Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government does not procure buses. Bus services are predominantly provided by commercial operators, with local authorities and other public bodies procuring or supporting services where appropriate. As these organisations are autonomous contracting authorities, they are responsible for their own procurement activity and for determining the approach to individual procurements.

Where the Scottish Government provides support through subsidy schemes, including ScotZEB, funding arrangements must comply with the UK Subsidy Control Act 2022. The Act prohibits subsidies that are contingent on the use of domestic goods or services. Consequently, the location of manufacturing activity cannot be used as a preferential condition for the award of subsidy funding.

ScotZEB3 was assessed against published criteria focused on matters such as deliverability, market development and wider community benefits. The Scottish Government remains committed to supporting Scotland's economy, fair work and the transition to net zero through measures set out in the Programme for Government and through investment in sustainable public transport.

Earlier this year, Alexander Dennis took the decision to relocate bus manufacturing to Scarborough, however the firm chose to retain its Larbert facility for the building of bus chassis, protecting hundreds of skilled manufacturing jobs in Scotland.

The Scottish Government and Scottish Enterprise remain in regular dialogue with the company in order to prioritise the protection of as many skilled jobs as possible.

Questions on stroke rehabilitation have been prepared and will be incorporated into the Scottish Stroke Care Audit (SSCA) from 1 January 2027. An initial pilot in Grampian and Lanarkshire informed further refinement of the proposed dataset. The data collected will be used to inform patients and the public regarding service provision in their local area.

In addition, an updated organisational audit is to be completed this year. Rehabilitation service provision is also explored in detail as part of each Board’s annual review. Areas of concern are identified and addressed, while examples of good practice shared across Scotland’s Health Boards to support continuous improvement and better patient care.

The Field Readiness Hub is not a healthcare facility and does not provide clinical care or treat patients. It is a specialist facility based in Dundee that allows healthcare infrastructure to be assembled, tested and refined before deployment into complex humanitarian setting. This includes testing clinical layouts, power and water systems, biomedical equipment integration, staff workflows and maintenance arrangements, helping to identify and resolve issues before facilities are deployed overseas.

This step is critical as problems with infrastructure and equipment are exponentially harder to resolve once deployed into complex settings. Therefore, testing them in advance helps ensure teams are provided with facilities that are safe, practical and ready to save lives as soon as possible.

Therefore there are no patients treated at the Hub

However, the purpose of the Hub is to improve the safety, quality and operational readiness of healthcare facilities that will subsequently deliver care to patients elsewhere.

It may be helpful to explain that the investment is already contributing to several healthcare projects, including:

• A modular paediatric surgical facility in Jericho, West Bank.
• A modular paediatric surgical facility in Juba, South Sudan.
• Further projects at early development stages in Syria, Kenya and Bangladesh.
• The ongoing Gaza HOPES hospital programme, for which the Hub was originally established to support testing, configuration and operational planning.

The impact of the Hub should therefore be assessed through the healthcare capacity and patient care it enables in deployment settings, rather than by the number of patients treated within the Hub itself.

The Hub is an initiative developed and operated by Kids Operating Room from its Centre for Global Operations in Dundee, drawing on the charity’s existing team of specialists in areas including healthcare infrastructure, biomedical engineering, logistics and operations. This means the Hub builds on skilled jobs and specialist expertise already based in Dundee, with staff contributing to its work as part of their wider roles. No staff are employed exclusively by the Field Readiness Hub.

Ten child patients and their families arrived in Scotland in Autumn 2025, under the UK Government medevac scheme and are receiving NHS treatment. Some of the 27 siblings who accompanied them have also required NHS treatment since arriving in the UK.

Scotland has committed to supporting up to 20 child patients and their families and we stand ready to receive further arrivals. The Programme for Government 2026 – 2031 also commits the Scottish Government to providing continued support for the people of Palestine.

The Scottish Stroke Improvement Programme team continue to support NHS Boards including NHS Forth Valley, NHS Borders and NHS Lanarkshire, with a focus on promoting best practice, supporting innovation in care pathways and advising how challenges in service delivery can be addressed.

Through the governance arrangements of the Scottish National Audit Programme, each Health Board is held to account for its performance against the stroke standards. Where performance is a negative outlier, the board is required are asked to produce an action plan which is reviewed after six months. These action plans also inform discussions during each Stroke Improvement Programme board review.

The reasons for longer door-to-needle times out-of-hours vary between Boards but can include a lack of in-person stroke consultant presence, differences in radiology service provision, and increasingly busy stroke on-call rotas.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting fair work, employment and skills development across the economy. Public procurement guidance highlights the role that community benefits can play in creating jobs, apprenticeships, work placements and wider skills opportunities where these are relevant and proportionate to the contract concerned.

In relation to subsidy schemes such as ScotZEB3, applications were assessed against published criteria, including market development and wider community benefits. The scheme was designed to support the transition to zero-emission buses while encouraging investment, supporting jobs and skills, and strengthening supply chains associated with Scotland's green economy.

Since 2019, the Scottish Government has supported Scotland's colleges with £1.6 million to develop provision for skills relating to zero emission vehicles,, including training for teaching staff and the provision of specialist equipment.

The Scottish Government does not procure buses. Bus services are predominantly provided by commercial operators, with local authorities and other public bodies procuring or supporting services where appropriate. As these organisations are autonomous contracting authorities, they are responsible for their own procurement activity and for determining, on a case-by-case basis, how best to meet their legal obligations and policy objectives.

Where the Scottish Government provides funding support through subsidy schemes, such as the Scottish Zero Emission Bus Challenge Fund (ScotZEB), schemes must be designed and delivered in accordance with the UK Subsidy Control Act 2022. Under that framework, subsidies cannot be made contingent on the use of domestically produced goods or services, often referred to as local-content requirements.

ScotZEB3 was a competitive, criteria-led scheme. Applications were assessed against published criteria, including market development and wider community benefits, which together accounted for 30% of the assessment. The scheme is intended to support the transition to zero-emission buses while helping to grow Scotland's green economy, support jobs and strengthen supply chains.