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The recruitment and deployment of police officers is a matter for the Chief Constable.

Police Scotland’s three-year Business Plan 2024-2027 sets out the Chief Constable’s vision of a thriving workforce which goes beyond an overall officer headcount and that of a police workforce which includes police staff.

The Chief Constable aims to make maximum impact with a workforce that has the right skills and capacity to keep people safe. Through the Chief Constable’s workforce modernisation plan, Police Scotland are developing an operating model that will create capacity to deal with new and increasing threats by moving more officers to frontline roles, to strengthen community confidence.

The deployment of officers and staff is a matter for the Chief Constable. It is vital that the Chief Constable has the flexibility to develop her workforce to respond to new and emerging operational demands.

Investigation of reports to Police Scotland are quite rightly operational matters for the Chief Constable. Police Scotland has confirmed that every crime report is assessed for threat, harm, risk, vulnerability and for proportionate lines of investigation and evidence, as soon as it is reported.

Numerous factors will affect heat pump installation rates, including consumer demand, installer availability, and electricity load upgrades by district network operators.

We have allocated £1.63bn of funding through our Heat in Buildings schemes this Parliamentary Session while our planned introduction of a Heat in Buildings Bill later this year will strengthen awareness and understanding about the need to change.

Registers of Scotland (RoS) is a non-Ministerial Public Body answerable to the Scottish Parliament.

Scotland’s Land Information Service (ScotLIS) was created and is maintained by RoS, providing online access to information on land and property in Scotland for both public and business users.

The costs of maintaining and enhancing ScotLIS are met by RoS from fee income generated. Potential enhancements to the service are based on the needs of users – both business and citizen. To ascertain user need, RoS is in regular dialogue with customers and periodically run dedicated user research sessions focussed on ScotLIS.

Enhancements since the service first launched have included access to a Crofting Register layer, an Aerial photography map layer, the Sasines Register indicative ownership layer, the Books of Council & Session, the Register of Judgements, the Register of Inhibitions and National Library Scotland’s Historic Maps. In addition, an option for customers to self-serve copy deeds has been introduced along with modern interfaces to enable high-volume customers of RoS data to seamlessly integrate that information with their systems.

Forest Research publishes production forecasts every 5 years for softwood availability in Scotland and the UK. The most recent forecast, published in 2022, estimates that over 8 million cubic metres (m3) of softwood is currently available annually in Scotland. The current the average annual harvest is 6.82 million m3.

The volume forecast to be available annually by 2040 is expected to rise to over 12 million m3. This means that if demand increased to 10 million m3 by 2040, approximately 2 million m3 of surplus timber would still be available.

Project Willow predicts a requirement of 2.1 million m3 of feedstock by 2040 under their growth case scenario. This is just over half the predicted increase in timber availability over that period.

The Scottish Government has no plans to revisit the non-domestic rates relief policies announced for 2025-26.

Across Scotland, there is a high-level estimate that more than 164,000 homes have planning permission but have not yet been built. This has set the context for the 23 actions set out in the Planning and Housing Emergency Delivery Plan that we published last November. We are making good progress delivering across all of these actions, which relate to policy, delivery, capacity and efficiency.

As an example, we have been identifying and removing barriers on stalled housing sites. Everyone involved in planning has a role to play in accelerating delivery, so we have established a Short Life Working Group, involving industry partners, to address challenges such as flexibility on affordable housing provision, flooding, market viability, education and transport (road and rail). We are also working more intensively to broker solutions for individual sites where progress has stalled. This work is informing the priorities for the National Planning Hub, which is offering practical help for planning authorities to access specialist expertise, build professional skills and capacity, and support efficiency.

We have committed to continuing action on stalled housing sites and the Hub in the 2025-26 Programme for Government. We will also consult this year on mechanisms to accelerate house building and stimulate access to land with planning permission where building has not started. These are examples of the delivery focus and practical intervention we are taking to help build more of the homes Scotland needs sooner.

The Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office (CSO) supports open competitive grant and fellowship schemes for applied health research in Scotland across a wide remit that is inclusive of consideration of applications for funding for research relating to skin conditions such as topical steroid withdrawal. Applications submitted to these schemes are assessed through independent expert peer-review with funding recommendations made by independent expert committees. No projects for topical steroid withdrawal are currently being funded. CSO also invests in NHS Research Scotland to support NHS Boards host and participate in public, charity, and industry sector funded clinical studies and trials. This includes a Dermatology Research Network to support the delivery of clinical research on skin conditions. While a number of clinical studies of treatments for skin conditions are being supported, none relate specifically to topical steroid withdrawal.

We welcome this report from the Just Transition Commission. I set out the Scottish Government response to this report in my ministerial statement on Tuesday 3 June, confirming that we accept the headline recommendations in principle. Ahead of further just transition planning, we need clarity on the UK Government’s intentions in a range of key reserved areas, including the future regulatory and fiscal regimes for North Sea oil and gas and support for the Acorn CCUS project.

We continue to provide support to the region, including through the new £8.5 million round of the Just Transition Fund for the North East and Moray, our £125 million investment in the Aberdeen City Region Deal as well as up to £26.3m for the Energy Transition Zone through the Energy Transition Fund.

No concerns were raised at any point.