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In 2021, through the first phase of the Scottish Zero Emission Bus Challenge Fund (ScotZEB), the Scottish Government supported operators to acquire 276 zero-emission buses and their supporting infrastructure, with awards of £62 million. This hugely successful grant programme brought the number of zero-emission buses in Scotland supported by the Scottish Government to 548. These vehicles have been brought in to service across the country, including in the mid Scotland and Fife region with the recent fleets of zero-emission buses being brought into service in Perth and Dunfermline.

Through the opening of the second phase of ScotZEB, the Scottish Government has made up to £58 million available to further support the bus sector to decarbonise. This is in addition to the £113 million already invested through ScotZEB 1 and its predecessor the Scottish Ultra Low Emission Bus Scheme (SULEBS), meeting our commitment to invest £120 million into zero-emission buses; taking us closer to realising a fully decarbonised future for Scotland’s bus fleet and supporting the Scottish supply chain. Currently Scotland has around double the proportion of its fleet running on zero-emissions, compared to the proportion in England, and ScotZEB 2 will allow Scotland to continue to be a leading example of bus decarbonisation.

We have always been clear that the bus decarbonisation target was an ambitious target that the Scottish Government could not meet alone. We all have to play our part in the collective endeavour to end Scotland’s contribution to climate change. The launch of ScotZEB 2 is the next phase of the Government’s contribution, to encourage collaborative proposals and bring about necessary change in the market, and deliver a Just Transition to net zero for the bus and coach sector. We will continue to challenge the bus sector to deliver excellence for Scotland, and by working in partnership with private financiers, manufacturers, SMEs and community operators, I have every confidence that Scotland’s bus sector will rise to this challenge. The role of the Bus Decarbonisation Taskforce has been crucial in bringing key players in the sector together to tackle the shared barriers in the way of decarbonisation, which is why I am happy to confirm that the Taskforce has reconvened after the launch of ScotZEB 2.

The Scottish Government expects the bus sector to deliver highly transformational projects, with Government support, to deliver rapid change to the bus market in Scotland, making zero-emission vehicles the default choice for operators. Scotland is the perfect place for innovative financiers and technology start-ups to invest in a zero-emission future. The Scottish Government is putting policies in place which will support these businesses to transition at pace to zero-emissions; grow our green wellbeing economy; provide opportunities for good, green jobs in Scotland; and better, healthier communities.

Co-Operative Development Scotland (CDS), operating within Scottish Enterprise, continues to work to raise awareness of the value of co-operative and employee ownership models, provides specialist advice and support to businesses and community groups who want to adopt those models and supports company growth through collaborative and employee ownership business models.

Industry leadership group Scotland for Employee Ownership champions employee ownership across Scotland, raising awareness of the employee ownership model and providing a voice for the sector in Scotland.

A total of £4,480,000 of public funding has been allocated so far by Transport Scotland through the Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Fund. This is an allocation of £140,000 to each Scottish local authority to enable the development and delivery of public electric vehicle charge point strategies and infrastructure expansion plans. The development of strategies and infrastructure expansion plans will precede capital projects which are expected to commence in 2024, that will seek to draw in private investment from Charge Point Operators as part of the overall £60m funding of the programme.

The Scottish Government usually publishes local authority analysis using a three year pooled data set to ensure sufficient sample sizes.

As set out in the most recent Scottish House Condition Survey 2021 Key Findings Report, (available at Scottish House Condition Survey 2021 ) there will be no Local Authority publication relating to the 2019 to 2021 three year period for two reasons.

Firstly, due to the Covid 19 pandemic the SHCS survey was suspended and there is no data for 2020. Secondly, the data from the 2021 external+ SHCS is not directly comparable with that for earlier years, due methodological differences, and therefore it would not be appropriate to combine it with the data for 2019 (or earlier) to produce a multi-year analysis.

As three years of data is required to produce local authority analysis there will not be a return to the usual approach for producing local authority estimates until the 2024 wave of the SHCS has completed and published in early 2026.

The most recent estimates of local authority fuel poverty rates are for 2017-2019 and are available at: Scottish House Condition Survey: Local Authority Analysis 2017-2019 , however these estimates pre-date the energy crisis.

Scenario modelling estimates that under the Ofgem energy price cap of £2,074 for a typical dual fuel households, from 1st July 2023, shows there will be around 850,000 fuel poor households in Scotland (34%) an increase of around 230,000 households and 9 percentage points since 2019. This analysis was based on one year of data so cannot be used to produce estimates at the Local Authority Level. However, the large increases in the fuel poverty rate will be reflected across each Local Authority in Scotland.

We are developing an International Culture Strategy with stakeholders, including our international offices and Creative Scotland, that will support the international aspirations and potential of the culture sector in Scotland and build on its strong international footprint.

The Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office invests through NHS Research Scotland in the Scottish Health Research Register and Biobank (SHARE) to support the recruitment of people into health research studies and clinical trials. People interested in participating in health research can register to SHARE in order to be contacted about studies to which they might be suited.

The Scottish Government recognises that the ability to attract and deliver innovative clinical research studies is vital to improving healthcare and patient outcomes. We therefore welcome Lord O’Shaughnessy’s review into commercial clinical trials in the UK. We will engage with partners across the UK in the coming weeks to understand how we can work together to ensure the review’s recommendations are considered for Scotland.

Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office engages regularly with UK Government and agencies directly, and through cross-UK fora, on streamlining the clinical trials system across the UK. These discussions cover a range of topics, recently including post-pandemic growth, clinical trial regulations, research ethics review, and commercial trial costing and contracting – where Scotland’s already existing single price model for commercial research is informing work to realise a streamlined, standardised, UK approach.

The Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office invests through NHS Research Scotland in the Scottish Health Research Register and Biobank (SHARE) to support the recruitment of people into health research studies and clinical trials. SHARE is an expanding register of over 300,000 people who have expressed an interest in participating in health research and have agreed to be contacted about studies to which they might be suited.

Data produced by SHARE shows ethnic and socioeconomic distributions supportive of inclusive recruitment to health research studies. CSO is also funding an ongoing project by the University of Aberdeen looking at ways to improve ethnic diversity in clinical trials and to help trial teams recruit and retain ethnic groups in studies.

In addition, In February 2023, the Scottish Government published an independent report on Equity of Access to Cancer Clinical Trials in Scotland. The report contains 51 recommendations, with an Implementation Board established to prioritise these and develop an implementation strategy. While the report focuses on cancer clinical trials, many of the recommendations are relevant across the clinical spectrum.

The Scottish Government recognises that the ability to attract and deliver innovative clinical research studies is vital to improving healthcare and patient outcomes. We therefore welcome Lord O’Shaughnessy’s review into commercial clinical trials in the UK. We will engage with partners across the UK in the coming weeks to understand how we can work together to ensure the review’s recommendations are considered for Scotland.