Official Report 260KB pdf
Item 3 is consideration of the Transport (Scotland) Bill, on which several witnesses will give evidence. The Government has now published the bill, for which the lead committee is the Transport and the Environment Committee. This committee has said that it wants to take part in the scrutiny at stage 1. We are doing so to this time scale, because it is likely that the Transport and the Environment Committee's detailed deliberations will take place after the summer recess—our window to have an input is now so that we can make recommendations arising from our final meeting before the recess on 28 June.
The concerns of the small business community focus primarily on questions surrounding urban road tolling and the workplace parking levy. Most other issues covered in the Transport (Scotland) Bill are not central to small business's concerns. There is no doubt that nationally the intention is to tackle congestion but, at a local level, the intention may be more to raise revenue. At the recent Scottish Local Government Information Unit conference, not only were congestion measures referred to as offering big gains but businesses were referred to as dripping roasts. Businesses share that perception—feeling the heat with yet another set of carving knives heading in their direction. Businesses understand the need to tackle congestion but want the money that is raised to be used for that; they are concerned that no formula has been put in place for true hypothecation. Additionality must also be addressed by transparency—clarity is needed on that issue.
Our members have little enthusiasm for the bill as it stands for two main reasons: the context within which the bill has been introduced; and aspects of the content of the bill. I think that it is clear to us all that, as a peripheral economy, Scotland needs strong transport links. CBI Scotland has often expressed its concern that the strategic roads review did not fully address that. A number of our main strategic road links—the M80, A80, M8, A8 and the M74 completion—have not been taken forward and there seems to be little prospect of that happening in the near future. When one looks at some of the documents on transport published by the Executive—the consultation documents that led up to the bill, for example—it is often pretty hard to dig out the economic rationale behind policies. Often there are many paragraphs—very well written—about the need to look after the interests of pedestrians, motorists and public transport users but almost nothing about the interests of business and the economy.
Could you draw your remarks to a close?
I have one final point, convener. In part 4 of the bill, under the heading "Miscellaneous", there is a section about new joint boards for bridges. The Forth bridge is most often talked about in that context. We would accept continued tolling of the Forth bridge, provided that the revenue raised was spent on, for example, the A8000 and on alleviating the congestion faced by users of the bridge. Those are some minor issues, but there is little enthusiasm for the bill.
I thank the committee for inviting SCDI to provide evidence on the Transport (Scotland) Bill. By way of introduction, I should say that SCDI has always welcomed the Executive's commitment to introducing a transport bill that recognises the important Scottish dimension in transport; we are pleased that, after quite a long consultation period, that has now been done.
Mr Farrow, I detect from what you say that you have serious reservations about the bill. With the exception of the areas that particularly concern you, do you feel that the bill has merit? Would you support the bill if certain proposals were taken out, pending consultation, or do you feel that the whole bill is flawed?
Taking out the areas that we are concerned about might leave the bill rather limp. We would support some elements of the bill, but there is so much that concerns us that we would prefer it to be delayed.
Are you saying that the bill is an attempt to provide a transport manicure, but one that will saw off the hands of toil?
I would not want Miss Goldie to put words into your mouth, Mr Farrow.
I would love it.
The difficulty is that the bill tries to introduce demand-management tactics for charging, but that is only part of the answer. The other part of the answer is more investment, which we are not getting. The demand-management techniques that the bill would introduce are flawed. Road charging would work if it was done in particular ways, but there is nothing in the bill to guide authorities down the right path. The idea of the parking levy is flawed, as it will not impact on congestion.
Given the universal concerns that all of you have expressed, particularly about road user charging and workplace parking levies, do you feel that some impact assessment should be made of the effect on local economies and businesses before the bill is enacted?
Yes, we do. The bill says that improvements are to be made at local level and that local authorities will have to make plans for specific schemes. Our concern is that the bill contains nothing to require local authorities to carry out that sort of analysis. We cannot see how it could be demonstrated that parking levies would have an impact on congestion, although in certain circumstances it could perhaps be demonstrated that road charging would have an impact. At the very least, the bill should require local authorities to go through that process. In the consultation document, ministers give some fairly vague assurances that they would veto schemes that they were unhappy with, but I do not see why that cannot be written into the bill itself. Why should we have to take that on trust?
I agree with that. The consultation process must include an analysis. Although SCDI accepts that some sort of management congestion charging must be introduced, there should be many caveats. One of those caveats would be an assessment of the likely impact, including a sensitivity analysis of different types of charging, of how much would be raised and of what the money would be used for. Those factors should all fit into transport strategies, but they are not well enough linked in the bill. There should be a strategy that states what charges would be for and how they would affect city-centre competitiveness, for example. A wide-ranging consultation is needed, but there must also be detailed analytical work on the likely impact. We want congestion charging to help to manage traffic and to increase competitiveness but, if that does not happen and competitiveness is harmed, we will have taken one step forward and two back.
I certainly endorse my colleagues' comments. We would like such impact assessments, particularly in relation to workplace parking, to be carried out at a national level, rather than being left to local authorities. There is no clear direction in terms of consultation. It is doubtful whether the issues would vary significantly from area to area.
I detect that you have particular concerns about workplace parking—perhaps more so than about the road user charging schemes. I refer you to section 51(3)(a) of the bill, which makes it clear that the licensing authority must have a local transport strategy. The explanatory guidance makes it clear that
Members are asking questions of all three witnesses. Could I ask you to keep your answers fairly short to allow us to cover as much ground as possible?
Certainly. The business community would welcome any move to improve consultation at a local level. The bill states that the money would be used to alleviate congestion, but the strength of such an assertion rests on the quality of monitoring and auditing, which would have to ensure that that congestion was indeed reduced.
Would you feel reassured if the section on consultation on transport strategies were expanded to define which bodies should be consulted?
That would give us some reassurance.
In order to consult, some up-front work would have to be done to inform people about where the money is going and what impact it would have. Such work must be carried out in conjunction with consultation.
What you suggest would be a small step forward. The fundamental problem with parking levies is that, as far as we can see, they will not affect congestion. Many businesses will absorb the costs by adding them on to prices. If they go through the administrative hassle of passing that cost on to their employees, there is an argument that the employee may decide to use the parking space every day, rather than only for the two days a week, for example, on which they had used it previously. We are concerned that local authorities will be able to say that they have done their bit in meeting what the local strategy says about reducing congestion, because they will have consultants who can demonstrate that there will be some impact at some level, although in practice the effect will probably be very limited.
I should declare an interest. I am a member of SCDI and the FSB, but I have received no payments from those organisations.
The transport spending level in Scotland has been cut progressively since the mid-1990s; money has been shifted from the construction of trunk roads to maintenance. We believe that that trend should be reversed. To be fair, I should add that, in the past couple of years, the minister has increased the spending slightly. We are mounting a major campaign to persuade the chancellor, in the comprehensive spending review, to set out as part of the English 10-year transport plan a higher level of spending, which will be passed on to the Scottish Executive through the Barnett formula. That is a twin-track approach. The reason that we have given reluctant support to local road user charging is that we recognise that it will raise some revenue for local schemes.
I did not find that answer particularly illuminating. Do you think that the chancellor should increase the Scottish block expenditure to allow more investment in our roads?
Yes. Transport projects are needed throughout the UK, including projects in England that would benefit Scottish firms who are trying to get goods to market. We are lobbying the chancellor for a major increase in transport spending in future years. We are doing detailed work on that at a UK level. We are hoping that a proportion of that money will be passed on through the Scottish block to be spent in Scotland. We will be lobbying the Executive to ensure that the money is spent on the right schemes.
To clarify that point, do you think that there should be higher expenditure in the UK and that Scotland should receive its due share? If the CBI had its way, would the Scottish block be increased?
Yes.
My colleague, Annabel Goldie, referred to the universal concern of the business community about the transport bill. I am slightly confused, because it seems that two out of three of you who are representing the business community accept that there is a business case for tackling congestion and that that could involve road user charging in order to raise capital to invest in the road transport infrastructure, which would oil the wheels of commerce. Is that correct? Of course, you attached important caveats to your position in respect of impact assessments and sensitivity analysis and I do not disagree with those. A fair degree of research has been carried out in advance of the publication of the bill. Am I right in thinking that two out of three of the business organisations represented today support the business case for tackling congestion and recognise that road user charging is integral to that?
I would characterise our position as a cautious acceptance. As well as up-front issues, such as the sensitivity analysis and consultation, we are concerned about the transparency of the allocation of the revenue. There is a chance to improve alternatives to the car up front. If charges are imposed, revenue streams will come through, but the work should start beforehand to provide motorists with quality alternatives. The money must be spent on a range of transport projects—including roads—to increase quality and to provide proper alternatives. In that way, the Executive could manage the demand up front. The charges could be imposed at an appropriate level and the revenue should demonstrate additionality to current spending. That would require better transparency in the accounting procedures and hypothecation.
Our point is that both demand management and more investment in road infrastructure are needed. Congestion cannot be reduced without investment in the pinch points. The problem with the bill is that one of the charging methods that it outlines—workplace parking levies—is flawed. Road user charging could work, but only if the bill is strengthened in terms of consultation and additionality, as Iain Duff said.
I endorse those comments. We all recognise that congestion has an impact on a wide variety of businesses. The businesses represented by the FSB would like the costs to them of road tolls to be balanced by the economic benefits of a significant improvement in congestion.
Would the Federation of Small Businesses support the introduction of road user charging if what you suggest were the ultimate outcome?
If individual businesses were convinced that they would see a clear bottom-line benefit, they would probably be comfortable with that.
I want to follow up Matthew Farrow's answer to Fergus Ewing's question on the need for greater investment. Many of us want more investment in our roads network. In other European countries that are in direct competition with us, there has been substantially more investment in public transport and the roads network. Do you support the UK having the same level of investment?
We broadly support that suggestion. The Confederation of British Industry is undertaking as detailed a piece of work as it can to identify all the priority schemes throughout the UK. It will then work out the level of investment that those schemes would need over 10 years. We should have a fairly specific figure for that within a few weeks and the scheme should move us up to the European average.
Would the CBI therefore support an increase in tax levels to pay for such investment, given that most European countries have a tax take of 49 to 50 per cent as opposed to the 36 to 37 per cent that is taken in the UK?
It would not if the tax burden fell on business. Since 1997, the tax burden on Scottish business has risen by about £400 million a year. However—as the chancellor always reminds us—UK business tax rates are fairly low and the impact of allowances and exemptions means that the actual tax take from business is not much different from that of most European countries. We have data on that that might be useful. We feel that business is paying a lot more than it did two or three years ago, which is why the chancellor has money for health and education. We certainly do not support finding such money from increased business taxation.
Where should the money come from?
It should come partly from growth in the economy, partly from reallocation of existing resources and partly—if taxes must be increased—from personal taxation. We do not see a case for increased business taxation.
From which areas would you re-allocate funding?
Luckily, because we are not politicians we do not have to make such decisions. Our job—which is easier—is to say what we think is important from a business point of view.
You obviously support the principle of tackling congestion, because congestion represents a cost to business. Can you give me figures for the current cost to business of congestion and for how much that is likely to rise during the next few years if we do not take steps to tackle the problem? Such figures are important; they allow us to weigh the measures that are proposed in the bill against the impact on business if we do nothing—which would not be acceptable to anyone.
It is very difficult to arrive at broad-brush figures, as transport is so much a part of the economy—even of the new economy that the committee has been talking about. Quite a few prestigious dotcom firms have come unstuck because of distribution logistics rather than information technology. We have a fairly broad-brush figure of about £12 billion for the UK. Although it is hard to work out a precise figure, our best estimate is that the cost of congestion is certainly many billions of pounds.
And rising?
Yes. As the economy grows, there will be more movement of people and products. For example, everything in this room is the product of many journeys, such as the movement of components for manufacture and assembly. We are all trying to get the economy to grow more rapidly but, inevitably, business travel and product movements will increase and because most freight journeys cover very short distances, rail will not be a viable alternative. Although rail freight has increased by about 30 per cent in the past three or four years, we must recognise that most freight journeys are too short for rail to be a legitimate option.
Although it is hard to put a specific figure on the cost to business of congestion, our membership has told us that there is increasing pressure for just-in-time delivery. The committee's investigation into the new economy might touch on the delivery of services to market as people change to e-commerce methods. Such delivery systems are becoming increasingly important and, if congestion in inner cities and on journeys over longer distances means that one cannot be sure when things will arrive, those systems will break down. Despite the fact that that is very much an old economy issue, it is crucial to the new economy.
Do you feel that the current transport network constrains business growth in this country and, if so, in which areas are the pressure points? I am thinking more in competitive terms. I spent some time in Ireland investigating the situation there and found that the Irish economy has undergone rapid growth during the past 10 years, despite having a transport infrastructure that contains only 70 miles of dual carriageway and a rail service that lags way behind anything in Scotland.
We are lucky in Scotland; the situation is not as bad as in other parts of the UK. However, one of the pressure points that generates most comment is the completion of the M74. Our organisation is a member of the Complete to Compete campaign and we have received many complaints from the west of the country and further afield that indicate that that is a problem.
I have a final question. This morning we have had much discussion—and some criticism from business organisations—about the Government's proposals. We all agree that there is a congestion problem that needs to be addressed and that the existing public transport infrastructure is inadequate. As we are giving input to the Transport and the Environment Committee while it scrutinises those issues, I ask where you think the solutions lie.
Some of the issues are emerging from the joint transport strategy. However, as we said in previous submissions, we prefer slightly stronger regional transport authorities, but such will not be the case. We need good quality joint working to create a strategy for Scotland that clarifies what we use our transport system for.
I have two points to make. First, on increased investment, economic growth in Scotland is being held back because two strategic roads—the M80/A80 and M8/A8—have not been completed. Furthermore, the CBI in Scotland, the Freight Transport Association, Railtrack, Freightliner and English, Welsh and Scottish Railway have recently launched a rail freight campaign that is trying to make rail freight a more economically viable option for a larger proportion of industry. Although that involves investment in rail infrastructure, it also involves the rail freight operators improving service levels on matters such as punctuality. On the one hand there should be investment; on the other there should be sensitive implementation and demand management. Sensitive implementation means dropping ideas for levies that will not work and making significant changes to the bill that will ensure that local authorities are more likely to introduce road charging in the right way.
We want investment in infrastructure to be geared towards economic benefit, which should be an overriding factor when difficult decisions are being made. We want a fundamental plank of any measure to be a true understanding of the measure's impact on business of all sizes, levels and sectors. For example, if green commuter plans are being considered, we must ensure that they are equally applicable and accessible to small and large businesses. There must be recognition of the limitations of public transport throughout Scotland. Public transport has a big part to play, but its role varies in different areas and it cannot be the answer to everything. We also need to recognise that not only consumers need access to retail premises; delivery mechanisms must also be able to access them, which Iain Duff touched on. We endorse absolutely an integrated and holistic approach.
Thank you for your contributions. As I said at the outset, we are not the lead committee on the bill. Our perspective on the bill is its impact on business and the economy. We will formulate an opinion on the subject at the committee's meeting in two weeks' time, which we will then submit to the Transport and the Environment Committee. I thank Iain Duff, Matthew Farrow and Jane Todd for their contributions.
Thank you, convener. We bring together transport unions that represent workers throughout the industry, from pilots to bus drivers, rail workers to heavy goods drivers and those engaged in the construction and manufacture of transport equipment. We can make an informed contribution to the transport debate in all those areas. In addition to that, our many members and their dependants are users of public transport. However, our interest in transport matters arises as much from recognition that in all industrial sectors and throughout Scotland we rely on the efficient and sustainable movement of people and goods.
We raise the issue of safety particularly because we have a membership interest in that regard: not only do our members travel to and from work, but some operate transport services. Safety, economy and efficiency are key factors that will determine whether people use public transport to the extent that we want.
I am interested by the point that was made about the possibility that people who want to avoid workplace parking charges might park their cars substantial distances from their places of work and the fact that that would mean that they faced greater danger than they otherwise might. Has any development work been done on that to try to identify attitudes towards the issue? Can we ascertain whether workplace parking charges have caused people to adopt the practice that you describe?
We have not done any detailed work on that, so I cannot give you any scientific information. We are aware, through anecdotal evidence, that people find ways of avoiding local parking charges by parking their cars outwith the chargeable areas. It could be argued that that would have an effect on whether workplace parking charges stopped people taking their cars to work. Our concern is that, given the situation in many areas, some people have no choice but to take their cars to work. That is an issue in city centres and out-of-town areas.
I do not know whether the trade union movement has a formal position on workplace charging. Are you for it or against it? Might it be acceptable in certain circumstances?
We are against it. There are several arguments—the safety argument being the one that exercises us most—against charging. We would be more inclined to be supportive in certain circumstances and with a range of caveats, including those that our colleagues who spoke earlier mentioned in relation to road user charging.
What is the trade union movement's position on locally set congestion charges?
Our concern is that people do not have sufficient choice about how they travel. The provisions that the bill makes for bus transport will go some way to address some of the worst excesses of bus deregulation. In that regard, the bill will, I hope, provide viable, affordable, safe and efficient alternatives to using their car. We would be concerned if road user charging were brought in at a prohibitive rate and on a time scale that meant that people had to pay a penalty before they had the chance to change their behaviour.
I will declare an interest. I am a member of the TGWU and it provided support to my constituency during the Scottish election campaign.
There is an argument about who the additional cost will be passed on to. If there is an opportunity to introduce practical measures that are geared towards increasing use of public transport, we must take all factors into account. That is true equally in relation to excise duty on fuel. It could be argued that that duty is inflationary. If operators were assisted in keeping costs relatively low compared with the spiralling costs of car use, that would in time help to make public transport more attractive.
The bill is enabling legislation that has regard to road user charges. I had not anticipated road user charging being used in rural areas. If the problem is congestion, it has to be said that those areas tend not to suffer from congestion in the same way as some of our larger cities, although it might be an issue in smaller towns.
That partly answers my follow-up question, which is on section 1. Perhaps that section should be expanded to specify in greater detail who should be consulted on local transport strategies. There is no rail transport service for the residents of the Borders, but people who live in the Borders and commute to work in Edinburgh would be hit by schemes that were implemented by the City of Edinburgh Council, despite having little alternative but to use their cars.
The wider point is that we should consider both where opportunities to work exist and the role of economic development agencies. Such agencies can produce evidence on where there is a need for jobs and can direct jobs to those areas. One of the issues that the bill does not address is people's need to travel. The bill focuses in detail on transport behaviour, rather than on considering whether to implement policies to make job opportunities, services and so on available in local communities.
Tracey White has touched on a point on which I wanted to expand—what does the legislation target? Is it the case that many people who use their cars to get to work do so because there is no acceptable alternative available to them? Is that a generalisation or is that a reasonably accurate assessment?
I cannot give specific, scientific evidence in response, but I can offer an anecdotal perspective. We all recognise that the way in which the transport system is configured means that it is about taking people in and out of population or business centres. The system is not geared so much towards allowing people to move around the periphery, so to speak. For example, someone who lives in Broxburn or Bathgate can get into the centre of Edinburgh, but if they want to travel from Broxburn to Bathgate, they will find that difficult. If one lives in an area outside the centres, where public transport is not developed sufficiently, there is little opportunity to travel to work other than by car. The quality partnership and quality contract provisions of the bill might go some way to addressing those issues. It comes back to consulting constituents about their transport needs.
Andy Baird expressed a concern about workplace parking levies, as he could envisage those charges being passed on to the employee in certain cases. Is it correct to say that although larger business organisations might be able to absorb part of those charges and, therefore, to mitigate the effect on the employee, the greatest area of concern is in relation to small and medium enterprises? They make up the bulk of employers in Scotland and might be less able to absorb such charges. Is that a real concern? Will parking charges mean that stability for employees is retained? Some might feel that if they have to meet those charges, they will have to consider other options.
That is one of our fears. Large companies can pass on a proportion of the cost to the employee in another form, such as a benefit in kind. For smaller businesses where the margins are tight—if I may express it that way—such levies will have an impact. That is why we try to stress the benefits of a voluntary increase of the availability of public transport. For example, there is a lengthy delay between services that operate at a frequency of an hour or half an hour. It has been demonstrated that when the frequency of bus services is five or 10 minutes—with bus corridors in place—the opportunities for people to use that alternative are enhanced. Everybody is subject to time constraints, but a fast, efficient service is available.
Do you agree with the representatives of the business community when they say that there is a need for greater consultation on the practical implications of these provisions before the bill is passed?
Yes. It would be hard to argue that all interested parties should not be fully involved in this process, as that will result in a superior quality of legislation.
We have had the opportunity to respond to consultation papers on this issue. The point that I was trying to make earlier is that this is enabling legislation and that any local scheme will stand or fall on whether it has met local needs and aspirations. If it is to do that, consultation must be very broad based. Even if the bill goes on to the statute book, that will not mean that schemes are brought forward. When they are, they must be in the context of a strategy and deliverable policy outputs for the local area. Such schemes must relate to what people living in the area or those who travel in and out of the area need and want.
I apologise for the fact that I was unable to hear all your opening remarks. If you have covered the issue that I raise, please excuse me.
I have some sympathy with Fergus Ewing's comments on the transport infrastructure in the area that he represents and other rural areas across Scotland. It occurred to us that, if it becomes the norm for improvements in transport infrastructure to be funded primarily by road user charging, the transport infrastructure of rural areas could deteriorate, as the member suggested. We have already expressed some concern about the fact that road user charging can be imposed before there are improvements in infrastructure more generally. That would suggest that we would support up-front funding for developments in infrastructure. That funding would have to be available where it is needed—in many different parts of Scotland.
I would not disagree with up-front funding. From what budget line, or source, should that up-front funding come?
As Matthew Farrow mentioned, the CBI has been lobbying the chancellor, and the STUC has been doing the same. In our past three budget submissions, we have said that the transport infrastructure is an issue and that there is a need to make a commitment to it at the UK level. That would have an impact on the amount of money that would be available to us to spend on that policy area in Scotland.
So, the STUC and CBI stand shoulder to shoulder in asking Gordon Brown to open his war chest.
Thank you, Fergus.
Some of the previous witnesses seemed dubious about the fact that the bill devolves considerable power over transport to local areas and local authorities. Do you believe that it is a positive move that local areas—with the local authorities playing a key role—will be able to develop local transport strategies that will be of real benefit to them, and that all the money that would be raised from a road charging scheme would be ring-fenced and reinvested in local transport schemes?
I shall answer your second question first. Any move to increase the volume and the quality of public transport across the board, but especially in relation to disabled access and greenways for buses, should be welcomed. Everybody should be involved in the local consultation and the schemes should improve public transport.
I shall now answer your first question, on local authorities. We endorse the role of local authorities in implementing local transport strategies. One of the strengths of the bill is that each local authority is expected to work with its neighbouring authorities. At the time of local government reorganisation, we were concerned that the new authorities would be too small to have a sensible impact on transport matters, especially as people were coming into areas from outwith them, as I mentioned earlier. It is therefore important for neighbouring local authorities to come together to reflect the travelling behaviours of people in their areas. To some extent, that would address the concern over the generation of the revenue that would be spent. For example, the transport strategy might go across two authorities, one of which might be in a more remote, more rural area. That authority area would not be subject to congestion but might contribute to congestion in the neighbouring authority. In such a case, there could be an opportunity to disburse money throughout the whole partnership area rather than retaining it entirely within the urban area.
I want to query the assumption that congestion is an urban phenomenon rather than one that also affects road users in rural Scotland or semi-rural Scotland. Is there any statistical evidence to substantiate the claim that it is principally an urban phenomenon?
I am not sure that I followed the last bit of the question.
In your contribution, you differentiated between road user charging following investment and road user charging before investment. Would your position differ depending on whether road user charging took place in advance of the investment or after the investment?
I wanted to make the point that penalising an action to which there is no alternative is problematic. Andy Baird talked about the availability of choice in peripheral housing estates. We would be concerned if someone who lived in such an estate and had no alternative to travelling by car found getting to work more difficult due to road user charging. If there had been investment to ensure that such a person had a choice, our view on road user charging would change somewhat and we would be more willing to accept the arguments for the charge. In previous submissions, we have said that there should be a sort of sliding scale for road user charging. The charges have to be kept low or non-existent until people have a choice of what form of transport to use.
I take it that you are not opposed in principle to the use of road user charging as a means of raising capital to invest in the public transport infrastructure or the transport infrastructure as a whole.
That is correct, but it is almost a chicken-and-egg situation. In fact, the provisions on bus services are likely to have a much greater and more positive impact on the behaviour of the travelling public and on congestion than road user charging will.
I thank Andy Baird and Tracey White for joining us.
It is self-evident that the report will concentrate on the business dimension to the Transport (Scotland) Bill—the evidence that we have taken and the business case for much of the thrust of what is, after all, the first bill in 20 years to deal with transport. I hope that our report will be balanced and that it will take account of certain criticisms that have been made. However, it should also take account of the other case for tackling congestion as a means of improving our competitive position in the wider economy.
I would like the report to bring out the point made by Andy Baird and Tracey White about the uncertainty facing many employees who, I understand, use their cars in the absence of an acceptable alternative mode of transport. The Official Report will clarify the extent to which they made that point, but in my view it was significant.
We may want to address issues of exemption for people who have no alternative to the car in getting to work, as Annabel Goldie suggested. We may also wish to consider how the bill might address the concerns of business and unions about the consultation involved in local transport strategies and who would be involved in that consultation process.
We will want to highlight the strengthening of the hypothecation—that was clearly an issue, as was consultation. We should also highlight the views of the business community about road charging as a concept, which members of that community strongly advocate as a solution to congestion.
I am sorry, but I thought that they advocated that approach only if there were an improvement to the bottom line. The support is not unconditional.
Yes, but hypothecation is linked to that.
I would like more statistical, impartial information from experts on the extent to which we might expect congestion to be relieved by any of the measures proposed in the bill. I am not sure whether we have sufficient evidence from impartial experts on this matter. Are the measures that are set out in the bill going to achieve the aim of easing congestion?
I fundamentally disagree with Fergus Ewing. I do not see how an enabling measure, which gives every local authority—whether urban or rural—powers to tackle congestion can be seen solely as a bill designed to tackle urban congestion. I believe that the bill, which provides local authorities with those powers, addresses both urban and rural issues—there are different approaches to different problems.
I support Allan Wilson's comments. To give a practical example, in Aberdeen and in Aberdeenshire, two local authorities are working together to come up with a joint transport strategy that concentrates on tackling congestion in Aberdeen, a large amount of which is caused by people who drive in from rural areas. Therefore, an overall plan for the whole area will benefit everyone—both those who live in urban areas and those who live in rural areas. The bill does not ignore either.
On the rural-urban debate, I think that a difficulty could arise if hypothecation is the essence of the legislation, in the sense that it will provide funds only for those areas that have an interest in resolving congestion. I can think of rural areas where congestion is unheard of, but I can understand where Fergus Ewing is coming from when he says that local authorities still have a significant obligation to maintain roads in rural areas. People might be concerned about where the funding will come from to address rural infrastructure needs if, in other areas, funding is being increased by what is, quite simply, a crude form of additional tax raising. That is the dilemma.
On that point, there is an issue about the funding that would be contributed by those who live in rural areas and who pay into a road charging system by travelling into another area. How will that money go back to rural areas? Obviously, it will be ring-fenced to a particular authority area.
That was a helpful way of addressing some of the points raised by Fergus Ewing.
The rural-urban argument should be reflected in the indices that are used to calculate grant-aided expenditure through the local government settlement. Many of the concerns about service provision in rural areas should be addressed through that mechanism rather than through the Transport (Scotland) Bill.
Following on from Elaine Murray's point, I understand that there are different views and I do not think that we should reach conclusions until we have more evidence. I know the position of the Highland Council better than I know the opinions taken in other areas. Moreover, the budget for road maintenance and repair has been substantially reduced. In order to progress Elaine's point, it might be helpful if the committee could receive some statistical information on the money that is available at present for local authorities under the local authority settlement. That would give us a factual background with which to address some of the problems raised by George Lyon and Annabel Goldie.
We are losing focus—we are here to consider the impact of the Transport (Scotland) Bill on the business community.
The clerks have captured the discussion that we have had, which we will also see in the Official Report. The Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee is not the lead committee—it will not sign off the Transport (Scotland) Bill. Our role is to pose questions that we think that the Transport and the Environment Committee should consider in greater depth and that should be addressed at stage 2, when the Government should be required to provide evidence in support of the contentions that are being made. The Government might need to draw on fresh, primary evidence or to provide existing data on GAE calculations, to which Elaine Murray referred. However, it might be helpful to our colleagues in the Transport and the Environment Committee if we were to pose a set of questions and points that should be addressed.
Meeting closed at 12:43.
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