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According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Annual Population Survey (APS), an estimated 710,700 people in Scotland aged 16 to 64 were unemployed or were economically inactive for reasons other than being a student in April 2024 to March 2025. This was an estimated 20.5% of people aged 16 to 64 in Scotland.

Table 1: Unemployed and economically inactive people aged 16 to 64 (excluding those who gave their reason for inactivity as student) by Sex, Scotland, April 2024 to March 2025

Scottish Enterprise continues to work at pace to triage enquiries and identify a route forward for viable proposals at Grangemouth, with a focus on how the public sector might be able to support the deployment of near term propositions. Ministers are receiving regular updates on the most viable proposals that have emerged from the triaging process, and ways in which they could be deployed, via the Grangemouth Investor Taskforce.

Our palliative care strategy – Palliative Care Matters for All – which is due to be published later this summer, focuses on resources to support programmes of work such as data collection, staff education and future care planning, to support organisations responsible for delivering palliative care services across Scotland. The palliative care strategy is supported by a budget of £2.05 million for 2025-26. This will support Integration Joint Boards, Health Boards, and third sector organisations such as independent hospices and care homes, to deliver high quality palliative care.

The decision to approve the donation of the surplus NHS Scotland medical supplies to Ukraine was made jointly by the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care and myself. The submission, dated 18 September 2024, was released under FOI/202500451642. The transport of the medical equipment was provided as Official Development Assistance which, according to The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD, cannot be spent on military aid and this is a rule that the UK as a whole, including Scotland, adheres to.

Public inquiries are independent of the Scottish Government. Publication of information on costs is a matter for each individual inquiry and its Chair, and is typically done via their website. For inquiries established under the Inquiries Act 2005 there is a statutory duty on the Chair to "act with regard to the need to avoid any unnecessary cost" (s. 17(3)).

The Finance and Public Affairs Committee is currently undertaking a review of the cost effectiveness of Scottish public inquiries. As part of that review, the Scottish Parliament Information Centre produced a document detailing the cost of Scottish Inquiries, which is published on the Committee's web page Cost-effectiveness of Scottish public inquiries - updated costs of 29 May 2025 (parliament.scot) The Committee also wrote to all current or ongoing inquiries asking for details of their costs. Responses were provided by the individual inquiries and have been published on the Committee's web page.

The Culture Fair Work Task Force is independent of the Scottish Government and it is not for Scottish Ministers to influence the work of the independent Chair or the Task Force. However Officials have already circulated the STUC "Freelance and Forgotten" report, together with other relevant material which may prove useful.

Ministers will examine the STUC report, together with a wide range of relevant material, when considering the Task Force's recommendations for a sectoral Culture Fair Work Agreement to further implement Fair Work in Scotland’s creative industries.

The Culture Fair Work Taskforce continues to consider recommendations for actions to further implement Fair Work First in the culture sector and Ministers expect to receive a report by the end of autumn 2025.

The shipbuilding sector plays a vital role in supporting jobs and driving economic growth across Scotland. We are committed to promoting manufacturing and innovation, and Ministers continue to engage with businesses in the sector as part of that commitment.

We are investing up to £2 million to develop engineering skills in the Glasgow City Region. This initiative has been designed by the Clyde Maritime Cluster in partnership with Skills Development Scotland.

In addition, Scottish Enterprise has recently provided a £7.4 million Research and Development grant and a £1.8 million Training Aid grant to BAE Systems to help them maximise skills development and support the establishment of a collegiate training facility which will provide access to the broader industry through the Applied Shipbuilding Academy, which is overseen by BAE Systems as custodians of the Glasgow shipyards.

Social Security Scotland is successfully delivering 16 benefits - seven of them only available in Scotland. Since it was established in 2018 it has provided essential support to help more than one million people heat their homes, feed their families and meet the additional costs of disability.

The importance of value for money is clearly stated in the unanimously agreed Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018 and was reiterated by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance in her Medium Term Financial Strategy statement on 25 June where she set out Social Security Scotland’s “focus on how to process and deliver benefits with dignity, fairness and respect, while driving important efficiency savings and ensuring that people access the support they are entitled to.”

Scottish Forestry (SF) have published “Advice on replanting sites affected by “Phytopthora ramorum”. This includes guidance on the range of different species that the owner can match to their site conditions and constraints. This gives individual owners options to help match the objectives and requirements of a site to suitable tree species.

Any felling should adhere to the requirements of the United Kingdom Forestry Standard (UKFS) and existing environmental regulation. Legislation relating to plant health matters does not override other legislative requirements – and vice versa. The Phytopthora ramorum on larch action plan also emphasises that exemptions to SPHN deadlines may be required where there are conflicts between legislation or other key principles of sustainable forest management (SFM) for example breeding seasons. Decisions on these will be taken on a case by case basis and are at the discretion of SF Conservancies.

Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) have not published specific plans to mitigate any impacts of the larch removal policy on Scotland’s National Forests and Land. FLS do consider the implications of impacts when deciding when and how to replant sites to meet objectives and requirements, and these are published in the separate Land Management Plans and associated documents submitted to SF. Land Management Plans are produced collaboratively by local planning and environment teams and balance multiple objectives. Plans consider raptor and red squirrel populations where present, and where larch removal is a major objective, generally aim to retain as much other mature conifer as reasonably practicable, considering all plan objectives in the round.