Forth Road Bridge Bill: Stage 2
Good morning, everyone. I welcome you to the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee’s 10th meeting in 2013. I remind everyone to switch off all their mobile devices, as they affect the broadcasting system.
We have apologies from Adam Ingram, to whom I spoke last night. He is making good progress. Gil Paterson is attending as a committee substitute.
The first item on our agenda is to consider the Forth Road Bridge Bill at stage 2. We have only one amendment to consider, so we will complete stage 2 consideration at this meeting.
I welcome Keith Brown, the Minister for Transport and Veterans, and his supporting officials: Graham Porteous, who is head of the Forth Road Bridge Bill team, from Transport Scotland; Susan Conroy from the Scottish Government legal department; and Fraser Gough from the office of the Scottish parliamentary counsel.
Section 1 agreed to.
Schedule agreed to.
Sections 2 to 4 agreed to.
After section 4
Amendment 1, in the name of Elaine Murray, is in a group on its own.
I apologise to the minister and his officials for dragging them along for one amendment.
The amendment seeks to address some of the concerns that the City of Edinburgh Council raised at stage 1. As we know, the bill dissolves the Forth Estuary Transport Authority and transfers its properties and liabilities to the Scottish ministers and its staff to what is likely to be a private sector bridge operator. The minister advised us on 27 February that the contract arrangements would be monitored through Transport Scotland’s performance audit group and that he had initiated a forum for community interests to be represented.
However, there is no mention of a Forth crossing forum in the bill and it is unclear how its discussions and decisions will be recorded and disseminated. The minutes of meetings of FETA were available on the City of Edinburgh Council’s website until the end of 2011. I am not sure why they were not there thereafter but, prior to then, the public could monitor what had been decided at those meetings.
Because the bill does not mention the forum, my amendment provides for the forum to be formalised through a negative instrument. It provides for representation on the forum from councillors on the four local authorities that are represented on FETA. It also requires that the forum’s minutes be published—for example, on Transport Scotland’s website.
The minister said at the committee that he was not sure what exactly the City of Edinburgh Council was asking for. Nor am I, I have to say, and I am not absolutely certain that the amendment would fully address the council’s concerns. However, it would allow elected members to attend meetings that will monitor the management and maintenance of the crossing. It would also enable them to ask questions of Transport Scotland on behalf of their communities and allow the public to access minutes of those meetings.
I am interested to hear reactions to the amendment. It could be refined or changed at stage 3 if necessary.
I move amendment 1.
The amendment that Elaine Murray lodged seeks to give local councillors a degree of oversight of the management of the Forth road bridge—it specifically mentions the Forth road bridge. I am unsure how that would work in the forum, which is already established, given that its task is to look after the three bridges. If Elaine Murray thinks that through, she will realise that that would be difficult.
The committee has previously discussed councillor involvement in the Forth bridges forum. In its stage 1 report, the committee agreed with my view that it would not be appropriate for the membership of the forum to include elected local authority representatives. All three local authority areas are represented by their officers at a senior level on operational issues.
It is the Government’s view—and, to judge by its report, the committee’s view—that there is no reason for councillors to have a formal role in overseeing the management and maintenance of the Forth road bridge. The bill will make the bridge part of the trunk road network, and nowhere in Scotland do councillors have a formal role in the management of trunk roads, including other major estuarial crossings.
The Government is happy that existing systems ensure that local issues are dealt with effectively across the trunk road network, as was the case with previous Administrations. The Government also welcomes representations that are made by councillors and indeed directly by members of the public.
On local accountability, the Scottish Government was democratically elected and it is held to account by the Parliament and its committees. We have had no representations from any of the other councils that are mentioned in the amendment seeking representation on the forum. As Elaine Murray conceded, when a representative from the City of Edinburgh Council addressed the committee, it was unclear what form the proposed representation would take.
We therefore believe that the amendment would do nothing for local accountability. All that it would do is require the Government to require councils to appoint members to a quango that would have no powers and no real purpose. In our view, there is no need to create a new statutory bureaucracy.
Councils and in particular local communities are more than welcome to make representations to me or my officials. In fact, I would go further and say that Scottish Government officials will be more than happy to go to individual councils and make presentations to them if they have particular concerns about issues that arise in relation to any of the three crossings, in so far as they can do that; of course, the rail bridge would be for Network Rail to cover. Councils can make representations to me and my officials on any matters relating to the management of the trunk road network.
For the reasons that I have outlined, I urge Elaine Murray not to press amendment 1. Failing that, I recommend that the committee rejects it.
I was interested to hear the minister’s comments. The amendment has perhaps not been correctly worded in relation to the three bridges. However, I was slightly confused to hear the minister say that the body would be a quango, as I understood that he had already set up a forum of this nature. The amendment would just formalise the arrangements for that and make the minutes of its meetings public. That is important because it is still not clear how members of the public may access information on what has been discussed.
The amendment does not necessarily seek to make councillors the decision makers. The point is that they would be on a body that would be able to monitor the management, that they would be able to ask questions of Transport Scotland and that the information would be publicly available.
I will not press the amendment, because I am not certain that it completely addresses the City of Edinburgh Council’s concerns. I will reflect on whether I should lodge a similar amendment at stage 3 and whether there would be merit in doing so.
Amendment 1, by agreement, withdrawn.
Sections 5 to 8 agreed to.
Long title agreed to.
That ends stage 2 consideration of the Forth Road Bridge Bill. It has been one of the shortest stage 2s that we have had. I thank the minister and his officials.
I will suspend the meeting briefly to allow the minister to leave the room and the witnesses for the next item to take their seats.
10:08
Meeting suspended.
10:15
On resuming—