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The Scottish Government aims to resource all of its agencies to deliver on their key statutory duties and frontline services for the people of Scotland. In SEPA’s case, resourcing includes Grant in Aid funding, as agreed by Parliament, through the approval of annual budget bills as well as funding raised by SEPA through its various charging schemes.

It is for SEPA to determine how it allocates funding to deliver against each of its priorities. Implementation of the integrated authorisation framework, as set out under the Environmental Authorisation (Scotland) Regulations, was identified as a high priority in SEPA’s 2024-27 Corporate Plan. In each year that the Corporate Plan covers, SEPA’s annual operating plans will set out how resources will be allocated.

I refer to the answers I provided to questions S6W-39428 on 28 July 2025 and S6W-39996 on 3 September 2025 and confirm that Crown Estate Scotland is responsible for managing seabed leasing for offshore wind and other marine renewable energy developments. Therefore, the process for leasing the seabed, as well as the criteria underpinning it, is a matter for Crown Estate Scotland.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-40144 on 10 September 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.

At this time, there are no defined plans to incorporate AI into the RP&S platform. The Agriculture Reform Programme is currently leading the development of a Future Operating Model for ARE which is carefully considering the capabilities required to deliver the Vision for Agriculture/policy objectives. This will include fully exploring the use of appropriate digital capabilities and technologies which can improve our services and the customer experience of our users however as stated at this time, there are no plans to incorporate AI into the RP&S platform.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-40144 on 10 September 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.

Scottish Government is working closely with industry to refresh the Life Sciences Strategy for Scotland 2025 Vision which was published in 2017. The new strategy will set out ambitions for the Life Sciences in Scotland from 2025 - 2035 and is expected to be published in the Autumn of this year.

The Scottish Government last met with the Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Sustainable Funding Project Board on 14 November 2024.

The items discussed were the Delivering Equally Safe Fund, the next steps for consideration of the funding recommendations from the Independent Review of Funding and Commissioning of VAWG Services and the future of the Project Board.

Following the meeting, the VAWG Sustainable Funding Project Board was stood down and a short-life working group established to oversee the development of a VAWG Needs Assessment Tool.

Regular updates on progress are provided to the Equally Safe Joint Strategic Board, the advisory and oversight body for the Equally Safe strategy, which is co-chaired by the Equalities Minister and the COSLA Spokesperson for Community Wellbeing.

The Warmer Homes Scotland scheme has a key performance indicator (KPI) recording the percentage of customer journeys, from referral by the Energy Saving Trust to completion of installation for full jobs, completed within 65 working days.

In the Highlands and Islands region, there are currently 9 Historic Environment Scotland sites which are temporarily closed. Within the Highlands and Islands region, there are no Historic Environment Scotland sites which are permanently closed.

The temporarily closed sites are:

Aberdeenshire Council:

Glenbuchat Castle

Huntly Castle

Comhairle nan Eilean Siar:

Kisimul Castle

Highland Council:

Castle of Old Wick

Moray Council:

Bishops House, Elgin

Dallas Dhu Distillery

Orkney Islands Council:

Eynhallow Church

Tormiston Mill

Shetland Islands Council:

Scalloway Castle

Any further queries from the member regarding the day-to-day operational matters of Historic Environment Scotland, including information relating to any repair and maintenance works of any specific site, are best answered directly by Historic Environment Scotland.

Any action which the Scottish Government takes on public procurement must comply with obligations in applicable international agreements.

It has been the consistently expressed view of the Scottish Government that the exploitation of assets in illegally occupied territories is likely to constitute grave professional misconduct for the purposes of public procurement law. This would give rise to grounds to exclude a bidder engaged in such conduct from procurement processes. Any decision to exclude such a bidder, is however, one for the contracting authority awarding the contract in question, and must be taken following assessment of available evidence. I have asked officials to refresh our guidance to public bodies on this point.

Following the publication in 2020 of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights' database of companies believed to be active in listed activity in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the Scottish Government wrote to all Scottish public bodies, asking them to identify any companies on the database with whom they had a relevant and ongoing relationship.

As Minister for Business, Trade, Tourism and Enterprise, I wrote to those identified companies in June 2022, asking them to explain what they were doing to cease the specific activities which had led to their inclusion in that database.

Last year, the Minister for Business wrote to Scottish public bodies in October, advising them that the database had been updated, and that it should be used as part of their due diligence processes.

On 3 September, the First Minister outlined a range of measures which the Scottish Government is taking in response to the situation in Gaza. This includes pausing the payment of new business grants to, or investment in, companies involved in the design, production, supply, and support of military equipment, technologies and services, whose products or services are provided to specific identified countries, where there is plausible evidence of genocide being committed by that country.

The First Minister also called on the UK Government to prohibit the import of goods produced in Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.