Scotland’s budget 2025-26: what’s in it for nature?

The Scottish Government’s budget for 2025-26, published on Wednesday the 4th December, raises concerns, despite the government’s headline statement of £4.9 billion of action on the climate and nature crises.

Most alarming is the reduction in funding for NatureScot from £78.1m in 2024-25 budget to £68.2m, a cut of £10 million or ~12%. The implications of this for the delivery of the recently published Biodiversity Strategy and the first Delivery Plan will likely be far-reaching, not least for implementation of the Strategic Framework for Biodiversity, published the previous week.

By comparison, Environmental Standards Scotland has had its budgets increased by around 30% (£3.8m from £2.9m in 2024-25), and SEPA by around 3% (£55.4m from £53.8m).

Agri-Environment Climate Schemes (AECS) have also seen a reduction in funding; this is the first time that the agriculture budget has not been ring-fenced from the UK. When asked on the BBC’s Farming Today about actions for nature in the budget for agriculture, the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Land Reform and Islands, Mairi Gougeon, pointed to other funding explicitly for this purpose, including £18 million in Nature Restoration Funding which also represents a reduction from £22.2m in 2024-25.

The Scottish Government also highlighted almost £90 million for woodland and peatland. This consists of an increase in woodland grants of 16.8% from £45.4m to £53m. This only partly restores the significant cuts that were made to this budget last year. This budget of £53m is said to deliver 11,000ha of new woodland although last year’s smaller budget was intended to deliver 10,000ha. It should be noted that the annual national target is 18,000ha. Questions remain as to how this will be split between commercial forestry and native woodland creation. A 2024 Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) report emphasised the importance of native broadleaved species for biodiversity, disease resilience, and climate adaptation, recommending subsidies for conifer plantations be redirected to long-lived native broadleaf woodlands.

Peatland restoration will receive £35.5 million in funding in 2025-26 for the restoration of more than 15,000 hectares of degraded peatland. Although no direct comparison is made with the last budget, this appears to represent a significant increase from previous years; in 2021, peatland restoration was allocated £22 million. In 2020, the Scottish Government announced a ten year funding package of £250 million to restore 250,000 ha of peatland by 2030. However, Scotland is not currently on track to reach this goal; as of 2024, 64,000 hectares of degraded peatland has been restored at a rate of 6,000 ha annually, well below the current target of 20,000 ha. Therefore, this increase in investment is welcomed.

The protection and restoration of the natural environment is not an explicit priority in the Scottish Government’s Programme for Government, which prioritises the economy, child poverty, climate and public services. The focus of a “just transition” to net zero is on renewable energy, particularly offshore wind, with increased funding allocated to support the sector’s growth. The budget commits to a total investment of up to £500 million over five years in offshore wind, with £150 million allocated in 2025-26. The expectation is that this will leverage £1.5 billion in private sector investment and support “thousands of jobs”. Funding for the “Offshore Wind Supply Chain” has increased to £162.5 million. The budget also allocates over £25 million to support the energy transition from fossil fuels and transition to a more sustainable energy system, and £358 million has been allocated to upgrading energy efficiency, including insulation for residential and commercial buildings.

This is a draft Budget and the SNP will need support from other parties for it to be implemented as the SNP is a minority administration. In the interim, there is the opportunity to seek clarification and raise the concerns outlined above.

What are the implications of the Scottish Budget for you for delivery for nature and climate? Please let us know either on LinkedIn or by contacting us at policy@cieem.net