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Supporting families through access to high quality, affordable and accessible childcare is critical to the First Minister’s mission of eradicating child poverty. That is why, since 2021, the Scottish Government has prioritised investment of £1 billion per year in funded Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) for all 3- and 4-year-olds, 5-year-olds whose entry to primary school has been deferred, and those 2-year-olds who need it most.

Scotland is the only part of the UK to already offer 1,140 hours a year of funded ELC to all 3 and 4-year-olds and eligible 2-year-olds regardless of their parents’ working status – putting children first. If families paid for this offer themselves, it would cost them more than £6,000 per eligible child per year.

Scotland continues to face one of the most difficult public spending environments since devolution. Despite this the Scottish Government remains committed to reaching more younger children with funded ELC that need it most, and the Programme for Government, published on 6 May 2025, set out that this year we will work with local authorities to maximise uptake of our existing offer for eligible 2-year-olds to ensure that as many children as possible benefit from the current offer.

In terms of planning for a future potential expansion, we are investing up to £16 million over 2 years within 23 Early Adopter Communities (EACs), across 6 local authority areas. The EACs are helping the Scottish Government and our local partners to understand what it takes to deliver childcare systems that support families with children from the early years to the end of primary school. This work is expanding access to affordable childcare for low-income families with children and evaluating the difference this can make.

It is important to recognise that the UK Government’s offer is not an expansion of universal childcare for all children under three. The new entitlement is only available to working families in England - those where parents earn at least the National Minimum Wage or Living Wage and work for 16 hours a week on average. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has made clear that, despite billions of investment by the UK Government, “the poorest one third of families will see almost no direct benefit from the new entitlements”. The difference in entitlements between the UK Government and Scottish Government reflects the Scottish Government’s policy intention that access to more hours of funded ELC is an investment in all children’s later outcomes - underpinned by national and international evidence.

The information requested on how many staff it has qualified to deliver cataract surgery in 2025, and how this compares with 2015 is not held centrally.

Information requested on how many Ophthalmology consultants are employed from 2015 to 2025 can be found on the TURAS NHS Education for Scotland workforce statistics site at: NHS Scotland workforce | Turas Data Intelligence.

The dates of Scottish Screening Committee (SSC) meetings since January 2023 are listed below and hyperlinked to the published minutes where available.

18 April 2023 Scottish Screening Committee minutes

The SSC last met on 6 March 2024. The minutes for this meeting are due to be published shortly.

I can confirm that the initial release of an online app for Health and Social Care will be in December 2025. This is set out in our Operational Improvement Plan, as well as in the answer to question S6W-38145 on 11 June 2025.

Secure login using a unique ID through Scot Account

• Receive digital letters from the dermatology team
• View dermatology appointments
• Access personal health information, including demographics, medications and allergies
• Use a national service finder to locate health and care services

All Territorial Boards can now provide their GPs with access to the new Digital Dermatology Pathway. Supplier data suggests that as of 18 July, 627 GP practices (71%) across 13 Territorial Boards have access to the pathway, of which 423 have used this to capture images as part of a referral to secondary care. The remaining Territorial Board has an existing pathway in place.

The operation of Police Scotland, including the deployment of staffing, is a matter for the Chief Constable, who is supported by the Scottish Government to shape the workforce in response to operational needs. The latest official statistics show there were 16,553 FTE police officers in Scotland on 31 March 2025.

There are already a wide range of effective actions currently available to Police Scotland to prevent and reduce bike theft, empowering officers to lawfully pursue and tactically engage thieves, where it is deemed necessary. Theft is a criminal offence under Scots law, which has developed over centuries through operation of the courts rather than being provided for in statute.

The UK Government is responsible for national security, the regulation of international trade, elements of critical national infrastructure including energy, and the application of the National Security and Investment Act.

It is a priority for us to secure inward investment where it is possible to do so. We are engaging closely with the UK Government to understand the progress it is making in considering the security implications of Chinese and other potential foreign investment in energy-related infrastructure.

Regarding the use of Hikvision cameras by public sector bodies, councils and public bodies are separate from the Scottish Government. Therefore, as long as they act lawfully, each public body is accountable for its own decisions in relation to day to day business, including procurement competitions.

Public procurement regulations specifically allow for companies to be excluded from tendering, where it can be demonstrated by appropriate means that they are guilty of grave professional misconduct. The Scottish Government expects all public sector bodies to undertake appropriate due diligence on companies in receipt of public money. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of public sector bodies to make decisions on how best to deliver services to their communities.

The tool is currently live in six territorial boards, and work is continuing to implement the tool for the remaining territorial health boards and National Hospital Golden Jubilee. In line with the NHS Scotland Operational Improvement Plan (https://www.gov.scot/publications/nhs-scotland-operational-improvement-plan/pages/1/), all territorial health boards, and National Hospital Golden Jubilee, have been scheduled into the current theatre scheduling tool rollout plan, as at the end of June 2025.

For the purpose of this request, the Scottish Government has classified four medications as being widely recommended for use for weight loss in Scotland. Three of these medications (Mounjaro®, Saxenda®, Wegovy®) are Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (aka GLP-1s or GLP-RAs) and the other is tetrahydrolipstatin, also known by its brand name orlistat.

Data provided by Public Health Scotland (PHS) indicates that the number of patients who have received items paid as Mounjaro®, Saxenda®, Wegovy® or orlistat in Scotland in the period from Jan to Mar 2025 and dispensed from community pharmacies is as follows:

During my visit, I raised concerns about China’s human rights record.

Any foreign country that operates within Scotland, must abide by Scottish law. The Scottish Government fully supports individuals’ rights to freedom of expression, which is an extremely important principle.

Investigations into infringements of law and civil rights are a matter for law enforcement agencies. As a matter of long-standing policy we will not comment on the detail of security.