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The Scottish Government provides an annual grant to Scottish Mountain Rescue, which they distribute onwards to all of Scotland’s individual volunteer teams. This distribution follows an agreed and established formula that takes into account relative changes in team activity levels, alongside a range of other relevant factors. Scotland is the only part of the UK in which volunteer mountain rescue teams are supported in this way. While the overall budget for this grant is determined on an annual basis, the Scottish Mountain Rescue grant has, for this year, been included in the Scottish Government’s Fairer Funding pilot. This inclusion offers increased assurance that funding will be maintained at no less than the current level until at least March 2027.

The Scottish Government provides an annual grant to Scottish Mountain Rescue, which they distribute onwards to all of Scotland’s volunteer mountain rescue teams including Glencoe and Cairngorm which are not affiliated with Scottish Mountain Rescue, according to an agreed and established formula. Information from Scottish Mountain Rescue on the funding that each team has received in the last 5 years is set out in the following table:

Climate change is clearly driving more extreme weather, and this summer has brought very dry conditions across Scotland, particularly in the east, resulting in eight catchment areas now experiencing significant water scarcity. In response, we are implementing Scotland’s National Water Scarcity Plan in collaboration with SEPA and Scottish Water to support those affected.

Since spring, we have worked with SEPA and partners to communicate water scarcity risks to producers. SEPA has also contacted all impacted abstraction license holders directly to offer advice and is working closely with affected businesses. While this is a challenging time, SEPA are reporting encouraging levels of compliance on the ground.

To reduce the impact on agriculture, the Scottish Government’s Agri-Environment Climate Scheme (AECS) promotes sustainable land management, including water-use efficiency and water management measures such as irrigation lagoons.

Since 2024, AECS has raised the grant ceiling for irrigation lagoons to £40,000 and enabled applications to be made as either a simplified standalone item or as part of a wider application. Additionally, the Future Farming Investment Scheme launched this year, offering £14 million in capital funding to support improvements in efficiency, nature restoration, and climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Recognising the increasing challenges posed by climate change, we remain committed to continuing with reformed direct payments. These provide farmers with vital financial stability, helping them to plan and continue producing food sustainably in the face of more frequent and severe weather events.

The rules on local connection were changed in November 2022 to give homeless households – like other households – choice and control about where they settle. The SSI in November 2022 stopped referrals of homeless households between Scottish local authorities on the basis of their local connection. Referrals to England and Wales are still permitted and the SSI did not change local connection rules for refugee households. The rules covering refugee households who have just left asylum accommodation are set out in the Homelessness etc. (Scotland) Act 2003.

Homelessness statistics on local connection following changes to the legislation remain stable with 3% of households seeking homelessness support in an area where they do not have a local connection. The evidence to date shows that people are exercising choice about where they want to live as the legislation intended. We continue to monitor the flow of people moving in and out of each local authority area to inform our understanding of the impact of the legislative change.

The duties that local authorities owe to homeless refugee households were not affected by the November 2022 changes to local connection. It is section 7 of the Homelessness etc.(Scotland) Act 2003, passed by the last Labour / Liberal coalition which outlines that the time spent in Home Office asylum accommodation does not establish a local connection for newly recognised refugees, as the household has not had any choice about where they lived while accommodated by the Home Office. If a household receives a positive asylum decision while living in asylum accommodation in a Scottish local authority and presents as homeless, they cannot be referred to the local authority where they were accommodated by the Home Office on the basis of local connection.

Conversely, Section 199 (6) of the Housing Act 1996 states that a local connection is established if a person was at any time provided with accommodation in that district. This means that people granted refugee status in England and Wales are found to have established a local connection with the authority/authorities where they have resided in asylum accommodation – despite having no choice in where they were placed. This limits where they can make a homelessness application in England and Wales.

A decision by the UK Government in December 2022 to clear the backlog of legacy asylum claims resulted in an increased number of refugee households seeking support, with this increased pressure being most acute in Glasgow. More recently, the Home Office decision (27 August 2025) to end the temporary extension of the move-on period for single adults is likely to exacerbate the pressures being faced by local authorities. The Scottish Government supports the call from Glasgow City Council that the UK Government must provide adequate funding to allow local authorities to support newly recognised refugees and communities.

Scottish Ministers do not want to roll back the rights of homeless households and do not intend to make any further changes to local connection legislation at this time.

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.

The Scottish Government is taking bold and ambitious action to reform and renew our health and social care systems, with a clear focus on prevention as a cornerstone of our long-term visions where people live longer, are healthier and lead more fulfilling lives.

Through the Scotland's Population Health Framework - gov.scot and the Health and Social Care Service Renewal Framework - gov.scot, both published in June 2025, we have set out a strategic and joined-up approach to improving population health and reducing the burden of disease on the NHS. These frameworks work hand in hand to embed prevention across all levels of planning, delivery and accountability.

The PHF focuses on the primary prevention space, on what creates, sustains and protects good health across our society and communities in Scotland. The PHF is based on five key interconnected prevention drivers of health and wellbeing - prevention focused systems; social and economic factors; places and communities; enabling healthy living; and equitable access to health and care.

Working across these five areas is crucial because as much as 80% of what affects health happens outside the health and care system. The NHS is just one part of the whole system – local government, public agencies and a range of sectors and organisations all must have a laser focus on preventing ill health.

Increasing preventative care in the NHS is at the heart of the twinned SRF, which places prevention and early intervention at its core. We recognise that our current model of health and social care focuses most of its resources (workforce, finance, infrastructure) on caring for established sickness or care needs – and for this reason we have focused much of our renewal framework on how to change this.

The SRF sets out five key principles for renewal which provide an evidence-based and value-driven foundation from which to plan, make decisions, and deliver change. The first of these principles is the Prevention Principle – focusing on prevention and proactive early intervention across the continuum of care to realise long term wellbeing and reduce the burden of disease.

We are committed to improving health and wellbeing across Scotland by focusing on prevention at every stage – from helping people stay well, to detecting problems early, to supporting those living with long-term conditions. And this is why, the first change commitment in the SRF is Major Change 1- Prevention, which focuses on services that prevent disease, enable early detection and effectively manage chronic and long-term conditions.

We are determined to reduce avoidable cardiovascular deaths, by a fifth over 20 years by ensuring people receive timely and high-quality care. That is why by March 2026, we are investing just under £10 million in providing extra GP appointments to support 100,000 patients who may be at risk, due to obesity, smoking, or high blood sugar, blood pressure or cholesterol. This is part of our cardiovascular disease risk factors programme and has a particular focus on supporting people living in areas of deprivation. 95% of practices in Scotland have signed up to provide the service.

By finding risk factors sooner we can support individuals – for instance, if a person is overweight or obese and has developed type 2 diabetes, there is a range of options that their healthcare team can consider with the person. This includes the new national Type 2 Diabetes Remission programme, which is a national digital intensive weight management programme which will support 3,000 people recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. We have invested £4.5 million over three years into this programme, and we expect to help around 40% of people to achieve remission from the condition by the end of their first year in the programme, which will improve each person's health significantly.

This aligns closely to our new Long Term Conditions Framework, which we working to publish by the end of 2025. The Framework will improve the quality of care and support for people living with long term conditions. This includes helping people manage their conditions well, avoid complications and maintain their independence and quality of life.

Another example of work is how we can use pharmacogenetics in prevention. Pharmacogenetics is how a person’s genetics affect their response to certain drugs. We have invested £1.1 million to support testing of recent stroke patients to determine if they have a genetic variation that impairs the benefits of a drug commonly prescribed to reduce the risk of secondary stroke and which would mean an alternative drug should be considered for them. Around 60,000 stroke patients will be tested, with approximately 20,000 expected to be moved to more effective medication, with potential savings of £30 million in future health costs.

Similarly, a programme to provide a genetic test for newborn babies will also receive £800,000 funding to determine if they have a genetic variation which puts them at risk of permanent hearing loss if they are treated with a common emergency antibiotic. 10,000 newborns will be tested, with those at risk of adverse reactions moved to safer antibiotics, helping prevent profound hearing loss and saving an estimated £8 million in health and education costs over their childhood.

Prevention work is also vital for mental health and wellbeing. We are already implementing the Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy and updating our delivery plan, recognising how inequalities can affect mental health and understanding the connection between mental and physical health needs. Our approach includes prevention, early support, and ongoing care for those living with mental health conditions.

We continue to invest in community-based prevention and wellbeing initiatives. The Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for adults has provided £81 million over five years, supporting thousands of local projects focused on prevention and early intervention, with a further £15 million committed in 2026-27. We have also invested over £65 million since 2020 in community mental health support for children, young people and families, which reached almost 80,000 people in 2024-25, and will continue with the baselining of this £15 million per annum funding into local authority budgets from 2025-26. In addition, we have ensured access to counselling services in secondary schools across Scotland, and we continue to support local authorities with £16m a year.

We are committed to a whole-system approach to prevention, ensuring that NHS Scotland is not only equipped to treat illness but is actively working to prevent it, reduce inequalities and improve health outcomes for all. The examples I have given today demonstrate only some of our renewal efforts, and we will all have to lead and drive this shift to focus more on prevention within the NHS to make the impact we need.

As part of our Equally Safe governance arrangements, we have a progress reporting cycle in place which will see an annual progress report published by the end of this year, providing updates on the actions it contains and sets out the work that will be undertaken over the next period.

An interim progress report is also compiled for the Equally Safe Joint Strategic Board to monitor progress, the most recent one in February 2025. I would be more than happy to share a copy of this with the elected member.

Scotland already has some of the strongest rights in the UK for tenants, and we are taking forward measures in the Housing Bill that will strengthen these protections further including the introduction of rent control.

We recognise the concerns raised about how rent adjudication currently operates, particularly the potential for rents to be set at a level greater than that proposed by the landlord. We have taken action through the Housing Bill to ensure the Rent Officer, or Tribunal, cannot raise the rent above that requested by the landlord, should the Bill be passed by Parliament.

All Scottish Government staff are subject to SG Terms & Conditions and are managed & supported via our internal policies and processes. This is currently in a live legal process and we do not comment on any individual staffing matters or circumstances.

The Scottish Government is currently developing plans for how the Digital Inclusion Innovation Fund allocation will be used to support digital inclusion in Scotland. We will work with stakeholders to ensure that delivery complements existing programmes and supports those most at risk of exclusion.

Further details on how we plan to allocate this funding will be announced in the coming months.