Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, June 7, 2017

Official Report 554KB pdf

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National Transport Strategy

Item 2 is an evidence-taking session on the national transport strategy. I welcome to the meeting Humza Yousaf, Minister for Transport and the Islands, and from the Scottish Government, Heather Cowan, head of transport strategy and European funding; Bertrand Deiss, transport strategy officer; and Rory Morrison, senior research officer.

I invite the minister to make a brief opening statement.

Thank you, convener. I know your preference for brief statements, and I will certainly make this brief.

The national transport strategy review will produce a successful strategy setting out a compelling vision for the kind of transport that people and businesses want in Scotland over the next 20 years. Scottish ministers are committed to delivering a collaborative review of the NTS that gives partners, transport operators, local authorities, businesses, the travelling public—of course—and communities right across Scotland a greater say in influencing the development of transport policy at local, regional and national levels.

We are offering opportunities to collaborate and co-produce with our key partners through our partnership group and various working groups. For example, regional transport partnerships and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities will have representation on the roles and responsibilities working group as well as the NTS partnership group, which is co-chaired by COSLA, and the governance body—the NTS review board—which I chair.

Convener, as you and members will be aware, an early engagement consultation in the form of an online survey was carried out between December 2016 and March this year. The purpose of that exercise, the report of which was published last week, was to gather some views from members of the public and interested organisations across Scotland on strategic transport outcomes; changes, challenges and opportunities for transport; and the desired format of future engagement in relation to the NTS review. The total of 614 responses, 538 of which came from individuals, compares very favourably to the response to other fairly high-profile strategic plans and demonstrates how much people care about transport.

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I will, if I may, briefly highlight a few key themes that emerged from the consultation. Respondents made a number of often connected points about increasing levels of active travel such as cycling and walking. Of course, the Government has invested £175 million in active travel since the start of the 2011 spending review and is committed to maintaining those record levels of funding.

Many respondents referred to sustainability and the importance of reducing levels of emissions. That was sometimes associated with reducing the number of car journeys through increased use of public transport and an increase in active travel. Another frequently raised issue was the need for high-quality and integrated public transport services as well as a commitment to addressing the transport-related challenges resulting from remoteness and rurality, and a final key theme was affordability and accessibility of transport.

As for how the review will progress, the findings of the early engagement exercise will now be used to inform wider public and stakeholder engagement, extending the review’s collaborative ethos even further. We are developing a plan for full-scale, Scotland-wide stakeholder engagement to take place later this year, culminating in a full public consultation, and the intention is to publish national transport strategy 2 in the summer of 2019. The responses to the early engagement survey have provided a number of possibilities for progressing full-scale stakeholder engagement including online channels, social media, existing working groups, forums, dedicated events, special interest groups and community engagement. I would, of course, welcome any views that members might have on that.

My very final point is that, as members will know, seven working groups have been established in parallel with the NTS review team to address key challenges and topics in the review. Some of those groups have now met, and the first meetings of the remaining groups will be scheduled from this month onwards. The groups will meet every few months until approximately July 2018, during which time strategic policy options will be developed and then tested by stakeholders and modelling work.

That concludes my opening remarks, convener. I am more than happy to take comments, questions, suggestions and indeed advice from you and other committee members.

Thank you. Before we go any further, do members have any transport interests to declare?

I declare that I am the honorary president of the Scottish Association for Public Transport and honorary vice-president of Railfuture UK. I do not play any executive role in either body, but I have been part of the internal consultation on what is before the committee.

I declare that I am honorary vice-president of Friends of the Far North Line.

It seems appropriate, then, that Rhoda Grant leads off with the questions.

How has the progress of the original national transport strategy been measured?

That is a very good question, and it is partly the reason why a refresh was commissioned in 2015 and took place in 2015-16. That refresh looked at the original 2006 strategy which, as members will know, contained three key strategic outcomes and five high-level objectives, and a table in an annex of its report showed how we measured up from 2006 to the present day. That is how things have been measured; in some cases, there had been good progress while, in others, there was still some progress to be made.

How far did the national transport strategy get in meeting its three strategic outcomes of improved journey times and connections, reduced emissions and improvements in quality, accessibility and affordability?

I know that members will have seen it already, but it is certainly worth looking again at the table that was produced as part of the refresh. We can go into that in a little bit more detail, but I can highlight a number of examples with regard to the key strategic outcomes that Rhoda Grant mentioned.

One of the greatest successes, or areas where we have measured up well, is the reduction in casualties on our roads. The number of people killed in road accidents in Scotland decreased from 300 to 200, which is a 36 per cent reduction, despite there being a 2 per cent increase in road traffic. Improvements have certainly been made on the safety side.

There are good statistics on the use of public transport. We know that there has been an increase in the number of people taking the train. We also know that there was an increase in the percentage of trains arriving on time—the public performance figure—from 86 per cent in 2005-06 to 91 per cent in 2015-16. There have definitely been some positive developments.

However, we should not shy away from the fact that there are also areas where there have been significant challenges. The decline in bus patronage is an example of where the trajectory is going in the wrong direction, so there is work still to do. Although we have made significant progress through the reduction in CO₂ emissions, we as a Government still want to go further on that.

The table in the refresh goes into more detail. There have certainly been some successes, but we are fully aware that there are some areas where we have to, and want to, go further.

One of the outcomes is improved quality, accessibility and affordability. How do you measure that, given that it involves soft targets that are down to perception? How can you measure such outcomes in a way that ensures that people have confidence in them?

That is a very good question. As well as the overarching national transport strategy, we also have a number of other fundamental documents that flow from it.

One of the things that I was very proud to do as transport minister was to launch the accessible travel framework last September, which is a framework for how we make our transport more accessible to people with mobility issues and disabilities over the next 10 years. The document states that a review group will measure outcomes. There have certainly been successes that I could point to. The bus industry has made great progress in improving the accessibility of our buses. It has to meet key targets that are set out in legislation and statutory guidelines.

On affordability, it is important to stress that the Government stepped in to cap the amount by which fares could rise, as a result of which any increase in train fares north of the border was much less than increases south of the border.

However, that is not to take away from the fact that members of the public still feel that elements of their transport could be made more affordable. We have tried to do that for our island communities by introducing the road equivalent tariff, which communities in the Western Isles welcomed greatly. It is right that we get challenged on that by communities in the northern isles. We are committed to taking action on ferry fares.

There have certainly been some successes on the affordability and accessibility front, which are measured through our documents, including the franchise agreement with ScotRail. However, I would never like to give the committee the impression that I believe that we have done everything perfectly and that things cannot be improved, because they can be. We hope that that will come out in the review process.

The refreshed strategy from January 2016 did not really provide any specific policies or proposals. It was very informative in the sense that it outlined the changes in the landscape that had been made over the previous 10 years, but what was its purpose, given that you knew that a full review would be announced just a few months later?

There are a couple of things that I would say to that. One is that the refresh helped inform us of the reasons and rationale for a full-scale review. We did not know before the refresh was undertaken that we would do a review straight after it. The refresh looked at the evidence base. As members will know, there was a fair change in evidence between 2005-06, when the strategy was produced, and where we got to 10 years later in 2015-16. It was important to refresh the evidence base and to look at the analysis of the evidence. That enabled us to determine that there should be a full-scale review.

It is probably also worth making the obvious point—as politicians, you will understand this—that it would have been somewhat unfair to establish a full-scale review towards the tail end of a parliamentary session. Bearing in mind that we are talking about a two to three-year review, if there had been a change in Administration, the review would have been halfway through when the new Administration came in, which would have been quite unfair, as it would have been able to do little to influence the process. The start of a parliamentary session is probably the right time to begin a full-scale review, and that is what we have done.

You mentioned that one of the outcomes of the interim refresh of the NTS was the current full-scale review. Why did it take the Government 11 years to undertake a full-scale review of a matter of such importance? The fact that 614 people and organisations responded to the Government’s survey is surely a testament to the scale of the interest in the NTS. Eleven years seems like a terribly long period, given that other policy documents are generally refreshed on a much more frequent basis, such as every five years.

In the context of the review that is under way, I am happy to explore whether there should be a statutory timeframe for review. I am not inclined to go that way—my gut tells me that that is probably not a good idea. With the current strategy, there is the ability to have a review every four years. In 2010, discussions were held with the NTS stakeholder group which, as you would expect, includes representatives of organisations such as COSLA, the Confederation of British Industry Scotland, the Scottish Trades Union Congress, passenger organisations and commuter interest organisations. In 2010, that group took the view that a review was not necessary.

Ultimately, the decision is one for ministers to take but, in consultation with the stakeholder group, it was decided that a review was not necessary at that point. The national transport strategy was still very relevant in 2010. With the NTS, we take a 20-year view, because changing behaviour and making transport improvements is a long game. That decision was not taken just by ministers; I assure the member that it was taken in consultation with the stakeholder group.

Ten years on, we are in a position in which all stakeholders think that a review is a good idea. The decision to review the national transport strategy is not just a ministerial one. When I meet regional transport partnerships, COSLA, the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers and other stakeholders, I get the strong sense that there is a view that now is the right time for a review. I do not think that there are any differences of opinion on that.

I appreciate your frankness, but I would like to clarify something. Are you saying that it was the NTS stakeholder group, not ministers, that decided not to carry out a review of the NTS over the past 11 years?

No. I think that I said that, ultimately, ministers take the decision. The NTS is a Scottish Government strategy, so it is up to ministers whether to review it, refresh it or tinker with it. However, I hope that I gave the impression that the decision was taken in collaboration and consultation with the NTS stakeholder group.

I would have to think who the transport minister was in 2010; you could obviously ask him. My briefing suggests that the NTS stakeholder group was consulted. I am not saying that all the stakeholders had the same opinion; given how many stakeholders there are on the group, I am sure that that would not have been the case. After taking advice from them, the minister at the time took the decision—absolutely rightly, I think—that there was no need for a full-scale review four years after the publication of the strategy.

Thank you for mentioning the former minister. I am now going to have to bring in Stewart Stevenson.

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Does the fact that the first national transport strategy has Tavish Scott’s signature at the bottom of it illustrate that it represented a consensus and that we ought to be able to find common cause on a long-term view of where we are going? After all, it was a previous transport minister—possibly me—who picked up that strategy and ran with it. The fact is that disagreements and differences of view are more likely to arise when we examine individual projects than when we consider the overarching strategy, on which history tells us that we ought to be able to reach a high level of agreement.

That is correct, so I will not add much to that. I give credit where credit is due: the coalition Government that was in power before the Scottish National Party put together a document that has stood the test of time and is well respected. When I speak to chief officers of transport across the country, it is clear that they respect the national transport strategy and hold it in high regard. However, I am aware that we are one day away from an election, so I should not praise the Opposition too much—[Interruption.]—despite the protestations of Mr Rumbles.

The purpose of the review is for the strategy to stand the test of time, which is why we want to develop it as collaboratively as possible. This has been a learning exercise. The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities has told me once or twice that it should co-chair a group or be represented on one; other stakeholders have said something similar. I have demonstrated my willingness to be as open as possible. We must try to find a balance between accommodating such requests and having death by committee, where there are far too many stakeholders to enable a decision to be made and too many working groups to enable us to function. I think that we have managed to strike that balance well.

I do not recognise the idea of death by committee—I am sure that that has not been referred to.

I assume that there will be some changes to the national transport strategy as a result of the review. Will that have an impact on the day-to-day decisions of the Government and Transport Scotland?

Any changes could have an impact. The national transport strategy is an overarching document that sets out the high-level outcomes that we want to achieve, whereas the day-to-day decisions that we make on a variety of investments will be informed by context on an issue-by-issue basis. There are other documents and strategies, including the strategic transport projects review, which is of great importance to members because it affects investment in strategic transport routes in their areas.

I have no doubt that the review will focus our thinking but, as I said, it relates to high-level strategy as opposed to the day-to-day decisions that have to be made and which affect members around this table.

I think that you said that the target date for the new strategy was summer 2019. Can you give us a bit of detail about what will happen between now and then, and how stakeholders can feed in and so on?

We are doing a bit more work on how stakeholders can feed in, on the back of the early engagement that has taken place. Once I have a firmer view of what is being done, I will be happy to write to the member on that.

With regard to the period between now and summer 2019, because of our collaborative approach I would ask members not to hold me to what will happen in every single month. However, I can say that, as well as the call for evidence that we have already announced, there has been a call for evidence from the research group, which is one of the seven working groups. Between now and July 2018, the working groups will continue to work and meet. I can give members details of the seven working groups, which are split up into functional and thematic areas.

Strategic policy options will be developed from January to July 2018 and collated in August 2018. Those options will then be tested by stakeholders. A framework to enable the monitoring of NTS2 will be developed between August and December 2018, and that is likely to include key performance indicators. The draft national transport strategy will be produced in January 2019, and that will be followed by a consultation period between February and May. The NTS2 document is due to be developed in the summer of 2019.

The working groups will report back to the review group so that, by the time we get to the consultation in early 2019, we should have a pretty solid draft that has been informed from the grass roots up—from stakeholder engagement right the way through to public engagement throughout the country. I hope that, by the time of the consultation, we will have a good idea of how the transport strategy will look. To road test the strategy, we will have a final consultation period beforehand.

The project is for two to three years to allow us to get into the meat of the issues in depth. Each issue will be discussed. Each mode of transport has 101 different issues that we could spend a considerable time delving into. It is therefore important that we take our time and take a strategic and evidence-based approach.

That is helpful.

To follow up Jamie Greene’s line of questioning on what has happened between 2006 and now, have you had any thoughts about what will happen from 2019 onwards? My gut feeling is that things should be reviewed after five or 10 years, and that there should be some kind of plan. It seems to me that, for the past 11 years, what was happening at what point has been a little vague.

That will be part of the review work. As the minister, I am very aware that the monitoring of NTS2 could be stronger and a little more robust than it was for the current strategy. Although the current strategy was developed in collaboration with the stakeholder group, my instinct and gut feeling are that we should firm up on when reviews and refreshers should happen and, in order to give confidence, we should take a slightly more KPI-based approach. However, I do not want to take that decision unilaterally; I want to work with the review groups and other stakeholders on it. That said, I accept John Mason’s point. He and Jamie Greene made the point well. I can at least reassure John Mason that we are aware of that issue.

Good morning, minister. You alluded to the early views survey. The analysis of that identified 11 key themes and was very positive. Those themes included “Promoting cycling, walking and active travel”, “Environmental issues, including reduced emissions”, “High quality, integrated public transport”, “Rural and island transport”, and “Affordability and accessibility”. That reads like a Green manifesto. What was the purpose of the online survey that was launched in 2016? How will those responses influence the development of the revised NTS?

I am not going to take the manifesto bait a day before the election, but the point is well made. Wherever I go, whatever mode of transport is being discussed and whatever the topic is, there is real interest in active travel—it is an integral part of the discussions. Whether I am talking about ferries or people are talking to me about bike storage, trains, dualling the roads or our infrastructure projects, the question is: what is the active travel component? Active travel seems to be a key part of almost every discussion that I have. I agree with John Finnie about active travel being at the forefront of people’s minds.

I would be interested in speaking to Tavish Scott at some point about his key consideration in 2006, which will clearly be a key consideration for us. There has been a change in people’s mood in demanding action on active travel; that demand might not have been at quite the same level in 2006.

On Mr Finnie’s direct question, the partnership group has already discussed some of the findings of the early views survey. It should be said that we decided to call for evidence not just because it was a good idea. Although we chose the topics, the suggestions for which ones we might want to examine came from our research and review group. Given the responses and the key themes that have come back, the group probably got it right. I am pretty impressed by getting 600-plus responses. That number exceeds those for other transport strategies for which we have asked for responses and even those for other Government strategies. Clearly, the topics that were chosen for the early engagement have garnered public interest.

You will be aware that survey respondents were particularly concerned that the revised NTS should focus on the development of safe cycling and walking networks. You spoke earlier about being committed to maintaining record levels of funding for active travel. I hope that that will be included in the next budget settlement, because there has been a real-terms reduction in the funding of active travel in the current budget. How will the development of cycling and walking networks feature in the revised NTS?

I was happy to get Green support for the budget—I am sure that one of the reasons for that support is the record level of investment in active travel that we have committed to over this parliamentary term. However, I have no doubt that, like other members, the member will press the Government always to go further and look for more money to spend on active travel. I know what the Greens’ view is on that, but I can say that, as the minister in charge of that area, if I can find additional spend for active travel, I am open minded about using it for that.

The way in which the revised NTS takes the active travel agenda forward will come out of the review process and discussions. I assure the member that that agenda is a key consideration for us. It is also worth saying that Sustrans is part of the high-level review group that I chair, so it has a seat at the top table, if I can put it that way.

I have been very public and have gone on the record—even in front of this committee—about the importance of, for example, segregated cycle paths for increasing active travel. We have an active travel task force that is looking at the issues at the local and national levels to see, for example, where there might be barriers to improving cycling infrastructure. All of that will feed into the revised NTS. However, there is no shortage of active travel organisations represented in the NTS working groups and the review group. I assure the member that active travel is very much at the forefront of our thinking.

Thank you.

John Mason has a follow-up question on that.

I will just follow on from some of the things that John Finnie has been saying. On the issue of safe cycling, there has clearly been a bit of a clash in Edinburgh between improving public transport by introducing the trams and claims by cyclists that their safety has been compromised in order to get the trams running. Is that something that would be reflected at NTS level or would it be looked at elsewhere?

I think that Mr Mason might be referring to the tragic incident of the cyclist who was killed after going over tramlines. The City of Edinburgh Council and Transport for Edinburgh have responsibility for the trams, and they take that responsibility incredibly seriously. They have said that they will look again at what safety provisions can be implemented on the tram network for cyclists and pedestrians. I think that we should give them the time and space to do that good work. I have a lot of time for Transport for Edinburgh, which I think is an excellent organisation.

As I said, there are seven working groups. One of the thematic groups is looking at the delivery of safe and resilient transport. I mentioned some of the successes in my remarks to Rhoda Grant—the reduction in fatalities on our roads, for example. However, looking at the flipside of that, there is clearly some work to do when it comes to safety for cyclists, who have been identified as one of the most vulnerable groups on the roads, along with pedestrians, older drivers, young drivers and motorcyclists.

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The issue is certainly something that keeps me awake. How can we reduce the serious incidents and indeed fatalities that our cyclists face? I want cycling to become more popular, and that is happening, but for me having segregated cycle paths is a part of that. It is so important to get that right.

The issue will be considered as part of the thematic group on delivering safe and resilient transport, but even outwith the review process it is something that—rightly—takes up a lot of my attention. We will not wait for the review process to continue to do work on the agenda. I give the member an absolute assurance that we continue to do work on it.

Transport Scotland has established a research and evidence working group, which has four members from Transport Scotland, including Mr Rory Morrison, who is here. I want to target my questions to him after the minister has answered my first question. There are four professors on the working group, two from England and two from Scotland. How did we settle on them? Are they proficient in their field of transport?

The research and evidence working group is important because we always want to take an evidence-based approach to what we do in the Government and the refresh in 2015-16 showed that the evidence base for the work that we do could be more robust.

Recently, I attended an excellent presentation by one of the members of the research and evidence working group, Professor Tom Rye, at the annual general meeting of the Society of Chief Officers of Transportation in Scotland. I wonder whether we can ask him to share that presentation with the committee. He spoke about the need for a better academic evidence base to test our presumptions and assumptions about transport, and I found that absolutely fascinating. As I said, the working group was very much involved in our consideration of what call for evidence should go out, and it also has its own call for evidence, which closes in July.

I mentioned Tom Rye in particular, but all the academics on the working group—including, of course, the chair—are recognised as being of extremely high calibre and are well respected in the transport industry. I am happy to hand over to Rory Morrison to add to that.

I have three questions for Mr Morrison. What is the purpose of the research and evidence working group? Do you have carte blanche to take evidence to aid the review? Will you be talking to users and stakeholders—basically, everyone who uses transport—in order to formulate what you report back to the minister?

There are several parts to that. I am an analyst for Transport Scotland and I provide the secretariat to the working group—I partly organise it. I reiterate the minister’s comment that the academics who were chosen were selected partly because they are senior academics in their field and they offer a good coverage of the strategic transport issues that the review will touch on.

The group is chaired by Jillian Anable, whose areas of research include demand-side solutions to reduce carbon and energy use in transport, and we have members who are interested in the societal implications of autonomous vehicles and other new mobility solutions. Transport research is a broad field and no four people could represent everything with the same depth of knowledge, but the members have a broad understanding of the types of work that are going on in transport research more generally and they can connect the group to other on-going research.

There are several aspects to the group’s function—one is to manage the call for evidence, which was made in April and closes for comment at the end of July. The group will also have a scrutiny and challenge function throughout the review in relation to evidence; it will be able to respond to ad hoc requests from working groups on issues to do with evidence and research and it will scrutinise the evidence that is used in the formulation of policy. The group has an external chair, which reflects its autonomy and separation from the policy-making aspects of the process.

Minister, how will the research and evidence working group’s output be used in the drafting of the revised national transport strategy? How would you deal with a situation in which the group provided evidence that was at odds with your thinking or Scottish Government policy?

On the latter point, I would have to be relaxed—if evidence or suggestions from working groups directly conflicted with Government policy, we would of course have to consider how to deal with that at the time. I do not expect huge conflicts. The process is grass roots and collaborative, in that we are not just helping to inform people but being informed.

If there are suggestions that we should focus our energies more on a particular aspect of transport or give further consideration to something, we must be guided by those suggestions. There is no point in going through a two to three-year, in-depth review process if we are not going to take on the advice from stakeholders. The outcomes will be backed by evidence and research, which will make them more robust. There is no point in a Government minister instructing a review and then choosing to ignore it. We will give matters the proper consideration that they merit.

I am glad to hear that. Thank you.

The final question comes from Stewart Stevenson, appropriately enough.

I remember the previous strategic transport projects review extremely well—I think that it ran to 3,600 pages, although I cannot quite remember; it was certainly of that order. There were 29 broad headings. How will what is currently going on in the national transport strategy inform the new STPR timescales? We heard a little about timescales but has a date been set for the new STPR?

The only thing that we have said about the timetable of STPR2 is that the review will be concluded in this parliamentary session. I appreciate that members might think that that is vague, but it is because we need the overarching national transport strategy—NTS2—to be substantially complete before we make major progress on STPR2.

The current STPR is a live and relevant document—I think that it is a very good document, which I find to be held in high regard as I travel around the country.

Some preliminary work on STPR2 has commenced, to help with the review of the NTS. That work will include development of future transport scenarios, which will set out what transport in Scotland might look like. Clearly we should wait for that overarching, 20-year vision of transport before we delve into STPR2. The intention is to conclude the review during this session, and our starting the preliminary work means that we will be able to get moving on it soon after NTS2 has been published.

There are no more questions for you, minister, so if there is anything that you particularly want to raise that we have not asked about, I am happy to give you a brief chance to feed in your points.

The only thing that I will add is that we sent details of the analysis from the early call for evidence to the committee last week, but I appreciate that minds are focused elsewhere just now. However, once the dust has settled from the election and so on, I will be very keen to hear from members not only about their priorities for what NTS2 should look like—no doubt we will delve into that between now and summer 2019—but about how they feel that we should carry out public engagement in their own geographic areas of interest and more widely around Scotland. I would be very interested to hear about that. There will be huge amounts of interest in NTS2 and I am very keen to make sure that everybody is involved in it.

Thank you, minister, and I also thank you for bearing with us, as we were a little bit late in calling you in due to our previous work.

That concludes the committee’s business, but I ask members to stay behind for a moment.

Meeting closed at 11:55.