Here are the headlines from John Swinney’s programme for government:

• The first minister has pledged to cut the number of mainland health boards in Scotland from 14 to just two.
• Swinney also said Scottish councils could be reduced in size in order to operate more sustainably.
• The SNP leader announced a misogyny bill will be introduced in the Scottish Parliament and a public health campaign will target toxic male behaviour in boys and young men in order to tackle violence against women and girls.
• Swinney said a new human rights bill would address the “root causes” of hate crimes and racism and build “strong and inclusive” communities.
• The first minister announced a £2 cap on bus fares would come into force in Glasgow and the west of Scotland from Monday.
• The Scottish government pledged it would build 111,000 affordable homes by 2032, with at least 70% available for social rent, and maintain the first-home fund for buyers trying to get on the property ladder.
• Swinney said all primary schools would have breakfast clubs in place by the start of the new school year.
• The first minister announced a pilot of a minimum income scheme for Scottish artists.
• Swinney said bleed kits would be rolled out to community settings across Scotland in a bid to tackle the effects of knife crime.
• The Scottish government said GP walk-in clinics would continue to be rolled out and £10bn would be committed to the NHS – including the construction of a new university hospital at Monklands.
• Swinney said he would talk to UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham over the devolution of new powers to Holyrood, but that independence remained the ultimate goal.
• Reform leader Malcolm Offord accused Swinney of putting forward the “same old empty promises, but rebranded”.
• Scottish Labour’s Jackie Baillie claimed the SNP had copied some of its major policy announcements from her party.
• Scottish Greens co-leader Gillian Mackay claimed former SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon “would not have signed off” on the programme for government.
• Russell Findlay, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, called Swinney’s independence plans a “zombie bill”.
• The Scottish Liberal Democrats leader, Alex Cole-Hamilton, said Swinney’s policies were focused on “centralisation over change”.

Green groups already sceptical about Swinney's climate planpublished at 17:17 BST

17:17 BST

Kevin Keane
Scotland environment and energy correspondent

The programme for government makes tackling the climate emergency one of John Swinney's four key priorities, but I'm struggling to see much in there that's new.

Targets remain the same, for example, for both tree-planting and peatland restoration, even though the global approach is about ratcheting up action.

A bill to decarbonise heat in buildings is promised but this is already a watered-down version of what had been drawn up and then scrapped in the previous parliament.

That bill had been described as world-leading and would have committed home-owners to installing green heating at the point of purchase in a kind of "carrot and stick" approach.

There's little detail about what the new bill will do, but some green groups are already predicting that it will not deliver the "change revolution" needed in how we heat our homes without fossil fuels like gas.

Cost of living is the spine running through these planspublished at 17:05 BST

17:05 BST

David Henderson
Scotland news correspondent

John Swinney wants voters to know he hasn't forgotten who's struggling to pay the bills.

Cost of living is not just a chapter in this programme for government; it's the spine running down it.

Plans for childcare expansion, more affordable homes, help for first time buyers, bus fare caps, breakfast clubs in every primary school, support for household energy bills, and a food price cap — each is pitched less as a standalone policy, and more as direct help for family budgets.

Swinney was explicit about it too, repeatedly saying this builds on the most generous cost-of-living package anywhere in the UK.

That framing matters politically.

This is the first programme for government in this new parliament, delivered after an election which the SNP came out on top, but still short of a majority.

That means Swinney needs to build support well beyond his own benches to get any of this through.

Leading with cost of living offers proof to voters who backed the SNP that he feels their pain.

And it’s an opening bid to any party willing to work with him, that the government's priorities start with household budgets, not the constitution.

But some key commitments - the affordable homes target, the NHS 26-week pledge — stretch out to 2031.

So opposition parties will press Swinney on delivery, not just intent.

And a government without a majority may struggle to pass the legislation needed to make any of it happen.

Big pledges on affordable homes were already built inpublished at 16:57 BST

16:57 BST

Chris Clements
Social affairs correspondent

By September last year, Scotland recorded its highest-ever total of open homelessness cases, as well as a record number of children living in temporary accommodation.

The first minister aims to ease this pressure with the pledge to build 110,000 new affordable homes – 70% of them for social rent - by 2032, alongside a £50m homelessness fund.

You may have heard this before. This target isn’t new and has been a promise by Scottish ministers since 2022.

Analysis last month by the Fraser of Allander Institute predicts it won’t be achieved, forecasting a shortfall of 35,000 homes by the deadline., external

It comes as construction starts on new houses hit their lowest level since 2013., external

The FM says he’ll speed up the process by reforming the planning system, and introducing a national housing agency next year with ties to the Scottish National Investment Bank (SNIB).

Swinney's plan is a total rewiring of the statepublished at 16:45 BST

16:45 BST

Kirsten Campbell
BBC Scotland political correspondent

What's striking about this programme for government is that this amounts to a total rewiring of the state.

It's not just that the number of health boards will be cut from 14 to two, but local government is to be reformed too.

The first minister wasn't prescriptive but the fact that he's kickstarting a discussion about it is significant.

The SNP has clearly learned the lessons of its failed plans for a national care service, and so is offering to work with other parties and key stakeholders to consider what that reform will look like.

John Swinney, fresh from an election that has given him his own mandate, has ruled out creating an additional layer of local government, so there's no return to the regional and district council set up of old.

But it seems inevitable that if some councils are considered to be too small to be strategic, while others are seen as being too big to be local, then the number of local authorities is likely to be reduced from 32.

The first minister will need to build support for whatever comes next and, with council elections due next year, this is going to be a key political theme over the next 12 months.

Georgina Hayes
BBC Scotland health producer

Today’s announcement follows a challenging year for some of Scotland’s health boards.

BBC Scotland reported last year that seven health boards received £230m in bailout loans from the government in 2024, despite record levels of NHS funding.

The figures were revealed in the annual review of the NHS by spending watchdog Audit Scotland.

The analysis showed that in total, health boards received just over £500m in bailout loans from the Scottish government in the past six years - and just £7m had been repaid.

In its annual review of the NHS, the watchdog returned to a number of familiar themes from previous years - including increased patient demand, emergency care pressures and waiting times targets not being met.

Health spending in 2024/25 totalled £20.6bn, which is 24.9% higher in real terms than it was 10 years ago.

Nearly all of that cash is handed over to health boards - but for seven of these authorities, it was not enough to meet their statutory duty of breaking even.

Money spent on 'tomorrow's health' can't be spent on patients stuck on waiting listspublished at 16:29 BST

16:29 BST

David Henderson
Scotland news correspondent

John Swinney wants a "decisive shift to prevention and early intervention" across public services - but nowhere could that hit harder than the NHS.

Critics already call it "the National Illness Service" - an organisation built to treat people once they're sick, not keep them well in the first place. Swinney's plan would try to flip that logic.

But here's the problem: money spent on prevention is money not spent on treatment. And treatment is already stretched to breaking point, with long waiting lists across the board.

Most agree prevention is a good idea. The awkward question is whether any government can afford to invest in tomorrow's health while today's patients are still stuck on trolleys and waiting lists.

Competing priorities, a fixed budget - something has to give.

Scottish environment 'mega body' will have a lot to dopublished at 16:23 BST

16:23 BST

Kevin Keane
Scotland environment and energy correspondent

Creating a single Scottish environment body is one of the ways the first minister says he'll reform the delivery of public services.

That means the end as we know it of NatureScot, Zero Waste Scotland, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and possibly Scottish Forestry.

They each provide very different functions ranging from a regulatory role protecting our rivers from pollution to the management of grants for woodland creation.

The nature agency, NatureScot, runs reserves and oversees the protection of wildlife species and habitats as well as helping tackle climate change.

These are areas which will require an increased focus as climate change intensifies in the years ahead. It will be a mega-body with a lot to do.

Alex-Cole Hamilton speaks about the importance of empowering communities.

He says moving from 14 health boards to two will not improve patient experience, free up social care, reduce neurodiversity waiting times or allow ambulances to discharge patients into hospitals.

He adds Scotland is not a "one-size fits all country" and believes power works better when it is devolved closer to the communities it serves.

Scottish Lib Dems leader Alex Cole-Hamilton starts by welcoming the attempts to tackle male violence against women and girls.

He says his party will always hunt for agreement but also call out shortcomings.

Cole-Hamilton adds that he recognises the need for reform is "abundant" but he claims the policies build on centralisation rather than leading to change.

Findlay says the SNP often has “big ideas” but “abysmal delivery”.

The Scottish Conservative leader says “two decades of reckless spending” have left a £5bn “black hole” in Scotland’s public services.

He says he has “little faith” in the Scottish government’s ability to put public sector reform in place.

Findlay says Swinney has tasked cabinet secretary for public sector reform, Ivan McKee, with “felling a forest with a pair of garden pruners”.

Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay claims he can sum up the programme for government in two words “meddling” and “gimmicks”.

Findlay accuses Swinney of a “Soviet style” supermarket “price fixing plan”.

He calls Swinney’s independence Bill a “zombie Bill” which is nearly identical to the one introduced by Nicola Sturgeon.

Findlay accuses the SNP of “plunging the NHS into near-permanent crisis”.

Mackay says it has been one year since parliament voted to boycott the "apartheid state of Israel and the companies complicit in its occupation of Palestine" but the Scottish government has failed to turn words into action.

She says it has done the bare minimum and offered little evidence of meaningful change.

The Scottish Greens co-leader adds her party welcomes funding for students from Gaza but she hoped the programme for government would bring bigger change.

Mackay says the Scottish government has shown it can act during Russia's invasion of Ukraine but a boycott cannot be in name only.

Scottish Greens co-leader Gillian Mackay says there are a "huge number of disappointments" in this programme for government.

She says it is not a programme for government Nicola Sturgeon would have signed off on.

Mackay says free bus travel should be expanded to everyone, adding her party secured the £2 bus cap in the Highlands and Islands last year but these proposals "kick the fare cap into the long grass for most of Scotland".

She adds she welcomes the roll-out coming quickly in the west of Scotland but taking five years to roll it out for the rest of Scotland is "letting down" bus users.

Waiting times pledge looks like a downgrade on legal guaranteepublished at 16:05 BST

16:05 BST

Georgina Hayes
BBC Scotland health producer

Over a decade ago in 2011, the Scottish government set a legal guarantee that most patients should not wait longer than 12 weeks for inpatient or day-case treatment after diagnosis.

This target was never met, and today First Minister John Swinney said by the end of 2031 no-one should wait more than 26 weeks for the treatment they need.

This appears to be a downgrade of their previous legal guarantee.

It comes after the government also failed to meet its pledge to end waits of over a year for NHS treatment by March.

There has been a significant drop in waits of over 52 weeks since last summer, but at the end of last month, almost 15,000 waits for inpatient care were over 52 weeks and over 16,000 for outpatient.

Baillie accuses Swinney of “shelving” the Monklands hospital plans, and says that he and Neil Gray “posed for pictures” on the planned site while “knowing” the proposals would change.

She claims Gray “misled constituents” over the hospital that he “knew would not be delivered as planned” and describes that as “shameful”.

She says the SNP’s attitude towards the health service is to “promise the world but “deliver nothing but failure”.

Baillie says Scotland’s patients “deserve so much better”.

Lucy Adams
BBC Scotland correspondent

Education came a long way down the list in the first minister's statement in Holyrood. After almost half an hour of announcements and pledges, John Swinney promised to ensure children and young people get the most out of their school experience.

He pledged £200m to help reduce the poverty-related attainment gap - the gap between the educational achievements of those from the richest and poorest areas. A gap which successive SNP first ministers have pledged to close since 2015 but which has proven stubbornly resistant.

Significantly, he said he wants to ensure every child with additional needs receives specialist support - an ambitious pledge given that about 40% of pupils are recorded currently as having additional needs.

He also promised to reform the school curriculum and give pupils more opportunities to learn languages including Gaelic and Scots. And said he would further empower headteachers. But there was no detail in his speech as to how these pledges would be enacted.

Baillie says she is concerned Scottish Labour’s ideas “rarely survive contact with the SNP”.

She says she is “not sure” only two mainland health boards are “sufficient” and calls for a specific board covering the Highlands and North East.

Baillie offers to work with the SNP in order to “get NHS reform right”.

Swinney responds to commit to “engage in dialogue” with Labour on that aspect of his plans.

Scottish Labour’s acting leader Jackie Baillie points out John Swinney has been at the centre of the SNP’s 20 programmes for government.

She says there is “no one else to blame” for the “state of Scotland’s public services”.

She says there are “lots of policies” in the programme for government she agrees with, but “warm words are no substitute for action”.

Baillie says the SNP government “has no real ideas of its own” and accuses Swinney of copying Labour on reforming the NHS.

David Cowan
Home Affairs Correspondent, BBC Scotland

The first minister has said his government will act on a promise the SNP made following the murder of a 22-year-old man in Leith last year.

A teenager, then aged 16, stabbed John McNab with a hunting knife and left him to bleed to death in the street.

John's mother Lisa Petrie has since distributed more than 100 bleeding control kits around Edinburgh - emergency medical packs with equipment for stopping catastrophic blood loss.

The first minister has told Holyrood his administration will follow through with an SNP manifesto pledge to roll out bleed kits to community settings across Scotland.

The announcement will be welcomed by Lisa, who has also been pushing for tighter controls around the sale of knives.

That wasn't mentioned by John Swinney, although he said his government would continue to support and organisations and initiatives targeting youth violence and knife crime.

Earlier today, Lisa and her family attended the unveiling of a 27-foot statue made of more than 100,000 knives. The Knife Angel has been installed beside the street where her son died.