Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Scottish Government’s expenditure on international letter postage for each year from 2021 is as follows.

The Scottish Government funds the National Autism Implementation Team (NAIT), which is currently supporting NHS Boards to develop, enhance and redesign existing local adult neurodevelopmental services. We continue scope the work required to improve Adult Neurodevelopmental Pathways nationally, understanding that a stepped care model is needed to reduce waiting times for adult neurodevelopmental assessments and ensure a consistent approach to them across Scotland.

We continue to fund NHS Education for Scotland and NAIT to deliver professional learning on neurodevelopmental conditions. Training is offered at informed, enhanced, specialist, and expert levels, with strong uptake across all tiers.

Transport Scotland has had no requests for support from Argyll and Bute Council regarding the closure of the B8035. Transport Scotland has responsibility for the trunk road network, and as such has no responsibility for the maintenance or repair of any local road.

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.

Ultimately, it is for locally elected representatives to make local decisions on how best to deliver services to their local communities.

The Scottish Growth Scheme (SGS) was established in December 2018 and operational during financial year 2019-20, being set-up to provide early-stage equity and debt to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) across Scotland. To date, the Scottish Government has committed £97 million to the SGS, which is deployed via five commercial fund managers.

Scottish Government has invested the following totals across SGS fund managers:

• 2023-24 - £14.3 million
• 2024-25 - £5.9 million
• 2025-26 – anticipated to total £9.2 million

In summer 2024, at the end of the initial capitalisation period of the SGS, a decision was taken not recapitalise four of the five SGS fund managers. This decision was taken due to the presence of similar public investment offerings and recapitalisation of the SGS could be seen as duplicative which would not be an efficient use of public funds. It should be stated that this decision was taken at the end of the capitalisation period and all fund managers not recapitalised will continue to manage the existing investment portfolio until 2029, as originally agreed.

In closing the fund manager who was recapitalised offered a point of separation from other public sector supported investment offerings, focusing on supporting innovative globally ambitious Scottish companies access key growth equity investment from international markets. This fund manager will continue to manage their initial portfolio to completion until March 2029 but have also been recapitalised and are therefore able to make new investments into companies which align with their investment strategy.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-40003 on 8 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.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

SPS has a zero-tolerance approach to violence towards staff and has support mechanisms in place to assist prison officers who have been affected by it. Incidents of criminality are reported to Police Scotland and SPS will actively seek prosecution.

Following the successful pilot of Body Worn Video Cameras at 3 prison sites, cameras are to be rolled out across the prison estate which will include HMP Greenock.

The cameras will complement an already well established range of staff training, security systems and clear operating procedures used to promote and support safety for everyone working and living in prisons.

The Scottish Government’s decision-making throughout the COVID-19 vaccination programme has been guided by the expert clinical advice of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).

In its statement of 8 April 2024 the JCVI stated it no longer advised an offer of COVID-19 vaccination for unpaid carers and household contacts of people with immunosuppression. As a result, unpaid carers and household contacts of people with immunosuppression were removed from the programme as of winter 2024-25. This position is consistent across all UK nations, and remains unchanged for winter 2025-26.

The reasons the JCVI no longer advised the inclusion of these groups are:

• that the indirect benefits of vaccination (vaccinating an individual in order to reduce the risk of severe disease in other people) became less evident compared with previous years due to high levels of population immunity;
• the fact that vaccines provide moderate protection against severe COVID-19 for a few months;
• protection against mild symptomatic infection is much more limited in terms of peak protection and duration of protection and that with the evidence available, protection against transmission is extremely limited.

In its statement of 14 November 2024, the JCVI once more updated its advice on eligibility for COVID-19 vaccination and for winter 2025-26 the following groups remain eligible:

• Residents in care homes for older adults
• All adults aged 75 years and over
• Individuals aged 6 months and over who are immunosuppressed (as defined in the 'immunosuppression' sections of tables 3 and 4 in the COVID-19 chapter of the Green Book).

The statement advised that the COVID-19 vaccination programme should now move to JCVI's standard cost effectiveness assessment, as per other routine vaccination programmes.

Furthermore, over the last four years, population immunity to COVID-19 has been increasing due to a combination of naturally acquired immunity following recovery from infection and vaccine-derived immunity. COVID-19 is now a relatively mild disease for most people, though it can still be unpleasant, with rates of hospitalisation and death from COVID-19 having reduced significantly since it first emerged. This has led to a more refined approach to the targeting of the COVID-19 vaccination programme, with a focus on individuals where there is good evidence of a high risk of hospitalisation and/or mortality.

The Scottish Government encourages those eligible to take up the offer of COVID-19 vaccination.

Based on current planning, in early 2026, Scotland will become the first country in the UK to begin an in service evaluation (ISE) of Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) screening. Under the plans, all babies in Scotland will be offered screening for the condition for at least the next two years.

The Scottish Government recognises that SMA can be devastating for babies and families, and supports any intervention that can be shown to improve the quality of life for those affected.

While there is evidence around the benefits of SMA screening, the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) requires further supporting evidence before it can recommend it as a long term part of the newborn screening programme.

This ISE will allow the NHS to potentially find and treat babies with SMA earlier than they otherwise might have, and will generate valuable data to inform the UK NSC’s final recommendation on SMA screening.

The evidence generated by the Scottish ISE will be submitted to the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), which will analyse it alongside data from the planned SMA ISE in England.

The available information on the recorded landings of UK vessels by species and district landed into Scotland in 1986 are published in table 6 of the Scottish Sea Fisheries Statistics 1986:

https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/statistics/2020/11/sea-fisheries-statistics-1922-2010/documents/1986/1986/govscot%3Adocument/1986.pdf

There is no information available for 1986 on the recorded landings of foreign vessels into Scotland in 1986 by species and district landed.

The available information on recorded landings by species and district landed into Scotland for 1996 are published in tables 12 (for UK vessels) and 26 (for foreign vessels) of the Scottish Sea Fisheries Statistics 1996:

https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/statistics/2020/11/sea-fisheries-statistics-1922-2010/documents/1996/1996/govscot%3Adocument/1996.pdf

The recording landings in tonnes for all vessels into west coast ports in Scotland for the requested species by district in 2006 are as follows:

I can confirm that the next phase in Scotland’s programme to decarbonise the railway network will involve the electrification of sections on the Fife and Borders railways. Works are already underway, with significant progress being made on the electrification of the line between Haymarket and Dalmeny. This forms part of the Scottish Government’s sustained investment in Scotland’s rail infrastructure and represents the initial phase of enabling works for the future electrification of the Fife Circle services.

The Scottish Government’s ongoing commitment to electrification supports the deployment of electric and battery-electric trains. I can further confirm that ScotRail has been authorised to initiate a procurement exercise for a new electric Suburban Fleet. This procurement will facilitate the replacement of trains currently operating on the Borders Railway and in Fife, as well as replace some of Glasgow’s Suburban trains. ScotRail expects to issue a contract notice for the Suburban Fleets in Autumn 2025.

This latest Scottish Government investment will be in excess of £342 million and demonstrates our continuing commitment to making Scotland’s railway even greener, with greater capacity and reliability.