourage businesses to reduce the amount of packaging waste and to improve recycling through implementation of extended producer responsibility for packaging from 2025. This includes obligations for producers of pharmaceutical packaging.

The Circular Economy (Scotland) Act 2024 requires that Scottish Ministers publish a circular economy strategy, which will be developed over the next two years. In advance of that, we will shortly be publishing a final version of our circular economy and waste route map, which will set out actions to deliver sustainable use of our resources and progress a circular economy to 2030. As part of these we will continue to consider medical packaging items.

The Scottish Government payment system confirms that no funding has been provided to Stream Bioenergy in the last 5 years.