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Addressing violence against women and girls remains a key focus of the Scottish Government through the Equally Safe strategy, which is co-owned with COSLA. The Equally Safe strategy focuses on violence and abusive behaviour carried out predominately by men and directed at women and girls precisely because they are women and girls. It explicitly lays out that to tackle this violence and abuse, we need to prioritise addressing the root causes of gender inequality, challenging outdated stereotypes and societal attitudes that allow violence against women and girls to persist. That is why Equally Safe places emphasis on challenging gender inequality and norms, and the underpinning attitudes that perpetuate and condone such violence. Under the auspices of Equally Safe, we have strengthened the law in relation to violence against women and girls; and we have taken forward a great deal of work to ensure those working in the public sector are equipped with the resource and knowledge to confidently and sensitively work with those affected.

Specifically, we are implementing the Equally Safe Delivery Plan. The delivery plan consists of 14 deliverables and associated actions which represent a commitment to act from partners across the public and third sector at a local and national level. The plan covers the period from Summer 2024 to Spring 2026. This collaborative approach is vital as it is essential that all spheres of society are involved in the work to tackle violence against violence against women and girls. Development of the delivery plan was informed by extensive engagement with our stakeholders, both internally and externally - including with Public Health Scotland, the Improvement Service, those working within the specialist violence against women sector, COSLA and its allied organisations, and the Equally Safe Joint Strategic Board.

Additionally, we have confirmed that the Delivering Equally Safe Fund will be extended into 2025-26, benefiting from a £2.4m uplift, taking the total Scottish Government investment in the Delivering Equally Safe Fund up to £21.6m for the year ahead. The Delivering Equally Safe fund supports the work of the Equally Safe strategy, which underpins Scotland’s approach to preventing and eradicating violence against women and girls. It supports 115 projects from 107 organisations across every local authority in Scotland.

Further to my answer to S6W-36894 on 13 May 2025, we understand that significant financial investment would be required to retain refinery operations at Grangemouth. Given the expansive fiscal levers at its disposal, the UK Government must utilise all routes to securing a sustainable future for the Refinery site.

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

Council tax is a local tax, set and administered by individual local authorities, who had full flexibility in setting rates for 2025-26. The Scottish Government’s policy towards local authorities’ spending is to allow local authorities the financial freedom to operate independently. It is for locally elected representatives to make local decisions on how best to deliver services to their local communities. There will be no reduction in the local government finance settlement as a result of extended producer responsibility for packaging payments in the first year of the scheme (2025-26).

This matter is still subject to ongoing judicial proceedings, as such, it would not be appropriate for Scottish Government officials or Ministers to comment.

We expect all NHS Scotland Boards to operate with the highest standards of transparency, accountability and compliance with employment and equalities legislation.

The statutory responsibility for delivering, commissioning and providing appropriate social care services at a local level lies with local authorities and Health and Social Care Partnerships taking account of local population needs. However the Scottish Government understands the growing concerns about the challenges around the availability of social care services, particularly in rural areas, and is committed to developing a sustainable health and social care system that ensures people get the right care, at the right time, in the right place.

That is why the 2025-26 budget includes over £15 billion for the Local Government Settlement and almost £2.2 billion for social care and integration – exceeding our commitment to increase funding by 25% by almost £350 million. At £21.7 billion, the overall financial envelope for Health and Social Care also reached record levels.

Furthermore in the Programme for Government 2025 to 2026, we have committed to ensuring that social care workers, who are delivering direct care in commissioned services, continue to be paid at least the Real Living Wage.

We do however recognise the considerable current financial pressures facing the care home and wider social care sectors. These pressures have been significantly compounded by decisions taken by the UK Government, such as the increase in employers National Insurance contributions (eNICs) and changes to the social care visa system and salary threshold levels.

The Scottish Government and COSLA continue to press the UK Government to fund the impacts of these changes on Scottish public services in full; this includes the vital services provided on behalf of local authorities by social care providers in the private and third sectors.

The Scottish Government is undertaking a programme of work to understand and respond to these pressures facing the sector. This includes a new social care Financial Viability Response Group, which has met weekly since February 2025 and comprises sector representatives such as Scottish Care, Coalition of Care and Support Providers in Scotland (CCPS), Care Inspectorate and local leaders.

As well as this I, alongside the COSLA Health and Social Care Spokesperson, jointly host a monthly roundtable meeting with sector partners to consider the potential impacts of the eNICs and financial viability pressures on the social care sector.

That work is ongoing, but the Scottish Government is committed to working closely with partners to continue to identify the pro-active steps that can be taken to mitigate these impacts, protect services and support the people in receipt of care.

Following a debate in Parliament on 26 February, a Parliamentary motion was passed calling on Scottish Enterprise to “review its human rights due diligence checks to ensure that they take account of where products’ end use is, and that they fully comply with legal obligations under the Export Control Act 2002 and international law”.

The Scottish Government supported this motion. Scottish Enterprise’s work on that review is ongoing and the Scottish Government will continue to stay in close contact with it on this.

The licencing of exports of military technology, including for Scottish-based companies, is a reserved matter over which the Scottish Government has no control. We have repeatedly called on the UK Government to place an immediate ban on licenced arms exports from the United Kingdom to Israel and will continue to do so. The UK Government’s decision, announced on 2 September 2024, to suspend 30 export licences to Israel for arms used in military operations in Gaza, was therefore welcome, but we have been clear that it should go much further.

Scottish Government officials are involved in a number of initiatives with UK Government focussed on the interaction between on and offshore windfarms and aviation radar systems.

Officials from the Scottish Government work with stakeholders, including the Ministry of Defence and industry representatives, through the Offshore Wind Industry Council (OWIC) Aviation and Radar sub-group. For offshore wind farms, the Ministry of Defence has launched Programme Njord to identify, procure and implement mitigation to resolve issues with military radar. The full costs of the long-term radar mitigation solutions identified by Programme Njord will be funded via an alternative route and the funding requirement is therefore removed from offshore wind developers.

The Scottish Government is also working with UK Government to ensure alignment between the Onshore Wind Sector Deal and the UK Government’s Onshore Wind Taskforce to help develop consistent and transparent aviation mitigation processes and deliver the deployment of onshore wind while ensuring safe aviation operations.

Scottish Enterprise’s approach to net zero conditionality is compatible with the aims of the Paris Climate Agreement and has been developed in recognition that Scotland’s business base is at different stages of net zero maturity.

Companies are asked to quantify their scope 1, scope 2 and available scope 3 carbon emissions and to share their plan to reduce these to net zero by 2045. This is considered to be proportionate, and is designed to act as a prompt for those companies at the beginning of their net zero journey.

Scottish Enterprise encourages businesses to go further by including wider scope 3 emissions, by accelerating their net zero ambition or by seeking external certification of their plan through a scheme such as SBTi.

Aviation radar issues are a key consideration by Scottish Ministers in determining planning and consenting applications for on and offshore renewable energy developments. Scottish Government officials work with applicants and stakeholders to ensure the potential impacts on aviation radars from the developments are suitably assessed and mitigated.

The Scottish Onshore Wind Sector Deal contains commitments aiming to lower barriers to deployment arising from aviation radar related issues. OnWARD 2030 is the delivery body for commitments related to aviation and it has recently published its recommendations to set out a proactive, transparent, and consistent approach to the management of aviation issues relating to onshore wind developments. The Scottish Government is working with the UK Government to review these recommendations.

Prior to the Refinery’s closure, we understood that significant financial investment would be required to retain refinery operations at Grangemouth. Noting the fiscal constraints within which Scottish Ministers are required to operate, such an intervention would clearly require UK Government action.

Given the expansive fiscal levers at its disposal, the UK Government must exhaust all options at its disposal to ensure a future for the Refinery site.