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The Scottish Government is providing an additional £500,000 funding in 2025-26 to improve access to neurodevelopmental support for children, young people and their families. In line with the National Neurodevelopmental Specification, such support is not dependent on a diagnosis of a specific neurodevelopmental condition, and is based on support needs.

Regarding FASD specifically, we have provided £216,500 of grant funding to the FASD Hub in Scotland which provides support, training and advice to families, carers and professionals supporting children affected by FASD.

We also provided the Fetal Alcohol Advisory Support and Training Team (FAASTT) with grant funding of £403,500 to allow the delivery of training to improve knowledge, attitudes and confidence in professionals working with individuals with FASD.

Both organisations have been allocated the same amount of funding in 2025-26.

The Scottish Government has not provided any specific funding to NHS boards to support testing for people who may have been affected by exposure to diethylstilbestrol.

Cervical screening is offered to women who live in Scotland and are aged between 25 and 64 years. The Scottish Government encourages all women to take up routine cervical screening appointments when invited.

Pregnant women who know that they were exposed in utero to DES should inform their obstetrician and be aware of the increased risks of ectopic pregnancy and preterm labour.

The Heroes of Net Zero campaign was raised to me in a meeting in 2024.

Ideas for future communications campaigns are discussed with teams involved in Let’s Do Net Zero. The suggestion has not been taken forward this year.

The Scottish Government publishes statistics on the numbers of homes that have been empty for 6 month or more annually. The local authority breakdown is available from the Scottish Government website at: Housing statistics: Second homes and empty properties - gov.scot.

Scotland’s aerospace, defence, marine and space sectors are vital to national security and economic growth. Since 2006-07, over £90m has been invested through enterprise agencies. Recent examples include: £9.22m to BAE Systems to support a skills academy, part of a project to modernise shipyards on the Clyde; £9m to ZeroAvia for green aircraft engine manufacturing, creating 350 jobs and building on a £20m Scottish National Investment Bank investment; up to £2m for engineering skills in Glasgow; and over £300k to boost space sector innovation. Ministers also continue to engage on UK Government initiatives such as the UK Defence Industrial Strategy.

We have not set out any Good Food Nation key groups. We have established a Ministerial Working Group on Food, which consists of ministers whose portfolio touches on food policy, as well as an official level working group. Both of these groups are strictly for managing the internal workings of government and improving cross-portfolio collaboration. One of the main aims of the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act 2022 is to ensure joined up and coherent policy making in relation to food. This will require extensive engagement with a wide range of stakeholders within and outwith the Scottish Government to ensure the views of those with an interest are taken into account. This will include agricultural stakeholders and food producers as they all have a key part to play in meeting the ambitious Outcomes set out in the national Good Food Nation Plan, particularly around ensuring our food and drink sector is prosperous, diverse, innovative and vital to national and local economic and social wellbeing.

I refer the member to the answers to questions S6W-42039 and S6W-42047 on 1 December 2025.

The Scottish Government values our dedicated, caring and professional social care workforce.

The Scottish Government has not made any assessments on the impact of any issues involving care packages on the social care workforce. Whilst the Scottish Government has overall responsibility for health and social care support policy in Scotland, it is for local Integration Joint Boards (IJBs) to ensure that social care support services are in place to provide their population with the appropriate support in the right place and at the right time.

The SPCB is responsible for funding the members’ expenses scheme and for determining which indices are used to uprate the overall provisions, including staff cost provision. This arrangement is set out in the Scheme as agreed by Parliament.  The Scheme rules allow the SPCB to uprate the provision annually using that appropriate index. They do not provide the SPCB the scope to change the staff cost provision in any other manner.

The Staff Cost Provision is provided to Members to facilitate their employment of staff to support them in carrying out their parliamentary duties.  

It is then for Members, as individual employers (noting that the SPCB is not the employer of Members’ staff), to determine their staffing structure and staff salaries within the requirements of the Scheme, including any cost of living pay award, as long as it is affordable within the capped annual provision. 

The SPCB did increase the Staff Cost Provision in 2021 by the equivalent cost of one full-time member of staff with effect from the start of Session 6 - Allowances - Expenses Scheme Resolution.  This followed an evidence-based review of the provision.

Payments regarding Scottish MPs’ staff are covered by the ‘Scheme of MPs’ Staffing and Business Costs’, responsibility for which rests with the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), which has responsibility for setting arrangement across a wide range of MPs’ financial matters.

It should also be noted that there are key differences between the two schemes including what is and is not covered regarding provisions for staff, meaning that a like for like comparison is not possible. For example, the Scottish Parliament scheme meets NI and pension payments separately while these are paid by MPs from within the IPSA staff cost provision.

In the financial year 2024-25, we provided £216,500 of grant funding to the FASD Hub in Scotland which provides support, training and advice to families, carers and professionals supporting children affected by FASD. This hub is the first of its kind in the UK.

We also provided the Fetal Alcohol Advisory Support and Training Team (FAASTT) with grant funding of £403,500 to allow the delivery of training to improve knowledge, attitudes and confidence in professionals working with individuals with FASD.

Both organisations have been allocated the same amount of funding in 2025-26 to continue to deliver the activity outlined above.