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Maximising the economic opportunity for the Scottish supply chain from our renewable potential is a key focus for our Green Industrial Strategy, published in September 2024.

We are investing up to £500 million over five years in the offshore wind supply chain, which is expected to leverage additional private investment of £1.5 billion in the infrastructure and manufacturing facilities critical to growing the sector. This investment will support thousands of new jobs and maximise economic value to Scotland.

Through the Supply Chain Development Statements process, offshore wind developers have made commitments to invest an average of £1.5bn per project across the 20 ScotWind developments in the Scottish supply chain. These commitments are an integral part of the leasing process and are intended to drive developer engagement with the supply chain from the very outset of project development.

The UK Government’s Clean Industry Bonus will provide extra revenue support to offshore wind developers who choose to invest in cleaner supply chains, and in supply chains in the UK’s most deprived areas. We expect both Scottish offshore wind projects and supply chain to benefit from this new initiative.

Through the Onshore Wind Sector Deal we are continuing to see positive engagement with industry on publishing data on the percentage of local content in the supply chain, which will help to illustrate the economic impact developments for communities and Scotland’s regional and national economies.

The Scottish Government has regular discussions with the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) on risks and contingency plans for the prison estate, including HMP Barlinnie.

In response to recommendations made by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons for Scotland, SPS took forward HMP Barlinnie Programme of Works which significantly improved facilitates within the prisoner reception and healthcare areas. These works concluded in April 2023.

The SPS engaged the services of legal advisers, cost consultants, insurance brokers and geo-technical consultants to advise on cost controls within the contract. It would not be appropriate for SPS to publish this advice as it is commercially sensitive information, however SPS will publish a summary of their Business Case on their website.

The Scottish Government published ‘Migration - Meeting Scotland's Needs’ in January setting out the economic benefits of migration to Scotland.

Scotland’s has distinct demographic challenges. While the UK’s working population is projected to increase by 0.5% between 2025-75 Scotland’s is projected to fall by 14.7%. Positive net migration increases the size of the working-age population, which is crucial for economic growth as well as fiscal sustainability. The UK Migration Advisory Committee has found that a 1% increase in the migrant share of the workforce is associated with a productivity improvement of between 1.2% and 3%. Research has shown that migrants contribute more to government revenue through taxes than they receive in public services. Migration can help meet the needs of our economy, public services and communities.

I refer the member to the answer to the question S6W-32369 on 8 January 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 was a 2-stage procurement process, and 4 contractors bid at the 1st stage Pre-construction phase of the process. These bidders were Balfour Beatty Group, Graham Construction, Kier Construction and Laing O'Rourke.

As shown in Scottish Water’s Long Term Strategy which was published on 4 February 2025, resolving water deficits is a matter for everyone not simply Scottish Water. At 180 litres per person per day Scotland has one of the highest rates of water consumption, compared to 125 litres in Germany and 105 litres in Denmark. As set out in its Strategy, it is important that Scottish Water continues to reduce rates of leakage, support demand reduction by customers and invest in new water sources and water treatment works.

Scottish Water will publish its draft business plan for the 2027-33 period this summer which will set out prioritised investment proposals to reduce the number of zones in deficit and secure supplies for customers. Each zone is unique and will have its own set of measures to put in place to secure supplies for customers.

The Scottish Government are progressing a range of actions to support a sustainable reduction in the prison population, including:

• The passage of the Prisoners (Early Release) (Scotland) Act 2025, which changes the point of release for most prisoners serving short-term sentences of under four years from following 50% of their sentence, to following 40% of their sentence.
• Increasing community justice funding by £14m this year to a total of £148m to further strengthen alternatives to custody.
• Introducing regulations that enable GPS technology to be used to monitor individuals being released on Home Detention Curfew (HDC).
• SPS continue to optimise the appropriate use of HDC which allows certain prisoners who have met the requirements of a risk assessment to spend up to 180 days in the community.
• We intend to bring forward secondary legislation to amend the use of HDC with the intention of increasing the period of time individuals can spend on release under licence conditions.
• We have increased the use of electronically monitored bail which is now available in every local authority and its use is at record levels.
• The establishment of an independent review of sentencing and penal policy which will focus on reducing reoffending and ensuring custody is used at the right time, for the right individuals.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

SPS will publish information on the early release under the changes to sentencing for short-term prisoners on our website, and we have previously published information on releases under the emergency release legislation again on their website.

SPS seek to be as open and transparent as possible, whilst continuing to meet our statutory obligation to ensure that those in our care have their personal information protected; as such we cannot publish a breakdown of establishments as some of the data could relate to a small group of individuals, which may lead to their inadvertent identification.

The Scottish Government has received regular updates from the Scottish Prison Service on HMP Glasgow in line with updates to the Infrastructure Investment Plan since 2014:

• In March 2014 the Scottish Government was updated that there was an on-going site search and completion dates for the project remained uncertain.
• In March 2016 the Scottish Government was updated that estimated operational date was 2022.
• In September 2016 the Scottish Government was updated that estimated operational date was 2023.
• In April 2019 the Scottish Government was updated that estimated operational date was 2024.
• In November 2020 the Scottish Government was updated that estimated operational date was 2026.
• In May 2023 the Scottish Government was updated that the project time-line was uncertain.
• In July 2023 the Scottish Government was updated that the most likely time-scale for construction completion was 2027 but there were risks associated with this.
• In May 2024 the Scottish Government was updated that the most likely time-scale for construction completion was 2028.