Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, October 4, 2023

Official Report 682KB pdf

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A9 Dualling Project

The next item on our agenda is an evidence session as part of our inquiry into the A9 dualling project. It relates to our consideration of petition PE1992 on dualling the A9 and improving road safety, as lodged by Laura Hansler. As colleagues and those following our proceedings in relation to that petition might know, we are joined by Edward Mountain in his capacity as a reporter from the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee on this matter. Good morning to you, Edward.

Our consideration of the issue has seen us invite evidence from the petitioner, the transport and civil engineering industries, community councils and road safety organisations. Indeed, we had an evidence session in the region earlier in the summer to gather views from people, businesses and organisations along the route between Perth and Inverness. Key themes that have emerged from that consultation are set out in the SPICe briefing that is included in the committee’s papers.

We have primarily been focusing on the action that needs to be taken to get the project back on track. In early September, however, we agreed to explore the Scottish Government’s decision in 2011 to commit to a 2025 target for dualling the A9 between Perth and Inverness. That is the focus of today’s discussion.

I am absolutely delighted to welcome back a well-kent face to the Scottish Parliament’s proceedings: Alex Neil, the former Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure and Capital Investment, who is—I am sure—the man to enlighten us on those matters. It is certainly good to see you back with us. You are somebody who, like me or, one might argue, other members of the committee, never shies away from being forthright in your views, so I am sure that we will have an enlightening evidence session. Before we move to questions, it would be helpful if you made an opening statement.

Thank you very much indeed, convener, for that warm welcome. It would be useful if I gave an overview of why we took that decision way back in 2011. As you know, the Scottish National Party made a manifesto commitment in 2007 and another in 2011 that we would dual the A9 between Perth and Inverness and upgrade the A96, although it did not specifically say that in the 2011 manifesto; it said that we would have a dual carriageway between Inverness and Aberdeen.

After the 2011 election, I was appointed as the Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure and Capital Investment in the Scottish Government. That meant that I had responsibility for the national infrastructure investment plan, which was due for update later in 2011. The infrastructure investment plan covers every aspect of capital investment right across government, including housing, climate change, schools, universities, roads, rail and other aspects of transport, as well as broadband. The document is wide ranging.

When it came to the roads budget specifically, I looked at how we could implement the manifesto commitment. I set a strategic objective for Transport Scotland and the Government that, at the earliest possible opportunity, we should link the seven cities in Scotland—Glasgow, Edinburgh, Perth, Stirling, Dundee, Aberdeen and Inverness; we now have eight because Dunfermline is a city—either by dual carriageway or by motorway. The reason for that was fivefold: to stimulate economic growth; to improve the overall productivity of the Scottish economy; to reduce emissions; for social cohesion and inclusion; and, last but not least, for road safety considerations.

I asked officials to come up with a plan to achieve that objective and for the earliest realistic date by which we could do it. There were two major considerations. The first was the physicality of being able to plan the road, because when you plan such an ambitious project as dualling the A9 between Perth and Inverness, you are talking about the acquisition of land, the bits of the road that are ready to be dualled quite easily from previous works and other bits of the road that are very challenging indeed. Overall, the physical ability to do that was a major consideration and so I asked my officials to be realistic but ambitious.

When it came to funding, we had to look at the Scottish Government’s long-term capital programme. In particular, we looked at the period from 2015 to 2030, because, by the time the preparation was done, we knew that we would not get most of the capital works done before 2015, given the procedures that had to be gone through for the acquisition of land, all the ground assessments and all the rest of it, and we looked at the likely amount of capital that would be available for investment, how much was committed and how much was left that was uncommitted. That is the key figure. When that exercise was done in 2011, we estimated that £14.7 billion of capital was not allocated to any project or designated for any purpose between 2015 and 2030. I can explain some of that in more detail later.

The estimate for dualling the A9 between Perth and Inverness was a working assumption, as was normal for a project that had not been costed in detail. The working assumption, which was at the high end of the estimates, was that it would cost roughly £30 million a mile. It was the same for the Aberdeen to Inverness dualling. We estimated that the maximum figure for both the projects would be £6 billion. That would have been only 40 per cent of the available capital at that time, so there was still 60 per cent to do all of the things that we wanted to do, which were also priorities in other areas. We then built that into the national infrastructure investment plan that I announced on 6 December 2011.

We received clear advice on the dates that were set. I emphasise that point, because I have been reading through previous evidence sessions of the committee. I asked Transport Scotland to be realistic, and it assured me that, physically and financially, it was perfectly feasible to achieve the dualling of the A9 between Inverness and Perth by 2025 and between Inverness and Aberdeen by 2030. As I said, we published that decision in December.

Road safety was a major consideration. Some officials tried to claim that the A9 was not the most dangerous road in Scotland, but it was certainly one of the most dangerous roads in Scotland. Since 1979, there have been 335 fatalities on that stretch of the A9—remember that it goes north of Inverness as well—with another 13 last year, which was a record for 20 years. I am afraid to say that those who say that the A9 is a safe road are not looking at the evidence and the facts.

I am disappointed by the delay, because we had a detailed schedule. In preparation for today, the permanent secretary, as he can under the ministerial code, gave me access to all the papers that I had in relation to the A9 and the A96 during my period as the cabinet secretary for infrastructure. I am not allowed to print those or forward them to other people, but I have made a note that, on 28 May 2012, at my request, I received a detailed memorandum from David Anderson, a senior official in Transport Scotland, addressed to me and Keith Brown, who was my deputy and the Minister for Housing and Transport. If you get that paperwork—I strongly suggest the committee demands it—you will see that annex D gives the outline programme for the completion of the A9. I will quickly read it out, because it should be put on the record, and then I will be happy to answer questions.

Luncarty to Birnam was due to be finished in 2018-19; Birnam to Ballinluig in 2024; Pitlochry to Killiecrankie in 2022; Killiecrankie to Glen Garry in 2024; Glen Garry to Crubenmore in 2024; Crubenmore to Kincraig in 2025—that would have been one of the last bits; Kincraig to Dalraddy in 2017; Dalraddy to Slochd in 2025; and Tomatin to Moy in 2021. That last bit was completed in 2021, but I signed it off for approval on 30 May 2012. Why it took nine years to complete I do not know, but it was completed in 2021. The other parts, apart from Luncarty to Pass of Birnam, have not been started. I am sorry; one of them has, but it has certainly not been completed. It is extremely disappointing and very damaging to the Scottish economy, and proportionately far more damaging to the Highlands and Islands, that that well-thought-out project has not been completed, let alone completed on time.

I am happy to answer any questions.

10:45  

Thank you very much, Mr Neil. There is some fascinating new information for the committee in the detail that you have given.

Colleagues are keen to come in with questions. I offer you the opportunity to make one observation, which is to speculate, although that is always a dangerous thing to do. When the decision was announced, you were clearly satisfied that a detailed programme was in place that would allow for the project to be completed by the specified date and that, within the funding allocations that were anticipated to be available, you had a reasonable expectation that the project could be funded without compromising the Government’s ability to proceed with other projects that were also important.

Something therefore happened. When you made the decision, even though there was a manifesto commitment, was there any resistance to the principle underpinning the decision from those, perhaps from Transport Scotland or elsewhere, who did not feel the same obligation to respect manifesto commitments that you, as a minister, might have felt were important? Did you feel that your successors might be influenced by other considerations at that point that you had been determined to overrule and insist were not adhered to?

First, I emphasise that I did not set a date and then ask officials to give me a programme for meeting that date. I asked them for the date. They had to be absolutely sure that all the work could be done, as they had recommended, by 2025 and that the money would be there in the long-term capital programme, as the Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth Department, under John Swinney, confirmed it would be. There is therefore no question whatsoever in my mind that everybody agreed with the official advice that it could be done and that each stretch could be done by the time that I set out for it, as I told the committee a minute ago.

It would be fair to accept a delay of perhaps a year or 18 months because of the impact of the pandemic. Until the pandemic came in 2020, however, there was no excuse for having missed the deadlines. That is the first point.

The second point is that I was reshuffled from the position in September 2012. I became Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing, and Nicola Sturgeon took my job as Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Capital Investment and Cities. One reason why I asked for a specific programme for when each section would be completed was that I knew how bureaucracy worked. I run businesses, so I know what it is like. Sometimes you have to nail down your advisers in the private sector, and those in the public sector, to make sure that there is no wriggle room for excuses and delay.

Bear in mind, convener, that, although it was a huge project, it was not the only huge project that we were doing. Since 2007, we had completed the M74 so that we could get the Commonwealth games to Glasgow. We had started the Aberdeen western peripheral route, although it was delayed because of matters outwith our control. We did the Queensferry crossing, which was not in the initial manifesto, as a result of developments on the old bridge. One of the projects that I signed off in 2012 was the upgrade of the M8 and M74 around the Raith interchange, which has brought enormous economic benefits to central Scotland.

I think that there was a mentality among some people, and it might still be there, that the Highlands and Islands are peripheral. The same is true of the south-west of Scotland. The A77 between Ayr and Cairnryan and Stranraer should have been dualled years ago for exactly the five reasons that I outlined for dualling the A9. The A82 should also have been done years ago.

One of the complicating factors in recent years—although only in recent years—has been the influence of the Greens. They have a legitimate point of view, which I do not agree with, that you do not build roads. We could go back to the horse and cairt and see how we get on with that. My view is that emissions come from the combustion engine, not from the road. The way to solve the emissions in road transport is to replace the combustion engine with hydrogen buses or electric cars, which we are in the process of doing. Even with electric cars and hydrogen buses, you still need decent roads on which to travel. I have never seen the argument that the road is the problem; it is the combustion engine that is the problem. Therefore, I disagree with the idea that we should halt the road programme or deprioritise it because of climate change. The climate change argument does not hold up, other than in terminating the life of the combustion engine.

My immediate successor was Nicola Sturgeon, who held that position until she became First Minister in November 2014. Since then, there have been successive transport ministers. Keith Brown remained transport minister for a while, Michael Matheson was transport minister for a while, Humza Yousaf was transport minister and Jenny Gilruth was transport minister, so you will have to ask them. Unfortunately, I can only access the cabinet papers from my period as cabinet secretary. That is why the committee must use its powers to the maximum and demand to see all the paperwork from 2011 to today on the A9.

That request has so far been refused. I heard George Adam talking about open government: the best way to demonstrate that is to provide all the relevant paperwork to this committee on the dualling of the A9 and the A96. Then we will believe that there is open government.

Thank you for that. Lots of colleagues want to come in. Mr Golden has a specific supplementary on a point that was made in the latter half of that response. You can come back to any other points that you want to make later on.

Mr Neil, you mentioned compatibility with climate change. In section 94A of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009, there is a requirement on ministers, when they publish an infrastructure investment plan, to

“also publish an assessment of the extent to which investment in accordance with the plan is expected to contribute to the meeting of the emissions reduction targets.”

The Scottish Government recently admitted to me in a written answer that the material that has been published falls short, but, at the time, was the assessment that the dualling of the A9 was compatible with climate change targets?

Yes. That is why you need to see the documentation. I referred to annex D of a paper that was dated 28 May 2012. It took me some time to go through all the paperwork, but there were detailed assessments of the impact on emissions, of the economic impact and of the impact on a range of measures. Earlier, you asked Mr Adam about metrics. Believe you me, when it comes to road projects, we ain’t short of metrics, and the climate change metrics were in there, although the quality of the metrics on climate change today are far superior to what they would have been in 2009. The paperwork that I have seen relates only to my period, which was from May 2011 until September 2012.

Estimates were made of the impact over time of the project—it was the same with the A96—on emissions, on the economy, on social inclusion and on the rural communities in the Highlands and Islands. Clearly, a lot of those communities were going to benefit enormously. One of the reasons that Inverness has become one of the fastest-growing cities in Europe is that people were expecting the connectivity between Edinburgh, Perth and Inverness that the A9 dualling would have brought. Would Inverness have grown even faster if we were now only two years from the completion of the A9? I would bet my bottom dollar that not just Inverness would be growing even faster, because there is a spillover into the much wider Highland communities.

It is not just the A9, by the way. If I had remained as infrastructure secretary, my next task would have been to look at the other aspects of the Highlands and Islands and the south-west, which have by far the poorest service in Scotland. I have already referred to the A77. For parts of the A77 to be classified as an A road is a joke, frankly. The A82 badly needs to be upgraded. I am not saying that it has to be a dual carriageway, but it badly needs to be upgraded. A huge mistake has been made in looking only at one part of the Argyll area. We need to have a strategic look at the connectivity between Glasgow and Oban, road-wise and rail-wise and what we should do to make sure that we can open up Argyll much more. The forestry industry is of critical importance to the Argyll area, but it is also critically important to Scotland, as is the Dumfries and Galloway forest. The lack of ambition is mind-numbing.

We could also do with an upgrade at the Kingsway in Dundee to link the roads between Perth and Aberdeen.

I studied in Dundee. It is a lovely city with lovely people.

Thank you very much for your evidence this morning. It has been informative, revelatory and quite explosive. My constituents want to know why we have not delivered our promises, and you are steering us towards the answers today. I just want to probe a couple of bits of that.

You said that the officials had provided you with the timing of when each section could be done. You read that out helpfully for the record. In other words, you did not say, “I want you to do this work by such and such”; you said, “When can it be done?”, and they provided you with the memo of 28 May 2012, which said that it could be done by 2025. Is that correct? It was not your deadline; it was when they said that the job could be completed by.

They said that in their feed-in to the drafting of the national infrastructure plan in 2011. In 2012, I insisted that we had a specific plan for the stages in which it would be done. When you see annex D—I hope that you will, when the Government supplies it to you—you will see that, for each section, as well as giving the estimated completion date, more detailed information was provided. There are four strategic stages in completing such a project, particularly in this case, as we were starting from the start. Although we had a manifesto commitment in 2007, very little work had been done on dualling the whole stretch. Work had been done on two or three sections but not a lot. Of course, hardly any work had been done for the previous 30 years, since 1979, by successive Governments of all colours. We were starting pretty well from scratch.

11:00  

Let me take the section from Birnam to Ballinluig. The target date for that was 2024. The annex D graph showed me when the design and assessment would be completed for each stage; when the statutory process would be completed for each stage; when the procurement would be completed for each stage—my view was that some of the procurement was being allowed to take too long, but that is another issue; and, finally, how long the construction phase would be. It was not a case of putting a thumb in the air and saying, “We will compete this by 2024”; it was the result of a lot of intensive work by Transport Scotland, which involved looking at each of those four stages for each stage of the project.

That is extremely helpful. The reason I asked the question is that, in the evidence that Transport Scotland officials gave to the committee on 14 June, they implied that, back when the deadline was set, it was aspirational. That is just not true.

I read that. It is utter rubbish. They were not there—the people who gave evidence were not there. Frankly, if they had taken the time to check with me or, indeed, Ainslie McLaughlin, who was the main official advising me at the time, they would know—I am sure that Ainslie would confirm this—that it was not aspirational. A lot of work was done before the target date went into the plan. Before they could advise me that 2025 was a reasonable date by which we could do this financially and physically, they clearly had to do a lot of work to work that out, and they did. They did it very professionally. I said to them, “Let’s get it down on paper and agree the schedule for this so that we can measure progress.”

One of the things that may have happened is that, following the change in cabinet secretary, my successors have perhaps not tracked this as well as they could have. Being of the same vintage as you and the convener, I remember the Falklands and Jim Callaghan always pointing out that, when he was Prime Minister, he would go once a week to a globe or a map of the world to see where Britain’s navy was. One of the things that he was checking, as an old mariner himself, was that there were enough ships near the Falklands to prevent any invasion. Thatcher did not do that, and we know the history. Similarly, I used that as a lesson, and not just on this project. I wanted to receive regular progress reports on all the major projects, so that I, as the minister in charge—I would take the rap—could make sure that they were on schedule. The starting point for that was agreeing a schedule. We agreed a schedule. I signed off the schedule.

It is a shame that the fleet was so prematurely deprived of Alex Neil, its admiral, but—[Laughter.]

You would be a good fireman, Fergus. [Laughter.]

Well, yes. I will move swiftly on to the £14.7 billion. The second revelation that you have made again confounds the impression that Transport Scotland was intent to give, which was that this was all too difficult; that it was, perhaps, the politicians who had set an impossible task; and that Transport Scotland could not really be blamed for not having delivered it. You have said that the analysis in 2015 was that there was an unallocated amount in capital of £14.7 billion and that the estimates that were made at the time for dualling both the A9 and the A96 were broadly £6 billion, based on a figure of £30 million a mile. If you do the maths, you find that that was a conservative estimate. My point is that you are saying today that, in fact, there was masses of cash available and that, if 40 per cent of it was applied to the roads promises, they could and should have been delivered on time. Is that an adequate and correct summary?

Can you also give us a little more detail on that £14.7 billion if you are able to? What period did it cover and how was it worked out? Did officials provide you with that in a memo? To get to the truth of this, as is our task, we will need to see all those documents and many others. We can discuss that in due course, no doubt, but could you flesh out your evidence on the £14.7 billion a bit more?

When we started to think about what we should put into the infrastructure investment plan that was due to be published by the end of 2011, I asked officials to give me the financial forecast. The financial forecast for capital programmes relates to our commitments and to our aspirations that have not had money committed to them, and it looks at the capital that is available.

By far the most important source of available capital is the mainstream capital programme, which, at that time, provided about £3.5 billion a year of the capital that the Government had as part of its core funding. As you know, we had developed other ways of funding capital programmes—the non-profit distributing, or NPD, model through the Scottish Futures Trust is a good example. In the infrastructure plan that we published on 6 December 2011, we introduced the 5 per cent rule. The finance people in particular were keen on a bit of a quid pro quo for the level of commitment that was being made.

The vast bulk of capital was and, I think, still is funded through the mainstream programme, but there were programmes such as NPD. With those, unlike with the main programme, there had to be capital and interest repayments, and there were associated costs. We introduced a rule that the capital investment commitments that we made would have a ceiling, which would, in effect, be that of the mainstream capital programme, but, for the programmes involving repayments, the totality of the repayments for each department could not exceed 5 per cent of the capital budget of each department’s departmental expenditure limit. For example, if the expenditure limit in roads was £1 billion, by definition, the capital repayment profile, which goes way out for years, could not be more than £50 million a year.

I asked officials to do a graph for me. I remember it very vividly. We knew that the mainstream programme was always subject to some volatility, particularly after the financial crash, but I asked them to do a graph to show me the point at which we would start to fall significantly below the 5 per cent. If you looked at the following year, 2012-13, you could see clearly that we were maxed out—we were very near the 5 per cent ceiling. As the years went on, however, because of the lack of longer-term commitments, by the time we got to about 2020, or even before that, we were not using any more than about 2 or 3 per cent. When you took it to 2025, it was practically zero. We looked at all that. In short, I double-checked that what we were planning was well within the capital programme.

The irony is that, if you look at the 2016 A9 investment plan that was published by Transport Scotland, which was circulated to the committee by SPICe, you can see a figure of just under £1.9 billion, which I assume is the estimate for the whole thing. Either way—£30 million a mile was a big number—in reality, ironically, had it been built on time, it would probably have cost only about two thirds of the £3 billion, and there would have been another £1 billion available for other projects. However, because we have stalled, delayed, put it on the back burner and betrayed a promise to the people of the Highlands and Islands and of Scotland—this is important for Scotland as well—when we eventually get to do it, it will probably cost up to £1 billion more than it need have done.

I have a short final question. Mr Neil, why do you think that the A9 dualling project has fallen so very far behind schedule?

I cannot be absolutely sure, because I no longer have responsibility for it. While I was in the Cabinet, I do not remember the issue of a delay ever coming to the Cabinet, and I was in the Cabinet until May 2016. You were a minister as well, and at no time during that period was there any indication that there was a delay. It was not visible, because the construction works were not going to start until later anyway. The delay was presumably in the pre-construction work that had to be done, or maybe capital was reallocated to other projects. I do not know. That is why I think that you need the paperwork to get to the truth.

We may need to ask your successors what they did—

Absolutely.

—and what Transport Scotland did or, perhaps more relevantly, did not do.

It would be interesting to make sure. I have never been one for blaming officials; I always believe that the buck stops with the minister and that it is a weak minister who relies on criticism of the bureaucracy, as you are the person to whom they report. That is why I always insisted, with any project, on getting regular updates. If something was going wrong, I did not want to wait until that was on the front page of the Daily Record or The Herald; I wanted to know before anyone else, and I wanted to see it happening so that we could arrest any delay and move things on, if it was obvious that there was a delay. I suspect that, let us say, the foot was well and truly taken off the accelerator.

Thank you very much.

It looks like we had more cabinet secretaries and ministers than work done on the project. I do not want to repeat what my colleagues have asked, but is there a possibility that we can get a map of all the promises that were made and which ones have been completed and not completed? Can we also get a map of how many cabinet secretaries and ministers we had during that period? It is difficult for people like us who are new to the committee. I am sure that it will be clear for us to see when the project was promised and how much money was spent on the inquiries rather than the work.

I will make a suggestion about what you should do. Let me emphasise this: we can play a blame game, but I am not interested in a blame game, because that does not change anything. The reality is that this road should have been built.

The committee should have that important information for two reasons. First, it is to establish what went wrong and when it went wrong and to learn the lessons so that it does not go wrong again. The second reason is that the obvious solution is for the minister and the Government to keep their promise from the First Minister, from the previous transport minister, Jenny Gilruth, and from the current transport minister and the cabinet secretary—the two of them—that there will be an announcement of a detailed schedule and plan for the completion of the project. I think that that was originally promised for this month—October—and the onus is now on those ministers to deliver that plan. You will be doing the current ministers a favour by trying to find out what went wrong so that they can learn the lessons and not make the same mistakes again.

I think that you need to do two things. Your starting point, if I may say so, and the methodology that I would employ is, first, to demand the paperwork. It is time that the committees of this Parliament exercised and used their teeth. Committees are supposed to be the second chamber of the Parliament, and you have the statutory right to demand that paperwork. My advice to you is to demand all of it, from 2011 until today. The second thing is to go through the paperwork, which should certainly give you clues and might spell out the point at which and the reasons why we have ended up in this mess, with only two sections completed. Then you should talk to the ministers, because it may well be that the delays happened under one or two of those ministers, rather than every minister. I honestly do not know, because I was not privy to any of it after I was reshuffled.

11:15  

I absolutely think that that is the way to go about it. Get the paperwork, see where and when things went wrong and then ask the officials and the ministers who were there at the time. With all due respect to today’s Transport Scotland officials, they were not there at the beginning, but some of them may have been there during the time when things went wrong. I do not know.

I would be interested to know which officials were involved. My point goes back to you, convener: we need a clear map of where everything went wrong and how much money was spent on the inquiries.

We can consider that in our determination of the evidence that we have heard.

Marie McNair, who joins us online and who is substituting for David Torrance, has indicated that she has a question.

Good morning, Mr Neil. It is great to see you—thank you for your time. You will accept that a number of factors have impacted on the project over the past few years, and, obviously, there are the current economic challenges. There are challenges for infrastructure projects across various countries, given inflation and so on. The Scottish Government has no ability to borrow to raise capital. If you were still in the Government, how would you seek to proceed in these circumstances? I would appreciate your wisdom.

The current financial constraints were not the reason for the failure to deliver the programme because, clearly, the programme was meant to have been delivered by now, and, ironically, that would have helped with the financial constraints, given that it probably would have cost a third less than originally planned. Therefore, I do not see that as the reason for the delay. There may be other financial reasons that I do not know of, but it cannot be that specifically.

Going forward, ministers need to be imaginative. This is not just a Scottish problem. There is a big debate going on at the Tory party conference this morning on the high speed 2 railway line and capital projects of that significance, how they should be funded, what the priorities should be and all the rest of it. My view is that there has to be a definitive programme to complete the dualling of the A9 and the A96 within a reasonable period. In doing that, ministers have to make an honest assessment of the financial challenges in implementing such a construction programme. In looking at how to meet the financial challenges, they need to consider other and new ideas.

A huge opportunity was missed in the negotiations recently completed on the new fiscal framework. Frankly, I would not have signed it. It continues the problem that we have had, which is our total inability to borrow. Councils are able to borrow for capital programmes, but the Scottish Government cannot borrow significantly for them. Whoever signed that fiscal framework needs to get their act together. It was a complete sell-out of fundamental principles, and, after so many years of the previous fiscal framework, we should have learned the lesson and not signed up to a similar deal. The Scottish Government fell down on that one. However, we are where we are, and we cannot just wring our hands and do nothing.

Let me give you two or three examples of what I would do to fund this if I were the minister. First, I would work with the United Kingdom Government, particularly on how the money can be raised. The leader of the Scottish Tories, backed by the Secretary of State for Scotland, has said that he would like the A9 and the A96 to be dualled. They are also on record saying, rightly, that they want the A77 from Ayr to Stranraer to be dualled, and the secretary of state is on record saying that he wants the A75 from Stranraer to the border to be dualled. He is absolutely right, and, as I said, there are other programmes to consider, such as the A82. I would hold a discussion about that kind of ambitious programme, which is what Scotland needs, over perhaps a 25-year period, as a priority, given what happened to the A9 and the A96, where expectations were set but not realised.

Let me give two or three examples. Some people in the City are advising the UK Government to use consol-type funding. That is borrowing, but it uses undated gilts. Those have been around since 1751—contrary to the rumours, I was not at their launch. Given that they are undated, the Government repays them as and when it can afford to do so. Sometimes, they can last for hundreds of years—literally. We should look at that as a possibility, particularly because, although interest rates are high at the moment—recoupment on gilts this morning is at over 5 per cent—by the time that you get to the construction stage and have to fund it, which, most optimistically, is probably at least two or three years down the line, interest rates will, hopefully, be back down to 2 or 3 per cent. The consol long-term bond is one idea. I would make it a bond for a package of measures to upgrade the road transport network in Scotland. If we are going to get out of the rut of low growth and low productivity, that is a prerequisite.

My other idea involves the A9 dualling, which covers roughly 100 miles. I know that Sir Edward Mountain will disagree with me on this but, as Churchill said over 100 years ago, landowners benefit enormously from a huge increase in the value of their land as a result of investment such as the dualling of a road. I think that a share of that additional value should come back to the taxpayer. Fifty per cent of the increase in value should come back to the taxpayer. The principle is called land value capture. Off the top of my head, I guess that there might be a million acres between Perth and Inverness, the value of which will go up significantly when that road is dualled. Landowners have not put a penny into that, other than as taxpayers like the rest of us. It is only fair that a share of the additional value comes back to the taxpayer.

Those are two ideas: the consols and some kind of land levy to get the taxpayers’ share of the increase in land values resulting from public investment. They are not uncontroversial ideas, but they are reasonable ones.

Marie McNair, do you want to follow up on that?

No. In the interests of time, I will pass back to you.

We come to Edward Mountain, whose land you just volunteered up, Mr Neil. I do not want him to stray into matters on which he has not necessarily given a declaration of interest to the committee, but I invite him, as our reporter from the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, to ask a question.

I have no declaration of interest to make on that. I do not own any of the land. As a highlander, however, I think that we would all benefit from the dualling of the A9. At the outset, convener, let me say that it is really delightful to see Mr Neil back in the Parliament and speaking up so eloquently for people in the Highlands and Islands. Sadly, that is often lacking in other areas of Government.

It is interesting to hear you stress the importance of manifesto commitments, Alex. They are something that, I believe, politicians stand for, are elected on and should stand to. My first question, therefore, is on Transport Scotland. You used the expression that you were going to “nail down” the advisers in Transport Scotland. That suggests that they might not have been very happy with being nailed down. When did they break the nails? Was it in your successor’s time or beyond that?

I do not know. They certainly did not do it in my time, I can tell you that. I remember one official, although I will not name names. There are exceptions in every walk of life but, having held four posts during my ministerial career, I have to say that the quality of officials was generally very good. I remember, however, when I initially brought in the officials to tell them that I wanted to prioritise the dualling of the A9 in the forthcoming infrastructure investment plan—one of the reasons that I gave for that was the number of people being killed on the A9, as well as the number of casualties and accidents—that one official said to me, “Mr Neil, this is not the most dangerous road in Scotland.” I replied, “It may not be the most dangerous road in Scotland. There may be other roads that are more dangerous based on the way that such information is measured, but the A9 has one unique advantage that no other road in Scotland has.” He looked at me blankly and said, “What’s that?”, to which I replied, “None of the others is a manifesto commitment.”

That is good to hear. You remained in the Cabinet until 2016. The issue must have been discussed at Cabinet meetings, and you must have wanted to follow up on it, on behalf of the Highlands and Islands, to see where the project was going. Did you raise the matter between the time that you left your portfolio and when you left the Government in 2016?

I raised it casually. I did not raise it formally because, frankly, I was busy with my own portfolio. I was designing the Scottish child payment, although it took five years for that to be implemented. I nevertheless tried to keep my ears open, and I certainly did not hear anything about delays. As far as I can see, from the evidence that you have received so far, it is only fairly recently that delays have been admitted to. Why was no flag raised? Why was there no intimation of the delays?

Those are questions on which the committee can ask for paperwork. Were the Cabinet and the minister informed when it became obvious that there would be a delay? Were they informed of the reasons for the delay? Were they informed about how long the delay would be? Were alternative scenarios put to them to try to avoid the delay? I am not party to any of that information.

You mentioned that you think that the land acquisition could have been speeded up. I tend to agree with you. Compulsory purchase orders could have been issued relatively quickly and served at minimum cost. Why did that not happen as soon as you got them into the plan in 2011?

It did. There was £18 million set aside immediately for anything that needed to be done and that could be done within a two-year period. The money would probably go partly towards funding external advice for Transport Scotland on the design and the issues with the road that it would need to investigate. I do not think that any of it was used as advance research—a ground assessment, say—but an assessment would be made. Some of the land was already in public ownership. All that work still had to be done. Some of it was done, or had certainly been started, by the time that I left.

That is why I wanted the schedule. Ministers can measure things if they know what the schedule is—a minister needs to know the schedule. If you do not know the schedule, you cannot manage it. That is why I insisted on having a schedule. At the same time—the convener confirmed or repeated what I said earlier—I did not say, “This is the date on which we are going to complete this, so now you tell me,” because, if you do that, you just get guff from people or something meaningless. That is why I deliberately framed the question by asking, “Can you, the experts from Transport Scotland and our civil service, please advise me of a realistic date when we can physically and financially dual the A9 and the A96?” The answers that I got back were that it could be done in 2025 and in 2030, respectively. In the case of the A9, we got down to detailed work very quickly, which included that schedule.

I did a bit of research before I came to the committee and, interestingly, I think that there were nine cabinet secretaries after you who were responsible for the matter, including one member of the Parliament who is at this table today. Under the connectivity remit, Mr Ewing, did you not have an input?

11:30  

No—that is not correct. I did not have responsibility for infrastructure.

Okay. There were nine cabinet secretaries and 11 ministers, I think, which is quite a trawl. If each one had managed to achieve 6 miles of dualling, they could have achieved an awful amount.

Mr Neil, when you left office and, in your words, you had your foot on the accelerator, would you have expected something to happen in the next two years?

A lot of what was due to happen by 2016 was behind-the-scenes stuff. Apart from the Luncarty to Birnam section, which was completed in 2021, you would not have known about it, because the other construction works were not due to start until much later. The completion date was 2025, but the start date for construction is the final phase. As a back bencher, I thought that progress was slow. Informally, I spoke to a number of those nine ministers, but nobody at any stage told me that there was a strategic delay in the programme. I do not know whether the ministers knew that there was a strategic delay.

I kind of hoped—

You can have a final question, Mr Mountain.

It now appears that we will have to do this at a rush and get it done sooner rather than later, which is the right thing to do. Apart from the cost implications of doing it in a rush—the constructors know that you are doing it in a rush and can charge whatever they think is reasonable—could you give me an assessment of the other implications for connectivity to the Highlands? It is going to slow us down, isn’t it?

Well, obviously, if the job is not done, you do not get the benefits. I see that some people are suggesting that it could take until 2050, which would be totally unacceptable. Any new plan must look at what can be done in the next five or six years. If the preparatory work has been done, which is the starting point, have they done those four phases? Have they done all the statutory processes, for example, or are they still all to be initiated? How many have been initiated? When will they be completed?

There needs to be a realistic assessment and an updated schedule of the type that was in annex D that I received from Mr Anderson of Transport Scotland on 28 May 2012. You now need an updated schedule from the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Net Zero and Just Transition, telling you, for each of the four phases, when each stage will start, when it will be completed and the estimated cost. Obviously, there has to be a look at imaginative ways to fund it. I read the evidence from Mr Barn of the Civil Engineering Contractors Association, who made a lot of valid points about what procurement method would be most effective. I am not an engineer, so I am not in a position to advise on that, but somebody like Mr Barn should be listened to by the Government.

I have one final question that draws together a couple of points that I heard. It is a pity that there was never an annex D for the HS2 project which, I suspect, did not benefit from your foresight in capital expenditure planning.

I do not think there is even an annex Z for that.

You have identified some suggestions for how you feel funding for the project might be realised. In response to Mr Golden, who was looking at the climate change impact requirements that had to be assessed at the time, you talked about the fact that it is not roads but the products that drive on roads that are, potentially, the leading instigators of climate damage. If there are funding ways to do it, I am interested to know whether, in your mind, the inclusion of Greens in the Government who may well just be opposed to the principle of the road, irrespective of how fuel-efficient the vehicles on it are, is one of the key obstacles that prevents the Government that made the manifesto commitment from proceeding, or is there something else? In other words, is that one of the unspoken obstacles that, irrespective of whether a funding mechanism is identified, is potentially halting progress on that road?

It should not be. I will need to double-check, but my understanding of the Bute house agreement is that those road projects were excluded from the agreement. In other words, there was a recognition that the Greens would oppose anything like this but that its members would have no responsibility for it in the Government, thank God, and they would not be able to veto progress on the projects. If it is as a result of Green influence, that means, quite frankly, that the situation is even worse. To be honest, if we stick to the word and spirit of the agreement, my understanding is that the A9 and A96 projects are excluded when it comes to the Greens’ support, although Mr Ewing will know more about that than I do.

The A9 dualling between Perth and Inverness is entirely excluded. The A96 section from Inverness and Smithton to Auldearn, east of Nairn, and the Nairn bypass are excluded, but the residue of the undualled A96 is not excluded and, indeed, that is subject to a review, the results of which are promised to be announced by the Government apparently fairly soon. What you say is nearly correct, but not absolutely accurate.

In my view, I would not allow the Greens to put a veto on that. It is about Scotland’s economic future. The north-east clearly faces major challenges. Although it is a much richer area than many other parts of Scotland, clearly, it has to diversify its economy, because it is already in the transition away from oil and gas. That will take a number of decades to be completed, but the north-east economy cannot do without the dualling of the A96 between Aberdeen and Inverness if it is to achieve the growth rate of which it is capable. I am talking about a sustainable growth rate. I absolutely agree that the impact on climate change policies has to be part of the assessment, but it should be part of the assessment about how you implement the project, not whether you do it.

Thank you very much. That was all characteristically candid. I am reminded of my old friend and colleague Sir Albert McQuarrie, who contemplated a return to public life and elected office at the age of 96. You could offer the country a lot more yet, Mr Neil, with at least three decades’ advantage on him.

That was very helpful. You have not only pointed the committee in directions that it might wish to explore further but identified ways in which we can try to take forward the inquiry. I think that you made the point that looking forward is actually the committee’s objective in realising the aims of the petition.

Follow the advice of my old school, Ayr academy, the motto of which was “Respice Prospice”. Unfortunately, Ayr academy was all respice and nae prospice. I emphasise to the committee that prospice is the name of the game.

On which note, I will suspend the meeting briefly. Thank you very much.

11:38 Meeting suspended.  

11:43 On resuming—  

Welcome back. I should have concluded the previous evidence session by asking members whether they agree to reflect on that evidence and come to a determination on how we might want to proceed at a subsequent meeting. Do we agree to do so?

Members indicated agreement.