Chamber and committees

In what way? If you are talking about cross-border travel, I should point out that timetabling is a UK responsibility. There are still certain reserved matters in that respect. Indeed, if I am allowed to say so, convener, I am keen for the committee to have the opportunity to look at the rail reform legislation before dissolution, because it is important that we finish our piece of work on that, if we can. However—and this is my segue, convener—cross-border issues are a key aspect of rail reform and of where we will be in the future, and we will have to work with the UK Government on those issues.

The question, then, is whether we should subsidise people to travel by train to London. If we are using public money to do so, we are not using that money to do all the other things that everybody else wants us to do. That choice is there, but the point is that it might be a challenge to do what you are suggesting on a cross-border basis.

That said, your point about encouraging more people to use trains more often is well made, and I support it. It is a really important thing for us to do. As for how we do it, though, the devil is probably in the detail. It comes down to choices: should we subsidise, say, rail commuters, or should we subsidise buses and make sure that there is more rural bus provision? These are choices that we are all going to have to face in the future.

We will come back to you on that.

One of the strongest recommendations in the committee’s report on local government and its partners in delivering net zero was that the Government should support that service. That is therefore a result for this committee and the Parliament from that early recommendation.

Clearly, again, it is about working in partnership with local authorities. There are decisions that local authorities can and should take themselves for their local areas. Getting local government to work together on commonality is perhaps an aspect that you might want to encourage COSLA to pick up. Sue Webber will know that that the regulations around EV charging networks are reserved. I think that the previous Conservative UK Government brought in regulations in November 2023 to enforce standards of performance for EV chargers. A lot of chargers are community based or in rural areas. We would not want people to not comply with the new regulations and those charging points to close. We have therefore supported a transition to what is now required, which includes contactless payment. Contactless payment is increasingly popular, and app use is extensive. More of the regulations are becoming enforceable, and with enforcement come penalties for the charging networks that are not complying, in order to raise the standard of delivery.

Sue Webber mentioned variability, and there is a market element to that. More private companies have been involved and they must have their margins and so on—I understand that. I have spoken about the 10-year EV charging point rates relief that we have announced, which will be helpful.

However, the point about commonality of standards is a good one, particularly in relation to local government. People are familiar with the places that they go to, and the standards should be similar. However, companies will have worked out their own finances, their margins and the suppliers. The point about whether we can enforce the same prices for charging, for example, goes back to Douglas Lumsden’s point. We are not in charge of electricity pricing, which is, again, a reserved matter.

As I said, the UK Government is responsible for the regulations on charging infrastructure. Its new regulations penalise providers, whether they are local authority or private sector, if the chargers are not working at the required delivery level. That should change the performance of UK charging structures and was the right thing to do. Taking a sledgehammer and a cliff-edge approach to that would have meant that a provider would immediately be fined £15,000 a pop—I am not quite sure how much the penalty is for not delivering.

We monitor that through ChargePlace Scotland. Again, there is a transition to other forms of delivery. The performance rates are high, although, as in the past, it only takes one bad experience to knock people’s confidence. I understand that, but you should have confidence that the Conservative UK Government’s regulations and ChargePlace should help with enforcement.

There are a number of different reasons for having the concessionary scheme. It started back in legislation in 2001 that, from what I remember, Sarah Boyack took through Parliament. Obviously, we have expanded it since then, and now 2.4 million people are using it.

Part of it was about supporting particular groups that were facing challenges with the costs of travel, but anybody who knows anyone who uses the concessionary travel scheme, particularly anyone who is older, will know that it gives them the ability to get out and about, to use public services, to get the stimulation that they need and all the rest of it. It is important in tackling those kinds of issues, too.

The key part of your question, though, is whether, strategically, it is helping with modal shift, and we are looking at that in our modelling of where people are using buses. Clearly, bus use is determined by a number of things, including the availability of buses. We are in a deregulated market, which means that the Scottish Government does not control where the buses are and so on. However, we can provide support, and we have done so through the network support grant. The grant was initially put in place to help buses during Covid, but it was subsequently seen as important in keeping bus routes open where they can be kept open and in supporting the industry.

Our monitoring shows that, post-Covid, there were different experiences when it came to people returning to buses. For example, we had a real challenge with older people; I might bring in colleagues to talk about how we monitor these things, but the transport use surveys and our monitoring of concessionary travel showed that older people were particularly slower to come back. That might have been for lots of understandable reasons. Perhaps people felt that, after the Covid experience, they did not want to be in enclosed spaces with other people—there is probably a sociological aspect to it.

The good news, though, is that those older people are now coming back. It is a demand-led budget—in other words, what it costs is led by demand. The more who use buses, or the more who come back to them—I am thinking particularly of older people, and the increasing use of buses by younger people—the more it will affect the funding that is available.

However, understanding whether that, in and of itself, helps with modal shift is quite complex. I do not think that there is a single answer to that, but Alison Irvine might want to give you some perspective on the bus system.

I think that you are wrong in relation to the statistics. We are talking about 2.4 million people—we should think about Scotland’s population—travelling under the concessionary fare scheme. That is a significant figure.

On your point about whether the money could do more than one thing and drive change, the problem is that people’s rights under the concessionary travel scheme are set out in statute. The committee has seen amendments to expand the scheme to under-22s. There must then be a negotiation on the amount that is required per journey to ensure that we get value for money for the price of allowing 2.4 million people, which is a considerable number, to access buses under the scheme.

Does that allow us to use the £0.5 billion of public spend on other aspects of transport policy? It does not, because we are hemmed in by the original legislation, despite its good intent and the success that it has led to. It would be open to a new Government or a new Parliament to determine whether it wanted to use that £0.5 billion more strategically.

However, I strongly believe that the concessionary fare scheme is extremely popular. People like it and increasingly use it—2.4 million people is a significant number. On your point about whether the money could be used in a more strategic way, the challenge relates to the underpinning legislation.

There are 2.4 million people using the scheme. I think that what you are trying to get at is how we encourage the working-age population to travel more by bus. There is an incentive to travel with their children during weekends and evenings; we know that bus use is going up at weekends and in the evening, and the leisure market is really improving.

Can employers do—and are they doing—things to ensure that there is greater bus patronage? I know that the University of St Andrews is working with a very good bus plan. These things are happening—the issue is whether we make it a top-down Government requirement and visit every single employer to ask why they are not encouraging their working-age population to use the concessionary travel scheme more with their elderly relatives or their children. That becomes more problematic.

Alison Irvine might want to come in to help with that; Mr Ruskell and I may be speaking at cross-purposes.

It is probably for politicians and this committee to make an assessment about that. The figure is £525 million, not the best part of £1 billion, but that is still a substantial amount of public funding. Could the funding work harder? Yes, but that would require primary legislative changes and an act of this Parliament, and we would need to use the different levers that we have been talking about.

The problem can be seen from monitoring data. My area of West Lothian has one of the lowest uptakes of concessionary travel among under-22s because the bus services go on a lot of east-west routes, many of which are historical routes, but they do not go on many north-south routes.

As Alison Irvine set out, the availability of buses is critical. That is why local authorities can and are pursuing plans to take over bus routes, as we have seen in recent weeks with Highland Council taking over routes that were previously run privately.

In a deregulated market, private companies will operate if they can get a return. Therefore, the support and shift in funding in the budget for local transport authorities and regional transport partnerships to pursue franchising is important. For example, Strathclyde Partnership for Transport is pursuing franchising just now with a view to being more strategic across the regional transport partnership area.

Different places are pursuing different aspects of franchising. Could the funding for concessionary travel be working harder? My view is that it could, but how that can happen will be for the next Parliament to determine.

It is a case of both/and rather than either/or. One figure is for this financial year and the other is for the next. There is £3 million for a four-month period in the current financial year and £7 million for a period in the next financial year. That gives a 12-month pilot period that would cost £10 million.