Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Scottish Government, along with all other UK nations, relies on advice about screening programmes from the UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC), an independent expert advisory group. The UK NSC does not currently recommend prostate screening, and therefore there are no plans at present to introduce a national prostate cancer screening programme.

In its November 2020 review, the committee concluded that the available evidence did not support the introduction of prostate cancer screening, primarily due to the absence of a sufficiently accurate test and single effective treatment for early-stage cases. The UK NSC is currently reviewing the evidence. Should screening be recommended as a result, the organisations that oversee screening will advise Scottish Ministers on how to take that recommendation forward.

In the meantime, following a roundtable discussion with Sir Chris Hoy in August this year, the First Minister has commissioned the Chief Medical Officer for Scotland to chair a clinician-led short life working group to explore how we can support those with prostate cancer in Scotland.

It remains important that men and those with a prostate should speak to their GP if they are concerned they have possible symptoms. There is a list of symptoms available on the NHS website: Prostate cancer - About Prostate Cancer | NHS inform

SEPA, as Scotland’s independent environmental regulator, has set out its enforcement approach via a Regulatory Position Statement published on 29 October 2025. It is for SEPA to determine and apply regulatory decisions within its statutory remit, and it would not be appropriate for the Scottish Government to comment on those operational matters.

The Scottish Public Pensions Agency may incur costs for rectifying errors through interest payable on delayed pensions or lump sums, or through the payment of compensation for upheld complaints or appeals.

The following table records the information held for the full financial years from 2020-21 to 2024-25 and is a total costs for the four public service pension schemes administered by the Agency.

Due to the nature of flooding, for which the scale of impacts can vary significantly, the number of flooding incidents are not systematically recorded. The responsibility for development, delivery, operation and maintenance of flood protection schemes rests with individual local authorities, who are best placed to respond to local resilience needs. Scottish Government does not hold the information requested.

The Scottish Government has not had any recent discussions with the UK Government regarding the concentration of gambling advertising in areas of deprivation in Scotland.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) administer advertisement rules which are designed to ensure gambling advertising is responsible, supported by Ofcom for broadcast gambling adverts, and the Gambling Commission for non-broadcast gambling adverts.

The Scottish Government is working closely with the UK Government (and Welsh Government) over the distribution of the Gambling Levy, to ensure there are funds available to develop a comprehensive approach to gambling prevention, early intervention and support in Scotland.

In June 2025, we published our five-year Breastfeeding and Infant feeding framework 2025-2030, which incorporates recommendations from the Becoming Breastfeeding Friendly (BBF) 2019 report, our longer term aims and sets out our detailed delivery plan over the next year.

This framework sets out our ongoing commitment to the Unicef UK Babyfriendly accreditation, and we continue to fund Achieving Sustainability Assessments, foundational training, and the Scottish Lead post.

In 2023-24 the Scottish Government permanently transferred funding to Health Boards for Maternal and Infant Nutrition as part of the Outcomes Framework funding, which covers a wider range of outcomes. The published Scottish Budget for 2025-2026 includes £72.2m within the NHS Boards budget for the Outcomes Framework. It is up to Health Boards to decide how much of this funding to allocate to each outcome. In 2025-26 territorial Health Boards received an overall cash uplift of 3%.

From 2025-26 the Scottish Government is permanently transferring over £0.8 million further investment into the baseline budgets of NHS Boards to provide a sustainable basis for funding for interventions to support breastfeeding, which can include peer support, following an additional investment of over £11 million since 2018.

Status of major projects at outline business case stage or later – including NTC Forth Valley – is published on a 6-monthly basis in the Scottish Government’s major capital projects progress update. This is published on the Scottish Government’s website: Infrastructure Investment Plan: progress reports - gov.scot

As set out in the latest update (August 2025), the new ward continues to be delayed and an opening date is not yet confirmed for that ward. Work to agree a route to completion is ongoing. However, existing theatres (previously unused) have already been commissioned and in a phased opening, the National Treatment Centre began treating patients in October 2024.

There is an ongoing dispute with the contractor over final works required to bring the facility into appropriate condition for operational service. The final costs remain a point of negotiation and have not been finalised.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-41542 on 11 November 2025.

Status of major projects at outline business case stage or later – including NTC Forth Valley – is published on a 6-monthly basis in the Scottish Government’s major capital projects progress update. This is published on the Scottish Government’s website: Infrastructure Investment Plan: progress reports - gov.scot

As set out in the latest update (August 2025), the new ward continues to be delayed and an opening date is not yet confirmed for that ward. Work to agree a route to completion is ongoing. However, existing theatres (previously unused) have already been commissioned and in a phased opening, the National Treatment Centre began treating patients in October 2024.

There is an ongoing dispute with the contractor over final works required to bring the facility into appropriate condition for operational service. The final costs remain a point of negotiation and have not been finalised.

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.

The information you requested is already in the public domain, and can be found using the following two links:

A letter I sent to the Public Audit Committee dated 6 October 2025 contains a section on MV Glen Rosa funding and governance: The 202324 audit of Ferguson Marine Port Glasgow Scottish Government response October 2025 | Scottish Parliament Website

The Ferguson Marine quarterly update, which was sent to the Net Zero Energy and Transport Committee on 15 September 2025 which refers to the Glen Rosa programme schedule: https://www.parliament.scot/-/media/files/committees/net-zero-energy-and-transport-committee/correspondence/2025/september-2025/mv-glen-rosa-quarterly-progress-update-150925.pdf

The Scottish Government requires Local Authorities to estimate future housing need and demand in a report called the Housing Need and Demand Assessment (HNDA). This includes the use of National Records of Scotland (NRS) household projections and the Scottish Government also provides authorities with an Excel-based model, called the HNDA Tool, to help them do this.

The HNDA Tool includes the household projections, as well as several other data inputs, and is available on the Scottish Government website Housing Need and Demand Assessment (HNDA): tool 2020 - gov.scot. The household projections take account of assumptions about migration into and out of Scotland.

Local Authorities also have the option to detail the housing needs of Asylum Seekers and Refugees in their HNDAs. HNDAs are completed by all Local Authorities every five years and they are used as an evidence-base to formulate local housing policies within their Local Housing Strategy (LHS) reports.