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The following table shows the total number of children and young people that were in temporary accommodation at some point during each year from 2017-18 to 2023-24.

Data on temporary accommodation placements (HL3) is only available from 2017-18.

Children and young people are defined as when a household member is aged 24 and under.

We expect to issue our response to the Scottish Human Rights Commission’s report before the Scottish Parliament's summer recess. Our response will outline the actions being taken to respect, protect and fulfil economic, social and cultural rights in the Highlands and Islands.

We acknowledge that more can be done to advance rights realisation in Scotland's Highlands and Island communities. We will continue to work closely with stakeholders, duty bearers and delivery partners to achieve this.

We recognise this is a challenging time for families. Our essential support for disabled people helps cover the costs of basic everyday living tasks. The qualifying period – which similarly applies in UK disability benefits - ensures this support is targeted to those with long-term conditions. A change to qualifying periods could undermine the fundamental purpose of Disability Assistance.

People don’t need to wait three months to apply for Child or Adult Disability Payment – they can apply as their needs happen. They also don’t need a diagnosis – if they have had the level of needs for 13 weeks when they apply, entitlement starts straight away.

The Young Patients Family Fund helps families of young inpatients cover costs of travel, food and/or accommodation and patient travel expenses reimbursement schemes support families with costs of travelling to hospital appointments. Carers receiving Carer Support Payment (CSP) can have a temporary break from caring if the person they care for is in hospital and still receive CSP. Additionally, the Children, Young People, Families and Adult Learning fund provides third sector funding to improve emotional wellbeing of young cancer patients and their families and reduce financial worries.

ScotAccount is designed with privacy in mind. As part of maintaining and securing their account, ScotAccount stores a user’s email address and telephone number. Once users have verified their identity successfully, they can also choose to save their verified personal information into their ScotAccount, if they wish to do so, to enable re-use. Currently, users can choose to store their name, date of birth and address. Users can also choose whether or not to give permission to share the personal information they have saved, with specific public services, if they seek to access an online service or benefit from that organisation. Public services cannot access personal information held in ScotAccount, without the permission of the account holder.

All accounts are subject to data processing as set out in the ScotAccount Privacy Notice, which states that information will not be held for longer than is reasonably necessary and legally justified.

There are no legal mechanisms in place to mandate the use of ScotAccount for access to public services.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-35938 on 25 April 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

Local authorities have the statutory responsibility for delivering education and for ensuring that those pupils identified with an additional support need, are fully supported to learn. Work is underway through the Additional Support for Learning Action Plan to improve the consistency of all communications regarding additional support for learning. This includes the data that is recorded and published.

Scottish Government are currently procuring a replacement for the grant funded Refugee Support Service for which we committed up to £3.6m in 2024/25. We do not intend to publish a breakdown of costs. We are currently at a sensitive point in the procurement process and providing a breakdown of costs for the delivery of the existing service could compromise this.

The information requested is not held centrally. However, data are available on the number of businesses operating in Scotland that are rest of the UK owned and Abroad owned. These estimates, sourced from the Businesses in Scotland 2024 publication, are shown in the following table.

Table 1: Registered businesses operating in Scotland, Rest of the UK and Abroad owned, 2010 to 2024

There can be no doubt that the tariffs that have been imposed by the United States will cause damage to the global, UK and Scottish economies. The USA is the most valuable export market by far for Scotch Whisky, worth £971m in 2024 (18% of total Scotch Whisky exports by value). The USA imported nearly $12 billion worth of distilled spirits in 2024, with Mexico ($5.4 bn), France ($2.1 bn) and the UK ($1.8 bn) being the largest trading partners by value. Scotch Whisky is subject to the 10% baseline tariff which may be passed through to higher prices for US consumers and weaken demand. Additionally, the uncertainty in future global trading arrangements more broadly is widely expected to lead to weaker growth, higher inflation, financial market instability and increased borrowing costs which could impact consumer confidence generally and impact demand for Scotch Whisky. We will continue to closely monitor and assess the impact of US tariff policy on Scotland’s exports across key sectors, including Scotch Whisky.