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Well managed productive forestry plantations, along with native woodlands managed for habitat conservation, all provide environmental benefits. The Forestry Grant Scheme has committed £183.8m of support for woodland creation and sustainable forest management since 2021-22. £69.8m of this funding has supported solely native woodland creation and management, with the remaining £114m spent on activities supporting woodland creation and sustainable forest management across both native and productive woodlands. This includes sums on deer management, which takes place across both native and productive woodlands.

All NHS Boards, apart from NHS Orkney and NHS Shetland, have the ability to refer patients for thrombectomy procedures at hub hospitals.

Scottish Government officials and NHS planners have been asked to work at pace on developing a plan for the next steps for thrombectomy service expansion.

The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. Any fines issued for criminal offences involving the sale of illegal vapes and cigarettes is a matter for the courts. HMRC have the power to charge civil penalties for failing to comply with the Tobacco Track and Trace system rules.

We recognise the distress and pain that migraines cause and we take the issue of migraine seriously.

The Centre for Sustainable Delivery launched the national headache pathway in October 2023, to improve care for migraines and headache across Scotland. The pathway is being implemented to aid with the diagnosis and management of headache disorders including migraine, offer guidance on management, and support health boards to aid their future planning.

The Scottish Government funded £221,176 to the Migraine Trust across 2022-2024 to work upskilling community, primary and secondary care pharmacists across NHS Grampian to help people with migraine manage their condition more effectively. This included funding to partner other health boards to extend the reach of this model and increase care and support for people living with migraine.

An eLearning programme for NHS Education for Scotland’s (NES) platform TURAS was developed through the project, comprising a suite of training materials available for all pharmacists and pharmacy teams in Scotland to access.

Additionally, NES Pharmacy hosted a webinar in September 2024 to provide guidance to pharmacy staff on the assessment, support and management of people living with migraine in line with the Scottish National Headache Pathway.

Following publication of the Pathway, Scottish Government has liaised with NHS24 and clinicians to produce public-facing accessible information on migraine, available at Migraine | NHS inform.

The Scottish Government has held no talks with the General Dental Council (GDC) regarding the provision and publication of statistics relating to private dental clinics. Regulation of dentists is reserved to the UK parliament and the GDC is the independent statutory regulator for the dental team. It does not however regulate dental premises, with Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) being the regulator of independent clinics in Scotland. Where available, HIS publishes inspection reports for independent clinics on its register.

Private non-NHS practices are registered and regulated by Regulation of independent healthcare – Healthcare Improvement Scotland, which is part of NHS Scotland and is responsible for service provision and quality improvement.

We expect NHS Health Boards, including NHS Lothian, to identify aspects of their stroke services which do not meet the Scottish Standards and to work to improve their standards of care locally.

Every NHS Board now has an accountable senior individual responsible for standards of stroke care. I met with these leads in October last year and will be meeting them again in November to review progress.

A commitment to a round-the-clock thrombectomy service was set out in our Stroke Improvement Plan and this remains our aim for the thrombectomy service.

Work is ongoing to align the governance and delivery of thrombectomy with similar national programmes. This alignment with wider health service planning aims to support oversight of thrombectomy planning, for the NHS Chief Executive Group and encourage greater collaboration between NHS Boards in delivering this vital service.

This work will inform the future expansion of the service, including angiography capacity, and will support consistency across thrombectomy services in Scotland, ensuring the service maximises use of existing resources.

Penalty clauses are not enforceable in Scots law and, as such, there are no penalties in the R100 Contracts.

However, Openreach is only paid for build once it has been completed and figures have been audited. This action incentivises Openreach to build as quickly as possible.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of early diagnosis of cancer or serious illness and would expect any patient presenting with potential symptoms to be assessed as quickly as possible.

The Scottish Referral Guidelines (SRG) for Suspected Cancer support primary care clinicians to identify those with symptoms suspicious of cancer and identify those who require urgent assessment by a specialist.

A clinical review of SRGs has been completed with updated guidance published on 6 August 2025.