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The Scottish Government sits alongside Retailers Against Crime (RAC) in the Scottish Partnership Against Acquisitive Crime (SPAACE) and are working collectively with other agencies to deliver upon the SPAACE Strategy 2023-2028. To date there have been three meetings of the SPAACE steering group, chaired by Police Scotland, where retail crime has consistently been top of the agenda.

Police Scotland’s Retail Crime Task Force (RCTF) have been working closely with RAC as they jointly aim to reduce the impact of retail crime across Scotland. Part of the Scottish Government’s additional £3 million funding to tackle retail crime has been used to support local policing divisions to work closely with RAC, with numerous joint days of action taking place in locations across Scotland including Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Furthermore, some of the funding has been granted to RAC to allow them to increase their operational capacity which will support retailers and police to prevent and detect crimes, thus reducing the financial impact of retail crime while protecting workers from crimes of violence and abuse.

While RAC are not members of the Retail Industry Leadership Group (RILG), representatives of key industry groups such as the Scottish Grocer’s Federation (SGF) and Scottish Retail Consortium are members of both SPAACE and the RILG. Police Scotland has also given regular updates on its work to tackle retail crime, ensuring joined up working across a number of sectors.

The Scottish Government is grateful to its partners for the continued efforts to tackle retail crime across the country.

The Scottish Government is engaging with a wide range of stakeholders including those involved within the criminal justice system on the creation of a new approach to care and support for people impacted by alcohol. That new approach will include plans for a national specification setting out the interventions required to reduce harm as well as improved standards for implementing those. Standards for alcohol care and support in the criminal justice system are the same as standards in the community.

The Scottish Government has oversight groups in place to help provide national and local leadership with a clear steer on the services which need to be in place in all settings.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-41648 on 17 November 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.

This matter relates to an issue that is the responsibility of the independent Scottish Housing Regulator. I therefore refer Mr Sweeney to the SHR who will reply directly.

The Scottish Government’s proposals for the currency of an independent Scotland are highlighted in A Fresh Start with independence , and set out in detail in the Currency and fiscal policy section of Building a new Scotland: A Stronger economy with independence.

On independence, Scotland would continue to use the pound sterling for a period, before moving to the Scottish pound. The decision about when to do this would be taken by the Scottish Parliament, guided by transparent criteria and economic conditions, rather than a fixed timetable.

Decisions about the Scottish pound would also be made by the elected government and parliament at that time. Those would include the precise form of the currency regime for a Scottish pound including a fixed or floating exchange rate, informed by analysis and advice from the Scottish Central Bank.

In common with the general approach to the collection of financial penalties imposed by the Scottish Courts, the funds from this fine will go into the Scottish Consolidated Fund for use within the overall Scottish administration.

It should be noted that, under the terms of the Scotland Act 2016 and associated legislation, the amount of the fine income retained by the Scottish administration is offset through the operation of UK Government funding for the Scottish Government. Retention of fine income operates on a cost neutral basis through the relevant arrangements, and this does not represent additional funds for the Scottish Government.

The 2024-25 Official Statistics on Domestic abuse recorded by the police in Scotland will be published by Spring 2026. A specific date will be announced at least four weeks in advance via the Official statistics: forthcoming publications - gov.scot.

Our commitment to achieving net zero by 2045 is unwavering, and we are taking bold and decisive action to implement the necessary policies to reduce emissions in line with our new statutory carbon budget targets. On 6 November we published a draft Climate Change Plan which sets out our intended action across key sectors over the next 15 years. A revised monitoring and evaluation framework is being developed to support this work. The framework will continue to monitor key emissions sources and evaluate delivery of the key actions required to achieve our Carbon Budgets. The indicators used to evaluate delivery are currently being reviewed, it is anticipated some will be retained where they remain relevant, while new indicators will be introduced to reflect new or changed activities and where data availability allows.

The answer to question S6W-40860 used management information provided by Police Scotland as the Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of youth perpetrated sexual offences. This related to the number of people under the age of 18 who were accused of any sexual crime between 1 January 2025 to 30 September 2025.

The following table below provides the equivalent information for part c, i.e. from 1 January to 31 December 2024. Data for earlier years are not available from the single standardised national system used by Police Scotland to gather details of those involved in crime, which became fully operational from January 2024. The introduction of this system has strengthened and standardised crime recording, providing a consistent basis for national reporting and establishes 2024 as the baseline for future comparison.

It should be noted that the totals presented below for crime types (and overall) are not necessarily all unique individuals as it is possible an accused may have committed more than one sexual crime during the period. Furthermore, the table below is not a total of sexual crimes as some crimes may have had multiple perpetrators.

Number of Accused aged under 18 at time of Offence

The following table gives the number of live homelessness applications at 25 December 2024 for each local authority, along with the number of adults and children these applications refer to.

Live homelessness applications, refer to applications that have a recorded application date but no closure date, implying that these applications are open and not yet resolved.