Bring Back our Buses Campaign
The final item of business today is a members' business debate on motion S2M-5327, in the name of Colin Fox, on the bring back our buses campaign. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament notes that several vital community bus services in the Edinburgh area have been cut or made virtually unaffordable through fare increases over the last year; applauds the efforts of the South Queensferry Bus Users' Group in campaigning for affordable fares and of the "Bring Back our Buses" campaign in calling for the retention of frequent services on the 13, 18, 38 routes and the reinstatement of full services on the 67, 20 and 60 routes, which are much used by OAPs and other vulnerable members of excluded communities in Blackhall, Ratho, Dumbiedykes, Wester Hailes and Pilton, and believes that local authorities should be allowed to regulate bus routes and timetables to ensure that marginalised communities are able to access services and amenities.
I thank members for joining me for the first members' business debate of the new year.
I raise three important issues: first, the impact of bus service cuts and fare increases on public transport provision in Edinburgh and the Lothians; secondly, the greater role for public transport provision in reducing social exclusion, global warming, pollution and road accidents; and thirdly, the fact that free public transport throughout Scotland is firmly on the agenda.
I acknowledge the services that FirstBus and Lothian Buses, in particular, provide for the people of the Lothians. I stood on the picket lines alongside drivers from both companies last year in support of their pay claim and I am proud that Edinburgh retains one of the few publicly owned bus companies in Britain.
However, both companies must acknowledge that cuts to vital community bus routes in recent months have damaged their reputation and their ability to deliver a universal service. The number 12 bus from the Jewel to Portobello has been cut; the number 13 service from Blackhall has been curtailed; and the number 18 service from the new Edinburgh royal infirmary to the Gyle has been curtailed, despite the best efforts of Edinburgh pensioner Mrs Irene Paterson, who gathered more than 3,500 signatures for her petition to keep the number 18 service running via Hunter's Tryst. The number 20 service in Edinburgh has been curtailed and the number 38 from north Edinburgh to the new royal infirmary has been cut back, as have the number 60 service from Dumbiedykes to the town and the number 67 service from Ratho to Wester Hailes. It is becoming increasingly difficult to get from one part of the city to another without going through the city centre.
It is clear that cuts in services and increases in fares will not lead to greater passenger numbers. As the South Queensferry bus users group has amply demonstrated, the £3.60 FirstBus fare to Edinburgh, which has gone up by 44 per cent in just six months, will not encourage more people to leave their cars at home or indeed to travel by bus at all. I am sure that during the Christmas period members noted the inflation-busting increases that the train operating companies announced, which will not encourage people to travel by train. Such increases are being imposed at a time when Britain has the highest public transport fares in western Europe. Buses account for 70 per cent of journeys on public transport and since 1990 bus fares have increased by 24 per cent.
Public transport must be regarded not as a money-making machine but as a public service that is vital to the economy and to communities. Between 1986 and 1999, the amount of public money that was spent on subsidising bus services fell in Britain by two thirds, not because private money was being invested in place of public money but because services were being cut. Buses offer a lifeline to vulnerable people and isolated communities, which often have no alternative to fall back on. Given that few routes outside lucrative city centres make money, everyone understands that we need to subsidise public transport, but to what extent and to what end? We do not subsidise public transport to fatten the profits of big bus companies—that is not what subsidies are there for.
I applaud the work of the South Queensferry bus users group and the bring back our buses campaign. I support campaigners' arguments for route development and I applaud their efforts to visit community councils in Edinburgh, to argue for the necessary expansion of the system that will ensure that it is inclusive.
Mrs Thatcher once sneered that if a person was still travelling by bus when they were 40, they were somehow a failure. Spokesperson that she is for the Chelsea tractor brigade, she spectacularly failed to understand and grapple with the issues. Fortunately, others have done and passenger numbers are again rising after a decade of decline. In the Lothians, passenger numbers are up by 25 per cent, which allowed Lothian Buses to order 42 new buses, with the very latest Euro 4 low-emission diesel engines. It is important to highlight the role of public transport in reducing traffic volumes and dangerous CO2 and nitrous oxide emissions. Compared with the use of cars, the use of buses reduces emissions by 88 per cent per passenger mile.
Everyone is facing up to the fact that public transport is the best option to address our cities' needs in relation to congestion, pollution and social inclusion. Ahead of May's elections, every party in Edinburgh appears to be committed to increasing expenditure on our buses. Going into the elections, Labour's Ewan Aitken has announced that Labour will spend more than £1 million if it is elected. The Liberals, the Scottish National Party and the Tories all agree, which is just as well, because Ian Craig, the managing director of Lothian Buses, has made it clear that the company needs more money if the services that the public demand are to be delivered.
It is against that background that the Scottish Socialist Party is committed to introducing free public transport for all throughout Scotland, to provide a better alternative to the car and one that offers genuine social inclusion. The Executive has, commendably, introduced free public transport for senior citizens, which is welcome, although it is unfortunate that many pensioners do not have a local bus to go on. Nonetheless, free public transport for senior citizens is commendable, as was the Minister for Transport's announcement on Monday that 16 to 19-year-olds are to be offered discounted travel and that youngsters who live in the islands are to be offered two free ferry journeys each year—quite right too.
Kenny MacAskill was quoted in the Edinburgh Evening News—accurately, I hope—saying that, as an alternative to Edinburgh's tram system, we could offer free travel on Edinburgh's buses for seven years for the same amount of money. I welcome that announcement. For the Liberals, Euan Robson was quoted on Monday as saying that carers should be allowed free travel when with their loved one or client. That is a commendable and eminently sensible idea. However, if we are honest, all those measures are too little on their own to make a lasting difference, which is why we argue that free public transport for all is necessary to address the questions that are before us.
The policy has been implemented selectively elsewhere. The town of Hasselt in Belgium, which has a population of 69,000, had a dreadful congestion problem in the 1990s to which it responded not by introducing congestion charges and penalties, but with a free travel scheme. Passenger journeys rose by 870 per cent and the problem was turned round. The idea is now being studied by the Danish Government, the Government in Victoria, Australia and other Governments throughout the world. The Scottish Socialist Party believes that there is much merit in the idea.
The first step on the path of introducing free public transport for all throughout Scotland would be to reregulate bus routes, timetables and fares, in consultation with local communities and groups such as the South Queensferry bus users group and the bring back our buses campaign. Prior to 1986, bus services were regulated. Deregulation resulted first in aggressive price wars over route domination and then in cuts in services, as profits became a more important motive than public service provision.
What would the provision of free public transport cost? As the minister knows, annual transport revenue in Scotland is £593 million. It has been estimated that the set-up costs and the costs of the extra buses and staff that would be needed to introduce free public transport would amount to another £700 million. The total cost therefore would be £1.3 billion, which is a lot of money, but surely in a climate in which the Government is talking about spending £25 billion on a replacement for Trident, nobody can claim that the money is not there. As Sir Nicholas Stern aptly put it, the cost of doing nothing is more expensive in the long run. The savings to the health service, from a reduced number of accidents and reduced pollution, and to businesses and the wider community would offset the cost.
The radical approach of providing free public transport for all would be a socially just contribution to tackling the huge issues of poverty, health and climate change that confront us all.
I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this evening's debate. Colin Fox's motion has identified the problem by reference to certain services in Edinburgh and Lothian, although the problem is by no means unique to the city and region. It is essentially encapsulated in the question, "How do we provide bus services on routes for which there is a clear social need on the part of members of our community who do not have access to private transport, but which are, in terms of the numbers of passengers they can attract, either uneconomic to run at all or to run at desirable levels of frequency?"
Here in Edinburgh, the question arises particularly acutely in relation to services for national health service staff, patients and visitors to the new Edinburgh royal infirmary—Colin Fox cited examples. His motion refers to excluded communities and cites Wester Hailes, which I represent. The impact of his sentiment was, however, somewhat diminished by his reference to Blackhall. I live there and would like to see more number 13 buses there, but everyone in Blackhall would be astonished to learn that we are, according to the Scottish Socialist Party, living in an excluded community. If we are excluded, who in Scotland is included? Included in what? Perhaps Mr Fox will tell us.
Will the member take an intervention?
Here is another disadvantaged and excluded member from Blackhall.
As Mr McLetchie's local constituency MSP, I am fighting on his behalf and on behalf of the other residents of Blackhall. The point that we are trying to make is that because of the changes in the Blackhall bus service, we no longer have the number 13 bus at off-peak times, which means that a number of elderly people are basically housebound, particularly in the winter. That has also affected local schools: schoolchildren are unable to travel home by bus at the end of the day. I would be the first to agree that Blackhall is perhaps not quite as desperate as some other parts of the city, but there is a reasonable point to be made, which was made by Colin Fox.
There is a very reasonable point about service frequency on routes. I was, in a slightly tongue-in-cheek manner, trying to point out that to encapsulate both Wester Hailes, which I represent, and Blackhall, where I live, in a motion somewhat diminishes the strength of the argument. I take Margaret Smith's point.
It is one thing to diagnose a problem and another to prescribe the correct treatment. I regret to say that the SSP's prescription is once again to fall back on the failed policies of nationalisation and regulation, which for decades frustrated the development of bus services in Scotland. The policies of the previous Conservative Government reversed that trend. Without our deregulation policy, FirstGroup plc and Stagecoach would not be the major international public transport companies that they are today. They are major Scottish success stories. Without deregulation, even the council-owned Lothian Buses would not be the success that it is today, delivering services on a commercial and largely unsubsidised basis, with a fare structure that represents good value for the bus user and which still delivers a dividend to its council owners.
In seeking to fashion a transport policy of its own, the Scottish Executive has had a few false starts, which are no better exemplified than in the Transport (Scotland) Act 2001, which is notorious for advocating congestion charging and for advocating, in relation to bus services, quality partnerships and quality contracts that are to be delivered on a statutory basis by councils and bus operators. We were told that that was the way ahead, but what happened? Four years later, the Parliament's Local Government and Transport Committee held an inquiry to establish why no one by that time had thought it worth their while to enter a quality partnership or a quality contract for bus services. What were the conclusions of that inquiry? Basically, it concluded that such statutory arrangements were useless and undesirable. In the words of Neil Renilson, chief executive of Lothian Buses, contracts
"would take control of the bus network and design of the services and timetables away from the people who run the buses and … put control in the hands of local government officers, civil servants or whomever, who are inevitably divorced from the coalface"—[Official Report, Local Government and Transport Committee, 5 October 2004; c 1183.]—
or, perhaps more appositely, divorced from the bus stop.
Re-regulation is not the answer to the problems that have been highlighted today. Privately and publicly owned operators agree that regulation was the problem and that it is a prescription for poorer services. We should build on and learn from the successful partnerships that are in place throughout Scotland. That is the way ahead. We should not go back to the future.
I congratulate Colin Fox on securing the debate. Buses are the backbone of our local communities and, for many of my constituents—who, of course, include Colin Fox—they are vital for getting around Edinburgh. Margaret Smith will comment on the issues in South Queensferry, but I will comment on one of the bus services that Colin Fox mentioned in his motion: the Lothian Buses 38 service.
We all agree that Lothian Buses provides an extremely good service. A number of the overseas visitors we receive through a couple of organisations to which I belong use the buses when they come to Edinburgh and always remark on how good the service is. However, since October, when the city of Edinburgh Council's Labour administration cut the bus subsidy grant, the number 38 bus has been reduced to a half-hourly service with earlier evening finishing times and an even more reduced Sunday service.
The 38 bus travels from the west of the city, through south-west Edinburgh and through my constituency to the royal infirmary. It is not the sort of bus service that has always been popular and the council tried to cut it in 2001, citing a lack of demand. However, many people rely on such services. The 38 goes around the city, connects many communities and gives direct access to the University of Edinburgh's science campus and the royal infirmary site while avoiding the city centre. Many of the roads on which it travels have no other bus service.
I accept that, for many people in rural areas, a half-hourly service seems like a luxury, but it has been shown that people in cities stop using buses when they come only once every half hour. That is one of the reasons why I have been pursuing Lothian Buses to roll out its bus tracker system on many of the less-used routes throughout the city, because that would encourage more people to get on the buses.
The 38's situation is symptomatic of the fact that, if we simply ran buses on a commercial basis, many services would not survive. However, it is much more than that. For many older people and marginalised people in society, buses are a lifeline that is every bit as important as lifeline air services are: only today, the Executive has announced two new air routes. Buses allow social mobility and greatly improve the quality of people's lives. That is why Edinburgh's bus subsidy is important.
It is very disappointing that the City of Edinburgh Council has forced a reduction in the services. In 2001, Liberal Democrats succeeded in saving the 38 bus after collecting thousands of signatures. This time, the cuts affect a wider range of services throughout south Edinburgh, which is why in October I joined my council colleagues in launching a renewed save the buses campaign. Again, thousands of signatures have been received and we will shortly hand in the petition. If any members wish to join, they are welcome to sign up to the campaign.
I am committed to maintaining local bus services and I call on the City of Edinburgh Council to reinstate a supported bus service that keeps buses such as the 38 running.
As is normal, I pay tribute to Colin Fox for securing the debate. As it is a members' business debate, it is important that we deal with the specifics of the constituency matter rather than with general points.
It is appropriate that Colin Fox paid tribute to the people in South Queensferry who are campaigning to save their bus service. I am old enough to remember the time when South Queensferry was part of the county of West Lothian. The logic for its having become part of the City of Edinburgh is understandable, but there is in South Queensferry a clear perception, if not reality, that although residents there pay the same council tax as people who live in the city, they do not get the same benefits because of their geographical distance from the city centre. That perception was increased when there was a possibility that South Queensferry residents may have had to pay a congestion charge to drive into a city in which they reside, with all the difficulties that went with that.
South Queensferry residents are clearly not as well served by transport services as residents of a variety of areas within Edinburgh itself, so we must try to ensure that that deficit is addressed. The same applies to Ratho, which used to be part of the county of Midlothian. There are historical reasons for the situation, but the residents of Ratho and South Queensferry must be treated as part of the city. They pay the same council tax and so are entitled to be treated with the same dignity and have the same access to services as citizens in larger and more central parts of the city.
As all of the other speakers have said, the City of Edinburgh has an excellent bus service. It is important that we record that it regularly wins prizes for having the best bus service in the United Kingdom. Problems arise in South Queensferry and other areas that were historically served by green buses rather than by maroon buses—to hark back to when I was a boy—and in which, in order to avoid a bus war, a relationship has been on-going. Indeed, at the moment, Lothian Buses and FirstGroup serve South Queensferry. However, it is a matter of fact that the areas that are served primarily by Lothian Buses get better treatment in the city than those that depend on FirstGroup. There are a variety of reasons for that, which relate mainly to distance and to the nature of the routes that FirstGroup operates.
Does the member recognise that there is a correlation between the fact that Lothian Buses is winning awards for being the best bus company in Britain and the fact that it is one of the few that are publicly owned?
I have no doubt that that is a factor. As a citizen of Edinburgh, I welcome the fact that not only does Lothian Buses provide a fantastic service but that the profit that it makes is ploughed back into the service. The company cross-subsidises its routes. Clearly with certain routes, there has been a problem that Mr Fox identified, but we all know that there are other routes that do not make the same amount of money and which use the cross-subsidy. We must acknowledge that, due to the good business acumen with which the routes are operated, some of the routes are extremely profitable, such as the flagship number 22 route, which shows what can be done by a bus operator in running a quality service with quality buses.
That brings me back to other matters. As we have said, politics is about priorities. The statements of mine that Colin Fox quoted were, perhaps, not presented in quite the context in which they were made but, nevertheless, the issue is about priorities. There are clear limits to what Lothian Buses can do in cross-subsidisation and in what the City of Edinburgh Council can do in terms of subsidy. However, we have to think about what we can do with the available money in order to bring about the best situation in Edinburgh. Colin Fox talked about rail fares, but Edinburgh's bus fares have risen to £1 from 80p and the routes that Mr Fox mentioned and some others, including routes east of the city, have been curtailed.
That has happened when it is proposed that we embark on £700 million of expenditure on a tram system that will not provide any benefit to the areas that are losing their bus services, and which will also result in more bus services being removed. The point that I make, and on which Mr Fox commented, is that it does not make sense to spend £700 million on a tram scheme that will not go where people want to be taken and will not serve the vast majority of the citizens of the city of Edinburgh when, for that amount of money, we could replace every bus in the Lothians with low-level-access buses and run Edinburgh's bus service free for the next seven years. Where should we spend our money?
I congratulate Colin Fox on securing the debate. The first members' business debate after the summer recess was secured by Pauline McNeill, who called for greater public accountability in public transport. In a way, it is fitting that the first members' business debate after the winter recess should be on effectively the same topic.
I have congratulated Colin Fox on securing the debate, but I am disappointed that he has been forced to do so. We have debated public transport regulation endlessly without seeing the progress that we need. I support proper regulation of bus routes, which was absent when the Tories deregulated the buses 20 years ago. Following that, there was a massive decline in bus patronage. In the past 10 years, there has been a 9 per cent decline in Scotland and a 13 per cent decline across the United Kingdom, outwith London. That is a consequence of the fact that we have had an inefficient deregulated system that is full of unnecessary competition. That undermines the quality of service and results in withdrawal of services, which is what we are talking about today.
In that context, and in recognition of the fact that the budget shows that, since the introduction of concessionary fares, about a third of operating funding for bus companies comes from the public purse, it is right that we should talk about proper regulation. We certainly need a light-touch approach to regulation, but there must be accountability for the withdrawal of routes. We put a vast amount of public money into bus services, so accountability must match that.
Lothian Buses is to be congratulated on the services that it runs. The company runs at a profit while delivering excellent services. The profit is welcome, but I believe that service is the key to our bus network. With the local authority as a shareholder, that has been achieved. It is instructive to compare the successes in Edinburgh with the problems that have occurred elsewhere.
Nonetheless, the services that we are debating today—particularly services such as the 60 and the 13, which are radial routes that do not go through the city centre but offer routes across the city—are vital if we are to have a proper bus network. Given the funding that we are putting in, it is right that there is public concern about withdrawal of services or reductions in their frequency. Margaret Smith was right—the fact that someone lives in Blackhall does not mean that they are not socially excluded. If they do not have adequate access to public transport, people might be socially excluded. Public transport has become increasingly important to me since my partner and I had a child. For elderly people and people with children, public transport is not merely an option—it becomes a necessity if they are to participate in society.
Lothian Buses charges £2.30 for a day ticket. That is welcome because it is one of the lowest such fares in the UK, and it contrasts with the £3.60 that is charged by FirstBus. We need to tackle that anomaly, which affects people who live in South Queensferry. We must recognise the need for a properly regulated system.
I support the motion and I support those who are campaigning for better bus services. We need better services in order that we can combat social exclusion and damage to the environment. However, I wish the rest of Scotland had bus services to compete with those in Edinburgh or even those in South Queensferry. We are in a privileged position. I hope that the rest of Scotland catches up with Lothian, but I also hope that, in Lothian, services are maintained not just through the city centre but around it.
In 12 years as an elected politician in Edinburgh, I have never known a period of upset and disruption involving the change and withdrawal of local bus services such as that in the past year. Like others, I set my remarks in the context that we have a very good bus service. That is due, in no small part, to the fact that Lothian Buses remains municipally owned. Many of us are pleased about that, and we benefit from it.
It is right that the City of Edinburgh Council and the Scottish Executive support public transport. It is right to try to get people out of their cars and on to public transport. Supporting public transport is also right in terms of social inclusion. My intervention on Mr McLetchie was slightly tongue in cheek, although many years ago, when I represented Cramond as a councillor, it became clear to me that when my older constituents become widowed—I use the word advisedly—many of the elderly ladies lost not only their husband but their driver. Hard on the heels of losing their partner, they found that they lost access to their church, to social clubs and so on. It was a double blow. Until I represented them, that had not occurred to me. I thought, "We live in an affluent area." It had not occurred to me that people can live in an affluent area but still be transport poor.
The Scottish Executive must be applauded for introducing the concessionary travel scheme, but the shine has been taken off the scheme for many of my constituents in areas such as Blackhall, Gogarbank and Clermiston—to name just a few—by the withdrawal of services, which has made the scheme more difficult to access.
I applaud the work that has been done by the bring back our buses campaigners throughout Edinburgh. In particular, I pay tribute to the Blackhall community association, which not only has lobbied the council but is now petitioning the Parliament. That highlights the problems that people face when local bus services are withdrawn. I have been working with the association on issues around the 13 and 68 services.
I am pleased that the council agreed in November to consider bus services for north Edinburgh and to examine the effects of withdrawing bus services on older people and on social exclusion. I have written to the council to ask it to use the generous settlement that it received recently from the Executive to support local bus services.
In the past year, I have had a series of meetings, discussions and correspondence with residents, the council chief executive, community councils, Blackhall community association, NHS Lothian—about the access to hospitals that David McLetchie mentioned—and bus operators. I have also launched a fairer fares for Queensferry petition locally, and I have met local Queensferry residents who have set up a new fairer fares for Queensferry campaign group, with me—for my sins—as vice chair.
Why is this necessary? First, the residents of Queensferry and surrounding areas are currently paying the highest bus fares in Scotland. Fares have increased considerably in the past year, and a day ticket now costs £3.60 compared with the Lothian Buses price of £2.30 or the Scottish average of £2.85. There is no doubt that because FirstBus has a monopoly in parts of the Ferry—a position that Lothian Buses refuses to challenge because of the possibility of bus wars—the people of South Queensferry are being short changed. Despite my best efforts in discussing that with the council, it refuses to consider it from the point of view of quality bus partnerships or anything else.
I want also to pay tribute to the South Queensferry bus users group mentioned in the motion, which was set up by local councillor George Grubb and local residents. It has had some success in securing improvements in bus services in the area, and we hope to take that further with fares. We are right to see bus services as crucial to local communities, whether that is at Gogarbank, or in relation to Kirkliston no longer having direct access to St John's hospital, or the impact on St Margaret's school. Across my constituency, there is a need for change.
Communities need more notice of proposed changes to services so that meaningful consultation can take place, with time to take into account impacts on journeys to hospitals, schools and so on. Councils need either greater control over bus routes and timetables or greater ring-fenced funding from the Scottish Executive to protect the services that they see as crucial to their local communities.
I know that the Executive has been doing some work, but I hope that it will expand its work on demand responsive services, which might be particularly useful on the urban-rural fringes of cities such as Edinburgh in areas such as Ratho and Gogarbank. It is crucial that, as the minister confronts the business case for trams, he bears in mind the need to integrate good local bus services and the tram system—I include in that the shuttle bus to the Western general hospital.
Buses are good for the environment, social inclusion and our communities. I hope that the minister will take on board the concerns and issues raised tonight.
I thank Colin Fox for giving us the opportunity to discuss the issues in ensuring that people have access to bus services and the general topic of regulation, as set out in the motion. I hope that my remarks will not stray too widely from specific services in Edinburgh, which have been well covered today.
Margaret Smith made an extremely telling point about the importance of access to bus services to those who have been widowed and therefore find themselves in a new situation without a driver. That argument also applies to those who wish to travel intercity. Many people in Inverness wish to travel to meet their friends in Blackhall and no doubt partake in the 13, 18 or 38 routes once they get there. Unfortunately, their ability to do so may be put at risk by another aspect of regulation, which just fits into the text of the motion.
The excellent service operated in a joint venture by Megabus and Scottish Citylink has been taken to the Competition Commission, which has suggested that there should be a divestment and that the service should be split up. It has no support in that. I believe that the Scottish Executive has objected to the suggestion, and I have had no complaints from constituents about unduly high fares. I know that the service has been successful in attracting 41 per cent more passengers. I also know that it allows connectivity and access for marginalised communities to travel to Aberdeen and Dundee, for example, and to do so hourly from Aberdeen and half-hourly from Dundee to Edinburgh and Glasgow. That is all subject to the regulatory impact of the Competition Commission, referred to in Colin Fox's motion.
I believe that we and the Scottish Executive can make common cause on the issue. I have made lengthy representations to the commission, as a result of which the commission has announced that it plans to come to Scotland to meet me. I imagine that the minister has made his own representations.
At risk are excellent services. Another risk is that the huge number of extra bus passengers will return to driving on the A9. At risk is the investment that Stagecoach plans in new buses and services. Other risks are the reduction of services, the discouragement of innovation, an increase in costs and higher fares.
It is extremely strange that the Competition Commission saw fit to accept behavioural undertakings by First ScotRail when it was awarded the ScotRail franchise but to spurn and ignore the undertakings that Megabus and Citylink gave not to increase fares beyond a rate that is broadly in line with inflation. The bus companies said that they would not inflate the fares and gave undertakings, yet the Competition Commission ignored those undertakings, although it accepted them in a previous case.
I hope that I am not straying too widely from the topic. I have used the opportunity to put on record another consequence—unintended, I think—of regulation. The cost in legal expenses has been more than £1 million. What is happening in the Competition Commission? To be serious, to whom is the commission accountable? Transport is devolved, but competition is reserved. I make my speech in the hope that I will make common cause with the minister and that today, or in the next week or so, we might meet to consider how we can protect and preserve the success story that connects cities and allows people to travel to Edinburgh to take advantage of the local routes that Colin Fox identified in his motion.
I was just thinking about how I could work in the interisland ferry home to Bressay. After Mr Ewing's speech, it is clear that I would have no difficulty in doing that.
I will respond to the debate that Colin Fox has sponsored on the provision of local bus services. Members have, on the whole, reflected the importance of those services to communities in Edinburgh, with slight—or rather, considerable—deviation at the end. The debate has been informative. I suspect that the view of all members is that it is not the job of the Minister for Transport—God help the good people of Edinburgh—to set the bus timetable, so I will confine my remarks to some of the themes that have emerged.
Apart from a small dose of ideological purism from members throughout the chamber, several important points have been made about bus operators and the measures that they need to take to respond to communities' needs. We have published the national transport strategy and last month we published our action plan for buses in Scotland, which I saw Mr McLetchie reading carefully during the debate. Those documents made it clear that we regard bus services as vital. I welcome the opportunity to reinforce our message that the Scottish industry needs to redouble its efforts to ensure that local services are high quality and meet people's needs. Local authorities and regional transport partnerships support that work by providing bus priority measures, transport interchanges and effective ways to cut journey times.
As flexible, cost-effective and high-occupancy vehicles, buses promote and provide sustainable mass transport, reduce congestion and promote economic growth and social inclusion. I agree with what Colin Fox said about that. Buses achieve that by providing links that enable people to get to and from employment and to access shops, leisure facilities and public services.
Buses are the principal, most frequently used and most widely available mode of public transport. The public sector contributes to their financing and to bus and road infrastructure.
As several members said, Scotland has successful and innovative bus companies and has the headquarters of two major transportation companies that have interests not just throughout the UK, but throughout the world. That should be a sign of some success. Kenny MacAskill's assessment of Lothian Buses was fair. Other members mentioned the national awards that it has won—it has not just won Scottish awards—as a bus operator. The company is successful and I give due credit for that success.
Over Scotland as a whole, we have seen passenger numbers grow in recent years. Local bus services carried 477 million people in 2005-06, and passenger numbers have grown in six of the past seven years, giving an increase of 13 per cent over the figures for 1998-99. Under the current arrangements, the provision of local bus services is generally a matter for individual bus operators, which use commercial judgment on service routes and frequencies. The issue of commercial judgment has been raised by members of all parties this evening. Colin Fox clearly does not like that approach and calls for local authorities to be allowed to regulate bus routes and timetables. Mark Ballard also made that point. That option is already available to local authorities.
Let me deal with a point that David McLetchie made. Under a quality contract, a transport authority could determine what local services should be provided and could specify routes and the standard and quality of services and fares. I take the point that was made about the Local Government and Transport Committee's report of a year or so ago. There are many reasons why no transport authority has produced proposals for a quality contract. The procedure is inevitably complex, as it would involve controlling a market that is currently open to any operator. That complexity will be addressed as we implement the bus action plan. We have discussed the matter with the industry.
Where there are concerns about fares, frequencies and the level of services, the powers to address matters already exist. Fares and frequencies can be addressed through quality contracts, and councils can support routes with low patronage if they see them as socially necessary. We do not need full regulation to tackle such problems in the bus market; we need to use and refine the existing framework.
Colin Fox also demands free transport. It is fair to reflect on the cost of that and on the point that Mr MacAskill made about priorities. I had the figure of £500 million in mind, but I respect Colin Fox's figure of £1.3 billion. As Mr MacAskill said, there are choices to be made in local government and in national Government, and those moneys could not then be spent on schools, hospitals or tackling crime. Government is about determining priorities; I hope that Mr Fox will reflect on that.
We need a comprehensive bus network in which sustainable bus services are delivered to a high quality. Our bus action plan sets out to deliver on that vision. It identifies the fact that a step change is needed in the quality of bus services and the associated infrastructure if we are to meet the needs of current bus users and, importantly, if we are to attract more people out of their cars.
There are high-quality services in many parts of the country. However, to make buses more attractive we need better road layouts to get them through congested areas quickly and make the bus the vehicle that gets people where they want to go on time. If bus services are to meet people's needs and attract passengers from the car, action is required on three fronts. Transport planning must be more effective; the bus industry must develop, innovate and respond to local people's needs; and where buses or companies are failing, we need effective implementation of the regulatory regime. The 17 action points in the bus action plan are designed to achieve that change.
The national transport strategy sets three strategic outcomes: improvements in journey times and connections; reductions in emissions; and improvements in quality, accessibility and tackling affordability. Buses have huge potential to address each of those outcomes. The Government does not believe that all bus routes and timetables should be regulated by local authorities; we believe that no one size fits all and that different solutions apply in different places. That has been mentioned this evening.
I am confident that the actions that are set out in the bus action plan will improve the experience for bus passengers and that they are the starting point for a major drive on buses over the next few years.
Meeting closed at 17:54.