Seòmar agus comataidhean

Please see the following table setting out changes to Scottish Income Tax since the start of this parliamentary session.

Table 1: Scottish Income Tax Policy: Income Tax Rates and Bands, 2021-22 –
2023-24

Over the current parliamentary term, we estimate that the total spend through the capital budget will be £31.1 billion. This is based on the latest figures available. The following table sets this out in detail.

Table 1: Total capital spending between 2021-22 and 2025-26, £ millions

Audit Scotland published a report on the Scottish National Investment Bank’s performance on Thursday 15 May (Scottish National Investment Bank | Audit Scotland). Page 16 details the Capital and Resource allocations by year since the Bank was launched in November 2020:

This Government is committed to building a vibrant, sustainable, and inclusive rural economy.

We are widening participation in entrepreneurship, giving more people the opportunity to start, grow and scale their business. To date we have supported a range of programmes, including the South of Scotland Enterprise regional Pathways Pre-Start programme and the Pathways Funds. We are investing a record £6 million to support further Pathways implementation in the current financial year, transforming the number of women who start and scale businesses and widening participation in entrepreneurship.

Alongside this, we are supporting rural entrepreneurs through our Ecosystem Fund, which has invested a total of £2.6 million across 75 innovative projects since 2021, through our Techscaler network, through our wider support for our enterprise agencies, and through delivery of our National Innovation Strategy.

The Rural Entrepreneur Fund was a 2021-22 Programme for Government commitment to invest £20 million over the lifetime of the current parliament. However, in light of the challenging financial environment, the Scottish Resource Spending Review prioritised investment plans to ensure that they were deliverable, impactful and affordable. Consequently, there has been no money invested in the Rural Entrepreneur Fund to date.

The Scottish Government is committed to advancing women’s entrepreneurship and fostering an inclusive business environment, through implementation of the recommendations of the Pathways report on women in entrepreneurship, which consulted extensively to identify impactful measures that would address the gender gap.

To date we have supported a range of programmes including the South of Scotland Enterprise regional Pathways Pre-Start programme and the Pathways Funds. We are investing a record £6 million to support further Pathways implementation in the current financial year, transforming the number of women who start and scale businesses and widening participation in entrepreneurship.

The Scottish Government has set the goal of establishing Scotland as one of Europe's leading start-up economies, fostering an environment where innovation and high-growth businesses flourish. Within this parliamentary term it has spent over £60 million to aide these ambitions with at least a further £23 million committed by the end of the Parliamentary term.

These figures do not include spend from our Enterprise Agencies or Entrepreneurial Education. In addition this does not include spend for financial year 2026-27 due to our single year budgeting process.

Our current Infrastructure Investment Plan (IIP) which was published alongside the last Capital Spending Review, estimated that annually, around 45,000 construction and maintenance jobs would be supported through the associated total capital investment. This information is not centrally monitored, however as part our annual reporting on the progress of the IIP, we include information on major capital projects and their contribution to local economic development.

Our annual IIP Progress Reports are published on the Scottish Government website and can be found by way of the following link www.gov.scot/infrastructure-investment-plan

The Scottish Government has not had any engagement with the Bank of England, regarding support to train and recruit more economics teachers in Scottish schools.

We are aware of the Bank of England’s new jointly funded initiative with the University of Manchester, which will see existing teachers offered training to deliver A Level economics alongside their core subject. We will note feedback as the pilot programme progresses and consider if there is applicable learning for the Scottish education sector.

Data on full-time equivalent (FTE) secondary teachers by main subject taught and Local Authority is available in the Teacher Census Supplementary Statistics, here:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/teacher-census-supplementary-statistics/

It is not the policy of the Scottish Government to create a Scottish food agency. Following the manifesto commitment to set up a Scottish Food Agency, exploratory work was undertaken and the decision was taken not to proceed. Scotland Food & Drink and the Scotland Food & Drink Partnership bring together the key actors in food and drink in Scotland for collaboration, with excellent results.