Emails put Flynn’s ferry-leak account under fresh scrutiny

• Two emails about the Glen Sannox leak went to the cabinet secretary’s official mailbox at 08:48 and 09:04 on 9 September, before a 09:15 committee hearing.
• At the hearing, Flynn said he had not been briefed on the BBC report “unless I have missed it”.
• The Scottish Government says the morning draft was not shared with Flynn and was not a formal briefing.
• The BBC reported that a separate, post-hearing email described a statement as “cleared by Mr Flynn”.

The emails establish that information about the BBC’s report reached the official mailbox for Stephen Flynn, Scotland’s Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Tourism and Transport. They do not establish that he personally saw either message before the Transport Committee hearing. The Scottish Government says the draft was not shared with him. Those are different claims about delivery, briefing and personal knowledge—and the released record does not resolve the gap between them.¹²

The first email, sent 27 minutes before the hearing was due to start, flagged the BBC story and suggested a Transport Scotland response if committee members asked about it. It also said the department had yet to be contacted for comment. A second email, sent 11 minutes before the session, added CalMac’s lines and was marked “for awareness”. Both went to the cabinet secretary’s official mailbox and copied government and communications officials.¹

During the hearing, committee convener Willie Rennie asked Flynn whether he had been briefed on the news story. Flynn replied: “No—unless I have missed it.” He said he had not seen the BBC report that morning, while allowing that information about the earlier incident might have been passed to him over the summer. He promised to provide the committee with further information.²

The dispute sharpened on 9 October, when BBC Scotland reported on a different email, sent at 17:04 after the hearing. The BBC said it had seen a message describing a statement as “cleared by Mr Flynn”. That statement said he had not been briefed on the incident and that details had been shared with his predecessor, Fiona Hyslop, on 30 June 2025. The post-hearing message raises a question about what Flynn approved later that day; on its own, it does not show what he knew before the hearing.³

Transport Scotland’s position, reported by The National, is that the morning draft was sent to Flynn’s office shortly before he arrived, was not shared with him and did not amount to a formal briefing. It said he received a formal briefing later. The Scottish Government’s freedom of information release published most, but not all, of the requested records; it withheld some material under exemptions covering policy development, official advice and personal data.⁴⁵

The underlying incident was not new: on 3 June 2025, a valve failure aboard the Glen Sannox released methane while the ferry was carrying passengers. The October disclosures concern what officials sent to a minister’s office—and what the minister knew before answering questions about that incident. That distinction matters for parliamentary scrutiny of a ferry service on which island communities rely.⁶

Footnotes

1. Scottish Government FOI release and annex, published 8 October 2026 ↩ ↩²

2. Scottish Parliament, Transport Committee official report, 9 September 2026 ↩ ↩²

3. BBC Scotland, report on the emails, 9 October 2026 ↩

4. The National, reporting the Scottish Government’s response ↩

5. Scottish Government, FOI response and exemptions ↩

6. BBC Scotland, report on the June 2025 gas release ↩