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The Scottish Government have required the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) to undertake visits to slaughter facilities since 2022 to monitor operations and ensure welfare of salmon at time of killing. The Scottish Government’s guidance on Welfare at the Time of Killing in Salmon Farming is based on the recommendations made by the UK Government's Animal Welfare Committee and developed in partnership with the Scottish farmed salmon industry, APHA, and animal welfare organisations. Any suspected incidences of poor welfare would be reported to the Animal and Plant Health Agency which would investigate and take action if required.

Children and young people learn about a variety of substances, including nicotine products, through Curriculum for Excellence. Through educating young people about substance use and the impact it can have on their life and health, this will help prevent them making unhealthy choices

The Scottish Government continue to work with Young Scot and other third sector organisations to ensure that young people, their teachers, parents and carers have access to accurate, evidence based, information on nicotine products.

The powers in the Health (Tobacco, Nicotine etc and Care) (Scotland) Act 2016 could have been exercised to make regulations to prohibit or restrict domestic advertising and promotion of vapes, however this would not have captured the range of nicotine products now available on the market. The UK-wide Tobacco and Vapes Bill (“the Bill”), if passed, will introduce new restrictions on age of sale for all nicotine products and the advertising, sponsorship, free distribution and nominal pricing of vapes and nicotine products across the 4 nations.

New powers in the Bill will also empower the Secretary of State to regulate brand sharing in relation to vapes and nicotine products across the UK, with the consent of Scottish Ministers. The Bill will extend the Tobacco and Vapes retailer register in Scotland to cover all nicotine products

An update on implementation timescales for the Bill will be provided following Royal Assent.

We do not set an annual budget for marketing campaigns for smoking cessation and this would form part of the overall budget for tobacco and smoking, which since 2023-24 has been £2.93 million. The Scottish Government ran Community Pharmacy poster campaigns promoting the free Quit Your Way Scotland (QYWS) service in 2022-23 (£15,288) and 2023-24 (£16,544). The initiative encouraged individuals to engage with their local pharmacists for tailored support and advice on quitting smoking. As part of the implementation of the Tobacco and Vaping Framework we committed to continue to support, promote and review Community Pharmacy cessation campaigns.

A series of campaigns led by Public Health Scotland (PHS) have also promoted the QYWS. Including a national campaign in February 2024 to increase awareness of, and engagement with the free QYWS service and, most recently, an organic social media campaign in August 2025 to raise awareness among pregnant women, their partners, and families of the support available to quit smoking. Spend and evaluation for PHS’ campaigns are not held centrally.

The Scottish Government does not have data on the number of enquiries or support sought as a result of these awareness raising campaigns.

The Scottish Government provides funding annually to Health Boards for smoking cessation and prevention services as part of a wider Outcomes Framework allocation, whereby budget is provided to Health Boards to cover a range of outcomes. It is up to Health Boards to decide how much of this funding to allocate to each outcome. The published Scottish Budget for 2025-26 includes £72.2 million for the Outcomes Framework.

In 2023-24 PHS statistics from NHS Stop Smoking Services showed there were 30,319 attempts to stop smoking, a 12.4% increase from 2022-23. Data is not yet available for 2025-26.

A Minute of Appointment, following recall of this appeal, setting out the process by which Scottish Ministers considered the case should proceed, was received by DPEA on 24 June 2025 and dated as such. The Minute was published to the DPEA website on 4 July 2025.

DPEA deals with a number of appeals and other case types and receives a high volume of correspondence on a daily basis. It is not always possible for DPEA to process and upload all documentation received in its casework to the public website as soon as received.

On 24 June 2025, Scottish Ministers issued a Minute of Appointment, setting out their instructions to the independent Reporter, about how the appeal in respect of Lomond Banks should proceed.

There have been no redundancy payments for staff in the Scottish Government’s international offices in any year since 2021.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

Scotland’s Adoption Register (SAR) publishes quarterly statistics and annual reports on the number of matches of children and young people with adoptive parents through SAR on their website.

Their Annual Report for 2024-2025, shows that, through SAR, there were 81 matches of children and young people with adoptive parents in 2020-2021, 71 matches in 2021-2022, 61 matches in 2022-2023, 62 matches in 2023-2024, and 35 matches in 2024-2025. SAR does not publish data on matches by age group.

The information requested is not held centrally.

The preferred source for data on business closures is the annual Office for National Statistics (ONS) Business Demography series, the latest edition is available at: Business demography, UK - Office for National Statistics. Business closures are a proxy for the number of businesses closed down. Business closures are measured as businesses removed from the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR), which is a database of all businesses registered for Value-Added-Tax (VAT) and/or Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE) income tax. A business is removed from the IDBR if its turnover and employment are zero for several periods, or if the ONS is notified that the business has ceased trading through an administrative or survey source.

Note that the annual publication does not include data for the Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing sector. However, business closures for the Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing sector are included as part of the quarterly ONS Business Demography series – these data for Scotland are provided in table 1. We don’t have access to disaggregated quarterly data for the agricultural, forestry and fishing sectors separately.

It is important to note that the quarterly ONS Business Demography series is classed as official statistics in development. Official statistics in development are official statistics that are in the testing phase and are not yet fully developed, and will potentially have a wider degree of uncertainty. In particular, the last four quarters of the ONS series are provisional and are subject to future revision. Revisions can arise due to business reactivations as later information on business turnover or employment is received.

Table 1: Business Closures – Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing – Scotland

The delivery of the McCloud Remedy is the key priority for the SPPA, balancing the significant and complex work associated with delivery alongside routine administration of public service pensions - those for teachers, police, firefighters and health service workers.

The scale of challenge that SPPA has faced in delivering the McCloud Remedy cannot be overstated and is one shared by other public sector pension scheme managers across the UK. Although progress is being made, SPPA took the difficult decision to extend the target date of 31 July 2025 for delivery to retired police officers to the end of 2025.

I have asked Stephen Pathirana, Chief Executive of the Scottish Public Pensions Agency, to respond to specific points. His response is as follows:

The delivery of RSS facilitates the choice of benefits members may take, and they have a period of 12 months to make it. When that election is made, SPPA aim to make any necessary adjustments to pension benefits as soon as reasonably practicable. Any pension arrears payable to members includes interest calculated from the date the arrears arose.

With the large number of individuals in scope of the McCloud remedy, it has been necessary for communications to retired members to be managed through the SPPA website rather than being targeted but communications plans are being refined following engagement with stakeholders.

SPPA has published timelines for the delivery of RSS. These are available on the SPPA website and will be kept up to date.