Seòmar agus comataidhean

Forestry is a major land use in Scotland for positive economic, social and environmental outcomes. Forests and woodland are some of the most biodiverse habitats in Scotland. Scotland’s forests are for example home to 172 priority species including pine marten, Scottish Crossbill, black grouse and 75% of the UK red squirrel population.

All our woodlands of all types - be it productive broadleaved, conifer, native or mixed - have the potential to contribute to biodiversity gain in Scotland. The UK Forestry Standard sets out the requirements and guidelines to achieve this. In Scotland, we are currently creating nearly 75% of all the new woodland in the UK. In 2023/24 Scotland created 15,000 ha which was the highest level in 34 years. Native woodland planting, with biodiversity outcomes as a primary objective, was at 7,700 ha which was the highest since 2001.

Degraded peatlands emit rather than capture and store carbon and lose the unique and biodiverse ecosystems they host when in good condition. That is why this government has committed £250 million to restore 250,000 hectares of degraded peatlands by 2030 as an essential element of mitigating and adapting to the linked climate and nature emergencies.

Through our flagship Peatland ACTION programme, we are making good progress towards that target. To date we have put around 90,000 hectares of degraded peat on the road to recovery including almost 15,000 hectares in 2024-25 alone – the highest amount in any single year and more than 40% up on the previous year.

Every hectare of peatland restored locks up the carbon it contains, reducing its contribution to climate change which is driving some biodiversity loss across Scotland. The rewetting, revegetating and reprofiling carried out during restoration also benefits nature directly by reinstating lost habitats and species and increasing the resilience of these wetland ecosystems to future climate change.

Integrating peatland protection, management and restoration within farming, crofting and other land uses brings benefits for climate, for nature and for people.

The law on surrogacy is reserved to Westminster. As such any changes to legislation would need to take place in the UK Parliament.

The three NHS Regional Chief Executives leading implementation for the North, East and West established a Task and Finish Group in March 2025. The Group’s membership comprises of the NHS Regional Chief executives, regional planners and service leaders bringing working knowledge and understanding of current services, to lead delivery of the work.

The remit of the group is to oversee and support national action and coordination required for delivery of Regional Implementation Plans to implement the move to three Neonatal Intensive Care units across Scotland. This includes work to develop a funding model, and work to model the additional impact on capacity in maternity services.

The group met on the 2 June 2025 and will meet monthly thereafter.

The Task and Finish Group will provide updates to and seek any collective agreement through the Board Chief Executives and Planning and Delivery Board reporting to NHS Scotland Executive Group.

There are currently no plans to run a nationwide public awareness campaign.

Occupational therapists or physiotherapists are the professions involved in Blue Badge assessments and are best placed to assess an applicant's eligibility, due to their specific training courses, accredited by their professional bodies and subsequent registration with the Health & Care Professions Council (HCPC).

Transport Scotland does not collect data on the numbers of assessors or their training records. This information would be held by individual local authorities.

Delivery of the Blue Badge scheme is the responsibility of local authorities. While Transport Scotland does not formally assess Blue Badge delivery, officials regularly engage with local Blue Badge teams and stakeholders to encourage a consistent approach to Blue Badge delivery across Scotland.

SQA Accreditation quality assures and regulates qualifications offered in Scotland. It does this by approving awarding bodies and accrediting their qualifications, ensuring that accredited qualifications are of an appropriate standard and meet the needs of learners.

Information on the types of planned NHS operations that have the highest current average waiting times is not held by Scottish Government. Public Health Scotland (PHS) uses the national waiting times datamart to collect electronic patient records covering the waits that patients experience waiting for treatment as an inpatient or day-case under the Treatment Time Guarantee.

This data source can be used routinely to identify the specialty of treatment. However, although the records are designed to collect coded information on the procedure that is planned for the patient, this information is often either incomplete, lacking in essential detail and/or its accuracy cannot be assured. Consequently, PHS is not currently able to report accurately on waiting times to this level of detail.

The table below shows the number of ongoing waits along with the median (days) and 90th percentile (days) by sex for the top five specialties that have the largest median wait across NHSScotland for all specialties covered by the Treatment Time Guarantee (TTG) at 31 March 2025.

The statistics provided include the median wait and not an average. The median is used to indicate that roughly half of patients waited less than the statistic and half of patients waited longer. The median is used because an average (mean) could potentially be skewed incorrectly by a small number of very long waits that may be recorded in error in the national data. The 90th percentile is also included; this is used to indicate that 9 out of 10 ongoing waits at month-end are waiting less than or equal to the number of days shown.

Table 1 – Total number of ongoing waits as an inpatient or day case for NHSScotland, at specialty level broken down by sex for the top five specialties (that have the highest median wait) across NHSScotland, at 31 March 2025

The potential harbour purchase sits within the ‘Vessels and Piers’ budget for 2025-26, which also includes a number of port improvements and upgrades. As previously stated in Parliament, whilst we await the outcome of the commercial negotiations between CMAL and Peel Ports, we cannot provide further information during this confidential process. I will of course update Parliament once there is progress and an outcome reached.

Delivery of the Blue Badge scheme is the responsibility of local authorities. Transport Scotland does not formally evaluate local authority operations surrounding the scheme.

The National Transport Accessibility Steering Group brings together Transport Scotland officials and stakeholders (Regional Transport Partnerships, Community Planning Partnerships, transport operators and Disabled People’s Organisations) to support the delivery of the Accessible Travel Framework (ATF). Workstream 4 of the ATF delivery plan seeks to ensure there is continuous improvement in the delivery of the Blue Badge policy.