Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is carefully considering the recommendations of the report. Officials are actively engaging with the Competitions and Markets Authority as well as key stakeholders including Consumer Scotland, the UK and Ireland Fuel Distributors Association, the UK and Northern Ireland Governments and consumer advice organisations on how these can be progressed within our devolved powers, including the feasibility of developing a permanent heating oil price checker tool for Scotland.

We continue to make the case to the UK Government that it is critical that it makes urgent progress on implementing the report recommendations.

The Scottish Government welcomed the Competition and Markets Authority's report, which illustrates the higher prices faced by Scottish households, and reinforces our longstanding concerns about the disparity in consumer protections for those reliant on heating oil.

We remain in close contact with key fuel suppliers across Scotland to ensure that we have the information necessary to monitor the current situation and in turn to inform our planning for all eventualities.

Given the current and ongoing volatility of international events, it is critical that UK Government makes urgent progress on implementing the report recommendations. Ultimately, only they have the power to deliver the structural reform needed for meaningful change.

In the meantime, we will continue to deliver support through our Scottish Emergency Heating Oil Scheme. The scheme enables eligible households to apply for £300 towards their heating oil and liquid petroleum gas bills.

The vast majority of funding available to Local Authorities is provided by means of a block grant. It is then the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, including on inter island connectivity, on the basis of local needs and priorities.

Ultimately, locally elected representatives are best placed to make local decisions on how to allocate resources in their communities.

Local authorities have a statutory duty under the Local Government in Scotland Act 2003 to report on their outcomes, alongside a requirement to prepare and publish annual accounts. Shetland and Orkney Island Councils would be expected to set out how they have allocated the totality of funding available to them in 2025-26, including the £20 million, in their accounts for the year.

A total of 263 zero-emission buses and coaches were delivered through Phase 2 of the Scottish Zero Emission Bus Challenge Fund (ScotZEB2). This exceeds the original commitment to support 252 vehicles. All vehicles supported will be brought into service by operators in line with their own deployment plans.

Through ScotZEB2, the Scottish Government has supported significant investment in zero-emission vehicles and charging infrastructure, accelerating the decarbonisation of Scotland's bus and coach fleet while helping to improve air quality and deliver cleaner, greener public transport services for communities across the country.

A total of £41,649,182.68 was spent through Phase 2 of the Scottish Zero Emission Bus Challenge Fund (ScotZEB2) supporting delivery of 263 zero-emission buses and coaches. No additional funding was requested by participating operators.

With every £1 of public funding leveraging in £3 of private investment, ScotZEB2 has successfully demonstrated how collaboration between operators, manufacturers, energy providers and financiers can accelerate the transition to zero-emission public transport across Scotland.

The cost of chartering vessels to cover annual overhaul or disruption is listed in the following table. These are by Contract Year.

The total spend on consultancy services for each financial year from 2021-2022 to 2024-2025 is as follows. Please note the data for 2025-2026 is not yet available as the audit is still in process.

A free, vibrant, and independent press is essential and the Scottish Government is committed to playing our part to ensure it is maintained.

We have ongoing engagement on these matters but have not specifically engaged with Smiths News PLC regarding its ten-year distribution agreements with News UK and DMG Media, nor on regional newspaper distribution in rural and island communities.

In 2025 there were 5 National Entitlement Cards suspended, all within the Older and Disabled Persons’ Free Bus Travel Scheme.

No cardholders have been suspended so far in 2026.

The 45 Recommendations that make up the outcome of the second Strategic Transport Projects Review (STPR2) form the evidence base for the long term investment plans for Scotland’s strategic transport network.

The final set of recommendations consolidated over 2,500 individual projects, schemes and associated interventions. As many STPR2 recommendations comprise multiple interventions, often delivered through separate programmes and on different timescales, many elements of a recommendation may progress at different rates.

Consequently, it is difficult to assign a single implementation status to each recommendation. However, in summary:

None have been fully implemented, however given the nature of some they may require continuous investment, for example #31

41 of the 45 recommendations are classed as having commenced work. And partially implemented for example #10 and #38.

4 of the recommendations are awaiting full mobilisation of their implementation for example #22, #36, #40 and #41. None of the recommendations have been rejected.