NICOLA Sturgeon’s flagship plan to cut people’s electricity bills with a not-for-profit public energy company have drifted off course.

Her energy minister Paul Wheelhouse has confirmed a delay to a vital public consultation.

The hold-up is a blow to the First Minister, who made delivering a public energy company by 2021 the main promise of her speech to SNP conference in October 2017.

Last December, Mr Wheelhouse told MSPs the process would start the following year.

“We commit to a formal process of public consultation in the later part of 2018,” he said.

Government documents said an “outline business case” would be prepared during the current year, consulted on in the second half, and approved by the year end.

However it has now emerged that the government has only just commissioned an outline business case, and the consultation has been put off to next year.

Mr Wheelhouse was asked by Labour last month when he expected to publish the outcome of the consultation on a public energy company.

In a new written answer,

He said: “The Scottish Government has commissioned the outline business case for the public energy company. This will inform the consultation that we have committed to undertaking in early 2019. Key stakeholders will be invited to participate in workshops that feed into the outline business case later this year.”

Scottish Tory energy spokesman Alexander Burnett said: “This was clearly an off-the-cuff announcement to get Nicola Sturgeon through a major speech.

“Nothing like enough preparation or thought had gone into it, and that’s now beginning to show. It’s no wonder the industry has ridiculed the idea as unworkable and of little benefit.”

Mr Wheelhouse said the Tory criticism was as partisan as it was flawed.

He said: "We are on track to deliver our ambition of a public energy company by the end of this Parliament in 2021, with the aim of delivering two key objectives - to tackle issues such as fuel poverty and the harm it causes and to support economic development.

“The strategic outline case was published in April, and the work to take forward the outline business case on a proposed model is now being developed, while key stakeholders, including Cosla, are being consulted over the period to the end of this calendar year.

"We have already announced a public consultation will be conducted next year and the Tories are free to contribute to that if they so wish.”