Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Scottish Government will continue to provide vital assistance to enable older people to heat their homes, to help disabled people live independent lives and will keep thousands of children out of poverty. The Scottish Government is committed to doing all it can to ensure that the finances remain on a sustainable trajectory. We have delivered a balanced budget every year since 2007, while taking forward action to improve the overall sustainability of the public finances. Scottish Ministers have been clear that this Government will continue to direct resources to the most impactful interventions to support our priorities. We will continue to drive forward our public sector reform programme to maximise the efficiency and effectiveness of our public services.

The Scottish Budget continues to support businesses, including nightclubs and music venues, with a number of measures including maintaining the Small Business Bonus Scheme which remains the most generous scheme of its kind in the UK, and a freeze to the Basic Property Rate in 2025-26 which ensures that over 95 per cent of non-domestic properties continue to be liable for a lower property tax rate than anywhere else in the UK.

Recognising the challenges faced by the hospitality sector 40 per cent relief is offered in 2025-26 for hospitality premises with a rateable value up to and including £51,000, including Grassroots Music Venues with a capacity of up to 1,500 people, capped at £110,000 per business. 100 per cent relief continues for hospitality premises located on islands, and in prescribed remote areas (Cape Wrath, Knoydart, and Scoraig), capped at £110,000 per business.

The Scottish Government continue to demonstrate steadfast support for culture and the arts in Scotland, with record-changing increases in funding for the sector. The highest ever number of artists and organisations will receive regular funding from Creative Scotland this financial year – including grassroots and community culture as well as the music sector.

The Scottish Funding Council (SFC) has a statutory duty set out in the Further and Higher Education (Scotland) Act 2005 to secure the coherent provision by the post-16 education bodies (as a whole) of a high quality of fundable further education and fundable higher education.

It is our aim to publish final outputs from the evaluation of the early adopter community (EAC) work in the second half of 2026.

As outlined in our previous answer, due to the significant financial challenges facing the Scottish Government as a result of budget choices made at Westminster, Ministers have had to make tough decisions for the current parliamentary session to protect our existing investment in childcare. This includes almost £1 billion a year for local authorities to deliver our current offer of 1140 hours of high quality, funded early learning and childcare. We are working 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 offer and investing up to £16 million over 2024-25 and 2025-26 in the six council areas participating in the EAC work.

Scotland’s National Water Scarcity Plan sets out how water resources will be managed during periods of prolonged dry weather. As part of that plan, the Scottish Government, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) and Scottish Water have established processes to monitor the situation and support those affected.

On 25 April, SEPA published the first in a series of weekly water scarcity reports to update key sectors and stakeholders on the latest position. SEPA, Scottish Water, Nature Scot and the National Farmers Union Scotland are all working to encourage water users to develop contingency plans to minimise their impact on the environment.

Public Water Supplies are largely operating as normal and, due to many years of strategic investment by Scottish Government and Scottish Water to strengthen resilience measures, Scottish Water are able to maintain supplies during prolonged dry periods to all parts of Scotland.

We recognise that there are a number of households, largely in remote and rural locations, who are serviced by private water supplies and who may be affected by water scarcity. The Scottish Government are proactively engaging with local authorities to determine if water scarcity and low water flows are having an impact on households who are reliant on private water supplies. We will continue to assess the conditions closely and liaise with local authorities where necessary.

Private sector investment in energy and infrastructure projects will be critical to realise a just transition at Grangemouth. That is why our final Just Transition Plan will seek to instruct and mobilise wider support from investors and developers, centred around the clear opportunities present at Grangemouth.

The Scottish Government welcomes the publication of Project Willow and its recommendations which set out a transformative future for parts of the Grangemouth cluster, if the public and private sectors work together.

To support this, Scottish Enterprise and the UK Office for Investment have established an “Investor Taskforce” to identify and attract investors with an interest in progressing the Project Willow proposals. I would encourage any interested investor to engage with Scottish Enterprise in the first instance to explore how any opportunity could be progressed.

Scotland’s National Water Scarcity Plan sets out how water resources will be managed prior to and during periods of prolonged dry weather ensuring the correct balance is struck between protecting the environment and providing resource for human and economic activity.

The Scottish Government are working closely with partners to provide information and guidance on emerging water scarcity issues directly to farmers and food producers. The Scottish Environment Protection Agency has sent direct communications to all agricultural abstraction licence holders providing them with an early overview of the water scarcity risks for this year and where support can be found. These direct messages will continue to be used over the summer and will be targeted to specific catchments where water scarcity becomes an issue.

The Scottish Government is actively addressing water scarcity in agriculture through the Agri-Environment Climate Scheme (AECS). The scheme promotes sustainable land management practices, including water management and water-use efficiency measures to reduce the impacts of water scarcity on the agricultural sector.

In the 2024 and 2025 rounds of AECS, applications for irrigation lagoons, which are a key measure for reducing water scarcity, were able to be made as a simplified standalone item or as part of a wider application, open until 12 June 2025. To support further uptake, in 2024 we increased the grant ceiling for irrigation lagoons from £30,000 to £40,000.

The Scottish Government funded Farm Advisory Service (FAS) and Farming and Water Scotland (FWS) programmes provides largely free information and resources for farms and crofts in Scotland. Both FAS and FWS develop and share sector-specific guidance with farmers and food produces in various formats, such as at agricultural shows, training events, podcasts, videos and in articles. Farmers and food producers can access resources related to water scarcity and water management on both the FAS and FWS websites.

Ensuring that workers and communities currently reliant on oil and gas are protected and indeed, stand to benefit from the transition to net zero is central to the rationale underlying our wider Just Transition policy.

The Grangemouth Just Transition plan will be an iterative document that is subject to ongoing monitoring and evaluation and this will inform wider policy development around the transition to net zero at a local level.

We will continue to work with stakeholders across Scotland’s energy system, doing all we can within our power to identify priority areas for action.

The detailed information requested is currently being collated and I will write to the member as soon as the information is available and a copy will be placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib number 65812).

The Scottish Government made clear to Project Willow partners that the outputs of initial work must align to its draft Grangemouth Just Transition Plan with workforce and community considerations as fundamental prerequisites.

Both the workforce and the wider community were fully engaged in the initial research informing Project Willow, and stakeholders have regularly been kept appraised of findings and progress through the Project Willow standing committee that had representation from Unite and through the Grangemouth Future Industry Board which has representation from both community and workforce members.

Going forward, workers and the wider Grangemouth community will be able to contribute to next steps of Project Willow through regular review points across the GFIB group, as part of the Just Transition process. And we continue to engage closely with trade unions, educational institutions, and workers to make progress.