Chamber and committees

The Highland Council’s report of handling recorded 1,047 representations: 746 objections, 314 in support, and 9 neutral.

Separately, the Scottish Government has received a total 411 individual written representations in relation to the proposed development. A detailed breakdown of how many are in support or opposed is not available; however all relevant matters raised will be taken into account through the decision-making process.

In addition, petitions opposing the proposal have been submitted to the Scottish Government, including from: Not Coul (currently over 92,000 signatures), the Scottish Greens (around 4,500), and RSPB (around 11,000).

The regulatory regimes for offshore oil and gas licensing and consenting are matters reserved to the UK Government.

The Scottish Government has noted the recent publication of the UK Government’s North Sea Future Plan, including its approach to future offshore oil and gas licensing. We are now taking the appropriate time to carefully consider the detail within the UK Government’s plan and its implications for Scotland.

All public bodies have an obligation to consider the conservation objectives of Marine Protected Areas within their decision making and ensure these are furthered.

The Programme Working Group, comprised of representatives from CMAL, CalMac, Transport Scotland and Argyll and Bute Council, has been considering various replacement vessel and infrastructure options to ensure the optimum solution for ferry services to Dunoon and Kilcreggan.

In terms of moving forward with replacement vessels and infrastructure for the route, approvals from Transport Scotland’s Investment Decision Board and Ministers will be required following completion of the Outline Business Case, which will be subject to budget considerations and investment priorities across the network. An investment decision is currently scheduled for Q2 2026.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-42300 on 11 December 2025.

Programme costs and budgets as well as construction and delivery timelines are currently being reviewed alongside vessel and infrastructure options and will be included in the Outline Business Case.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers.

The challenges faced by seasonal workers and their employers are complex, and therefore significant work is required in order to bring these bespoke standards into place. Whilst we will progress this work for the remainder of this parliamentary session, the government does not expect to legislate within this current parliamentary session.

As previously stated, we are assessing what is required pursuant to section 315 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987.

Communiqués summarising key points of discussion at Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Inter-Ministerial Group meetings are published on the Scottish Government website. Horticultural peat was most recently discussed at the June 2025 meeting. The Scottish Government called for legislative collaboration and consistent messaging across the UK in order to avoid potential undermining of the devolution settlement arising from the UK Internal Market Act and to support a level playing field for Scotland’s horticulture industry.

As you will already be aware, responsibility for the UK’s telecommunications network is reserved to the UK Government, with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology being the lead government department.

The move to digital-based services is an industry-led decision and process. The decision to upgrade the legacy PSTN network is driven by the increasing fragility of the 40-year old analogue landline technology and the increased difficulty in maintaining the current network, due to reduced availability of replacement parts and the reduction of expertise in these analogue systems.

Universal Service Obligations

It is worth noting that the PSTN migration does not affect the Universal Service Obligations set in the Electronic Communications (Universal Service) Order 2003, which require the designated providers to offer telephony services throughout the UK, and providers will remain bound by their existing statutory responsibilities.

Ofcom, the independent telecoms regulator, has issued guidance on how telecoms companies can fulfil their regulatory obligation to ensure that their VoIP customers have access to the emergency services in such circumstances. This guidance states that providers should have at least one solution available that enables access to emergency organisations for a minimum of one hour in the event of a power outage in the premises. The solution should be suitable for customers’ needs and should be offered free of charge to those who are at risk as they are dependent on their landline.

You can read Ofcom’s full guidance at the following links:

Guidance: Protecting access to emergency organisations when there is a power cut at the customer’s premises - Ofcom

Moving landline phones to digital technology: what you need to know - Ofcom

Customers who are not eligible for a free resilience solution should be able to request one but their provider may charge for it. Customers who are moving to VoIP services and are reliant on their landline should discuss their situation and requirements for a back-up solution with their provider before they are moved on to VoIP services.

Shared Rural Network

UK-wide initiatives will also bring coverage improvements in Scotland. The Shared Rural Network (SRN), led by the UK Government’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and the UK’s main network operators (O2, EE, Vodafone and Three) will make significant investments in 4G coverage: up to £1Bn to increase 4G access on at least one network to 95% of the UK’s landmass (which equates to around 91% of Scotland’s geography). This is a substantial increase on coverage levels of around 44% when the programme commenced in 2020. Ofcom’s most recent Connected Nations 2025 report states that as of July 2025, 90% of Scotland’s landmass had access to at least one mobile operator.

SRN is structured around two distinct but complimentary projects: the operators worked collaboratively to improve partial not-spots- those areas where 4G is only available on one or two providers – collectively investing in excess of £500 million on a commercial basis. This Partial Not-Spot project completed last summer.

Building on this, the UK Government is funding a second phase which is currently working to address 'total not-spots', areas where there is no coverage from any network provider and no likelihood of commercial investment. Further information about SRN is available at Shared Rural Network, including a high level map showing which areas will benefit from new Total Not Spot masts. Initial locations for Total Not Spot masts met strong opposition from groups such as the National Trust for Scotland, Scottish Land and Estates, the John Muir Trust and others over concerns for the impact on sensitive ‘wilderness’ landscapes and biodiversity. We brokered discussion among the mobile industry, UK Government and representatives from these groups to identify a mutually agreeable compromise solution.

In addition to this, BT recently announced it would address mobile not-spots through further investment. In the past 12 months, they’ve improved mobile coverage in more than 500 areas across the UK. BT will look to extend coverage in a further 900 locations by 2024.

Although the telecommunications sector is reserved to the UK Government, we understand the importance of increasing telecoms resilience, particularly in rural areas, which is why we invested £28.75 million in our multi award winning Scottish 4G Infill Programme (S4GI) programme.

Through S4GI we built and activated 55 future-proofed masts across Scotland, from Shetland to the Scottish Borders, to improve mobile telecoms resilience by increasing the overall network coverage in Scotland. All 55 masts are now live. The Scottish Government remains in close contact with UK Government-led initiatives such as the Shared Rural Network and the Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme, which will also increase access to 4G services in rural, remote and island areas across Scotland. Both programmes make full use of our S4GI infrastructure further enhancing the impact of our investment and ensuring programmes achieve mutual aims. We continue to seek opportunities for further alignment.

For customers who don’t or can’t yet access broadband at home, Openreach have introduced a new dedicated landline service as an interim solution. This won’t require any in-home changes and will continue to provide access to a powered line.

Civil Contingencies

As previously mentioned, the responsibility of both telecoms and energy resilience rests with the UK Government. Both telecoms outages as well as power outages, affecting telecoms, can and do happen anywhere, at any time for a variety of reasons including severe weather or technical failures.

The Scottish Government work closely with the responder community on a variety of risks including those relating to telecoms outages.

The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 places duties upon statutory responders to plan, co-operate, share information, assess risk, develop business continuity and warn and inform the public. The Scottish Government does not direct responders in how to fulfil their legislative duties under the act. However, resilience partnerships are formed by the statutory responder agencies who come together to prepare for civil emergencies.

The Scottish Government is also active in facilitating information briefing sessions between BT Openreach and Scottish Stakeholders including Regional Resilience Partnership members, to ensure they have the most up to date information to allow them to prepare for how their services will run when this telecoms switchover is completed.

Additionally, we continue to work with industry, UK Government, the regulator (Ofcom) and other devolved governments through the Electronic Communications – Resilience and Response Group (EC-RRG) whose aim is to develop and maintain cooperation between the Communications Sector and Government on issues regarding resilience and emergency planning.

As you will already be aware, responsibility for the UK’s telecommunications network is reserved to the UK Government, with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology being the lead government department.

The move to digital-based services is an industry-led decision and process. The decision to upgrade the legacy PSTN network is driven by the increasing fragility of the 40-year old analogue landline technology and the increased difficulty in maintaining the current network, due to reduced availability of replacement parts and the reduction of expertise in these analogue systems.

Universal Service Obligations

It is worth noting that the PSTN migration does not affect the Universal Service Obligations set in the Electronic Communications (Universal Service) Order 2003, which require the designated providers to offer telephony services throughout the UK, and providers will remain bound by their existing statutory responsibilities.

Ofcom, the independent telecoms regulator, has issued guidance on how telecoms companies can fulfil their regulatory obligation to ensure that their VoIP customers have access to the emergency services in such circumstances. This guidance states that providers should have at least one solution available that enables access to emergency organisations for a minimum of one hour in the event of a power outage in the premises. The solution should be suitable for customers’ needs and should be offered free of charge to those who are at risk as they are dependent on their landline.

You can read Ofcom’s full guidance at the following links:

Guidance: Protecting access to emergency organisations when there is a power cut at the customer’s premises - Ofcom

Moving landline phones to digital technology: what you need to know - Ofcom

Customers who are not eligible for a free resilience solution should be able to request one but their provider may charge for it. Customers who are moving to VoIP services and are reliant on their landline should discuss their situation and requirements for a back-up solution with their provider before they are moved on to VoIP services.

PSTN Charter

You may be pleased to learn that on the 18 December 2023 a number of Communications Providers signed a Public Switched Telephone Network charter, where signatories (full list at link below) commit to the following:

1. We will not undertake any non-voluntary migrations to digital landlines, until we have full confidence that we are taking all possible steps to protect vulnerable people through the migration process.

2. No telecare users will be migrated to digital landline services without us, the customer, or the telecare company confirming that they have a compatible and functioning telecare solution in place.

3. Where battery back-up solutions are provided, we will work to provide solutions that go beyond the Ofcom minimum of 1 hour of continued, uninterrupted access to emergency services in the event of a power outage.

4. We will collectively work with Ofcom and Government to create a shared definition of vulnerable customer groups that require greater support, specific to the digital landline migration.

5. We will conduct additional checks on customers who have already been non-voluntarily migrated to ensure they do not have telecare devices we were unaware of, and if they do, ensure suitable support is provided.

Public Switched Telephone Network charter - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

We continue to work with industry, UK Government, the regulator (Ofcom) and other devolved governments through the Electronic Communications – Resilience and Response Group (EC-RRG) whose aim is to develop and maintain cooperation between the Communications Sector and Government on issues regarding resilience and emergency planning.