In recent years increasing attention appears to have been given to Scots as a variety in itself – its covert prestige as a sociolect in urban areas and aspects of its internal and external history have been investigated in numerous valuable essays and book-length studies. Indeed, the patterns of convergence and divergence between Scots and English have very deep historical roots, and it would be erroneous to assume that nowadays even the usage of educated speakers is totally anglicized. The presence of Scots is still clearly discernible not only on the phonological level, but also in lexis, syntax and discourse organization, and the frequency with which such distinctive features occur varies in relation to many sociolinguistic parameters. As a result, the two varieties may be so closely intertwined that it has been argued that it would be difficult to collect reliable data as to the number of Scots speakers, and on these grounds the proposal to include a question on Scots in the 2001 census has been rejected. However, estimates are in fact available from the General Record Office (Scotland). In addition, the completely different case of Gaelic should be considered. The number of Gaelic speakers has been monitored for a long time and measures to limit its decline have been taken at various levels (for instance, in media policy). In the case of Scots, instead, the situation is quite different. Although Scots is promoted in education, everyday usage may still be perceived to be ‘bad Scots’, i.e. too distant from an idealized literary model. This is possibly the outcome of a long prescriptive tradition, and it may indeed be impossible by now to restore Scots to the same level of acceptability in all registers as it had in the sixteenth century. Nonetheless, a step towards this may have been taken with the establishment of a Cross-Party Group on the Scots Language in the Scottish Parliament. The aim of this paper is to discuss the activities of this Cross-Party Group in the framework of the socio-historical context outlined above.