A75 (Improvements)
The final item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-02399, in the name of Elaine Murray, on improvements to the A75. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament notes with great concern the spate of recent accidents on the A75 Stranraer to Gretna trunk road, including two fatalities, and believes that urgent action is required to improve the safety of this road.
17:04
I thank the members who signed my motion, enabling it to be debated tonight. I also thank the 1,000-plus readers of the Dumfries and Galloway Standard who signed a petition urging the completion of the Hardgrove to Kinmount improvement scheme in the aftermath of the tragic death of three-week-old Oliver Hewson, who was killed in a three-vehicle crash on that stretch of the road in March.
I want to address two issues in my speech, the first of which is the need to complete the planned upgrade of the A75, and the second of which is the need to consider how drivers can be better alerted to the dangers of inappropriate driving, as the catalogue of fatal and serious accidents on the A75 is, sadly, replicated on many of Scotland’s trunk roads.
The A75 runs from Stranraer, in the west, to the junction with the M74/M6 at Gretna and forms part of the European Union’s trans-European road network. It is heavily used by both freight and private vehicles, and improvement has been demanded since the mid-1990s for reasons of safety and journey times. In March 2000, I lodged a motion urging the Labour-Liberal Democrat Scottish Executive to review the trunk road spending programme to include the upgrading of the A75. The motion was supported by both Alex Neil and Alex Fergusson, among others.
Since 1999, members have lodged 143 questions and motions involving the A75 at least in part, and constituency and regional members representing Dumfries and Galloway have set aside party differences to campaign for improvement. The 2000 to 2004 spending review included an increase in expenditure on transport of £500 million, and six improvement schemes along the length of the A75 were identified to be completed over a period of 10 years. Those were at Cairntop to Barlae, Newton Stewart, Barfil to Bettyknowes, Planting End to Drumflower, Dunragit, and Hardgrove to Kinmount. Those could not all progress at the same time without serious disruption to traffic, and the Hardgrove and Dunragit schemes were planned to commence after the other schemes had been completed.
Nearly 10 years ago, in November 2002, Lewis Macdonald, the transport minister at the time, advised that construction of the Hardgrove to Kinmount stretch was expected to commence in autumn 2006. Mr Macdonald also confirmed that the cost of the improvement schemes had been included in the Scottish budget settlement and that, subject to a satisfactory conclusion of the statutory procedures, the schemes would be able to proceed to construction. The proposed improvements scheme was reviewed in 2005, when it was recognised that there would be merit in considering modifications to the original scheme involving reconfiguration of the entire carriageway section, which would have favoured overtaking only in one direction. A new scheme involving an offline section to accommodate a wide single carriageway with three lanes was developed, which allowed a safer route for local traffic using the U81a to pass under the A75. It also involved fewer environmental constraints. Undoubtedly, the review and the production of an improved scheme delayed the project’s implementation.
In September 2006, I sought information regarding when the Hardgrove scheme might commence and was advised by Tavish Scott, who was the transport minister at the time, that the scheme was now expected to commence in quarter 4 of 2008-09 at an estimated cost of £8.42 million. Some nine months later, Stewart Stevenson advised me that the earliest possible start date was summer 2009 and that the cost was £10.2 million. The timescale slipped again, however, and the advice offered by Mr Stevenson in May 2010 was that the expected date of completion was 2010-11. No progress was made during 2010, and in January 2011 I was advised by Mr Brown, in answer to a written question, that “difficult choices” had to be made in light of the unprecedented £1.3 billion cut to the capital budget and that existing projects were being prioritised over new ones.
Given that the scheme had been included in the budget for 2003 to 2006 and that all the preparatory work was complete, it was far from being a new scheme and I do not believe that it should have been suspended. Moreover, in 2010, Mr Swinney announced that he had been implementing an accelerated programme of vital infrastructure projects over the past 18 months. He also announced that he had United Kingdom Treasury agreement that the £332 million cut in capital expenditure made by George Osborne shortly after the election of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat UK Government could be deferred until the following year. Unfortunately, the Hardgrove improvement scheme was not considered by the Scottish Government to be a vital infrastructure project.
I am aware that the Scottish Government has submitted a list of so-called shovel-ready projects to the UK Government that includes £10 million for the Hardgrove scheme. I was surprised, therefore, when Alex Neil answered a recent oral question from me on the project and stated that it would cost £15 million. Perhaps the minister can clarify where the additional funding would come from in the unfortunately unlikely event of Mr Osborne being converted to the cause of investing in economic growth. My constituents and I do not much care who provides the funds—whether it is the UK Government or whether the funds come through slippage or savings made on other projects. Tonight, we are asking for the minister’s assurance that construction of the Hardgrove to Kinmount scheme is a top priority and that construction will start soon.
If the minister does not care to listen to me, I ask him to listen to an e-mail that I received this morning from Ian Currie, Oliver Hewson’s grandfather. He says:
“May I wish you every good fortune in making the Scottish Government listen to our case for improvements and hopefully prevent any more families having to go through what we have suffered.”
Several constituents have pointed out to me that drivers often take risks, and that problem is exacerbated by driver frustration due to the lack of overtaking opportunities. All of us who drive frequently on the A75 observe drivers taking risks. Constituents have suggested a variety of ways in which to alert drivers to the number of accidents that have happened on dangerous sections of the road. For example, it has been suggested that there should be signs that show the number of serious accidents and fatalities that have occurred or signs to indicate that a fatal accident has occurred at that point.
I ask the minister to say when he sums up what consideration he has given or is giving to ways in which we can ensure that drivers are more aware of the need to drive cautiously on dangerous sections of the trunk road network. There are far too many fatal accidents and far too many lives are lost. We should take any action that we can take to alert people to the need to drive safely, because that is also important.
17:11
I congratulate Elaine Murray on securing the debate. I endorse her comments on the need for the A75 to be improved, which is why I congratulate the Government on bringing forward the £25.6 million Dungragit bypass on the A75. I also endorse her comments on the unacceptable loss of life. Loss of life is unacceptable on any part of the Scottish road network. It is quite right that, as well as upgrading the road, we should ensure that drivers are more aware of the importance of safe driving, as Elaine Murray suggests.
Elaine Murray acknowledged that the Scottish Government’s capital budget has been cut by 33 per cent by the United Kingdom Government at Westminster. I would hope that she and Labour would support the list of shovel-ready projects, including the Hardgrove to Kinmount section of the A75, that Mr Swinney submitted to the UK Government for funding in January. Although David Cameron, the Prime Minister, indicated that he was willing to take forward some of the spending when he met the First Minister in January, he has not been true to his word.
The Scottish National Party Scottish Government has a good record on improving the A75. In fact, we have a much better record than Labour had when it was in office. Figures that I have obtained from Transport Scotland show that Labour, in all its years in office in London and Scotland, when money was plentiful, only managed to complete one project on the road, and that was commissioned before the Scottish Parliament opened in 1999. It was the Glen section improvements, which opened in September 1999.
Over the past five years, the SNP Government has devoted £36.7 million to special projects alone, including the Dunragit bypass. The Government has already completed two major projects and it started the Dunragit bypass last month. In the 10 years that Labour spent in office here and at Westminster, it only managed to provide £5.9 million for one major project on the road. That is the one that I mentioned—the Glen section improvements. I do not think that that is a particularly good record.
Will the member take an intervention?
Before Elaine Murray intervenes, I would like to ask her exactly what pressure she put on the Labour Governments when they were in office, and indeed when she was a minister. The Hardgrove to Kinmount improvements were first identified as necessary as long ago as 1997, in a route action plan study.
Does the member accept that a lot of money was spent on the process of bringing the schemes to completion? Much of that work was done by the Labour and Liberal Executives. Although the schemes may have been completed after 2007, they were started prior to that.
I tend to judge by actions rather than by words. The fact is that, in 10 years, the Labour Government only managed to spend £5.9 million on one project to upgrade the road. It was the SNP that completed the preparatory work for the Hardgrove section to be upgraded. We certainly got it to that stage by 2009, bar a few technicalities. Elaine Murray asked why the work did not go ahead; it is no coincidence that 2009 was the year in which the Labour chancellor in London, Alistair Darling, in effect cut Scotland’s budget by £500 million.
We need to look creatively at how we can take forward vital projects such as the Hardgrove to Kinmount A75 upgrade. I tend to take a different tack from that taken by Dr Murray. We can complain or we can try to do something and make progress. That is why I wrote to David Cameron to point out that the upgrade is a vital infrastructure project, which is on the Scottish Government’s list of shovel-ready projects and is as much deserving of funding as are projects such as the upgrade of London sewers, which the UK Government has funded.
At a time of swingeing budget cuts from London, the SNP Government knows that we must act creatively and collaboratively if we are to achieve what we want. I intend to continue to lobby all parties, including the London Government, the Scottish Government and the local authority, to bring forward the project and make south-west Scotland a better place.
17:16
I congratulate Elaine Murray on bringing the debate to the Parliament and for maintaining interest in the issue for such a long time, in the face of a series of hurdles.
I will talk about my experience of driving the A75 as I cover the South Scotland region on behalf of constituents. The road is part of designated European route 18, so we would expect it to be fit for purpose. My experience is that it is not fit for purpose, given the carriageway configuration, the traffic volumes, the speeds that are attained by vehicles, and the traffic mix that uses the road every day.
The road is used by drivers of agricultural and heavy goods vehicles, overseas visitors who are strangers to our country and our culture, tourists from across the United Kingdom, cyclists and locals, who are perhaps lulled into confidence by their familiarity with the road, all of whom end up facing a range of challenges that make it more likely that there will be confusion and road traffic accidents. We can add to that mix the discipline of the ferry timetable, which creates additional pressure for some drivers who use the designated Euro route, which is maintained not by Dumfries and Galloway Council but by Amey Highways.
There is evidence that road redesign and maintenance can reduce road traffic accidents. The upgrade of the A75 between Gretna and Dumfries halved road traffic accidents and was considered to be highly successful in making the road safer for people to use. It is therefore difficult to comprehend the Government’s decision to abandon further upgrades and a shovel-ready project between Hardgrove and Kinmount.
The upgrade would cost £10.2 million. Only today, we heard from the Auditor General for Scotland that more than £20 million was lost to the public services through fraud. There is an ability to identify cash when a critical project needs support.
It is unfortunate that Joan McAlpine has gone through the history and politics of the matter. The people who use the A75 are concerned for their relatives, their friends and other users of the road, and they are concerned about the misery and death that have been caused by the use of the road.
No road is dangerous; it is the way in which people use a road that makes it dangerous. It is within our gift to try to design roads to ensure that only the most reckless face the risk of a fatal accident.
It is important that improvements to the A75, which is a significant trans-Scotland route, are made. Members should not take just my word for it; they should listen to the words of a 15-year-old boy who e-mailed me at the beginning of April, not knowing that the debate would take place. He wrote:
“The road is literally falling in on itself. It does not take a genius to work out that the foundations of the road are giving way, causing holes in the road, not just holes in the surface.”
Given that a 15-year-old felt so moved as to e-mail me on the issue, I hope that the minister will try to find a means of prioritising the fixing of this dangerous road.
17:20
I congratulate Dr Murray on securing the debate on a subject that concerns many of our constituents who live in Dumfries and Galloway.
I also recognise that the debate is taking place in the long shadow of recent tragedies on the A75 and extend my deepest sympathy to all those affected by those events.
It is important that we understand from the outset that the Scottish Government is committed to delivering on its promise to upgrade the 3.6km section of the A75 between Carrutherstown and Kinmount—the so-called Hardgrove to Kinmount improvement. No SNP member of this Parliament with responsibility for representing constituents in the south of Scotland, and no minister in the Scottish Government, is under any illusion that the improvement is needed as a matter of urgency.
As soon as funds are available, this Government will commence that work. As Dr Murray knows, it is one of the shovel-ready projects that the Scottish Government is urging the Westminster Government to provide funding for but, as my colleague Joan McAlpine highlighted, that request regrettably continues to fall on the deaf ears of the Conservative-Liberal coalition Government.
It is, of course, appropriate that we are addressing the subject with a renewed sense of urgency. However, it is worth noting that, as long ago as 2002, during the first mandate of this Parliament, my predecessor as SNP member for the South of Scotland, Alasdair Morgan, first began to lobby the then Labour-Liberal Executive to fund improvements to the A75, especially the Dunragit bypass in the west and this particular section of the A75 in the east.
Will the member take an intervention?
I would like to make progress.
On 19 November 2002, Mr Morgan was assured in a ministerial answer by Lewis Macdonald—as Elaine Murray pointed out—that work on both the Dunragit bypass and the Hardgrove to Kinmount realignment would commence in the autumn of 2006. As we know, neither promise was kept.
In September 2006, Dr Murray herself asked the then Scottish Executive, not unreasonably, what was happening with the proposed upgrades and would, I am sure, have been less than happy with Tavish Scott—who was then the transport minister—when he responded that the earliest start date for both projects would be the fourth quarter of the financial year 2008-09.
In May 2006 my colleague Maureen Watt elicited from the minister the frankly astonishing statistic that, between 2001 and the end of financial year 2004-05, less than £0.25 million had been spent on improvements to the A75. In the following financial year, the sum spent was even lower, at an estimated £200,000. That was at a time when the Scottish Executive budget was expanding dramatically. Although it offers no comfort to those affected by the recent tragedies, one cannot help but comment that it is a great pity that only now is the issue being addressed by the SNP Government with the urgency that it deserves.
Of the two delayed A75 schemes in question, there is now a firm commitment and timetable for the Dunragit bypass. The transport minister said that both schemes would proceed at the earliest opportunity and, as far as the Dunragit bypass is concerned, the Government has been as good as its word.
As Elaine Murray acknowledged, that scheme, plus the investment of millions of pounds in the A75 over the past five years, have happened at a time when our capital budget has been drastically reduced by 32 per cent.
I do not regard the record of the SNP Government over the past five years, when significant funding has been made available for improvements to the A75, as being the end of the story and, self-evidently, neither does the Scottish Government. It is understandable that there are, for example, calls for bypasses around the communities of Springholm and Crocketford.
In stressing the consequences for the Hardgrove to Kinmount improvement of the cuts in the Scottish Government’s capital budget, I am not offering excuses for inaction but am trying to provide reasons and answers to my constituents as to why the project—and similar projects elsewhere—have had to be postponed. As soon as funds become available, the Scottish Government will honour its commitments to the people of Dumfriesshire and implement these road improvements.
None of my remarks can hope to provide comfort to the families of those who have lost loved ones in the tragic accidents along this stretch of the A75. However, I can say categorically that the Scottish Government will implement the needed improvements to the stretch of the A75 between Hardgrove and Kinmount as soon as it is financially possible to do so.
17:24
Members might be surprised and might think that the wrong Alex has turned up tonight. Unfortunately, my colleague Alex Fergusson has had to return to his constituency on business, so he has asked me to say a few words on his behalf.
Scotland’s road network is financially demanding and it is ironic that, as the economy grows, the network will always require additional investment. That is why the Conservative Government in the 1980s and 1990s invested heavily in our road network. It is a surprise that the Labour Party has introduced the debate, against the backdrop that the Labour Government from 1997 deliberately diverted resource from our road network to other priorities. That is why we went through a period of a lack of development in Scotland’s roads—a hiatus after which we have still not caught up.
The priorities for the A75 are obvious. The improved economy in Ulster has increased the amount of traffic that crosses the Irish Sea. The concentration of ports at Cairnryan means that facilities there can now handle larger amounts of traffic. The consequence is that convoys of trucks on the A75 are holding up local traffic, causing difficulties at many junctions and—sadly—causing many fatal accidents, as we have heard. It is therefore vital that we are ready to deal with those problems when the opportunity comes along.
It is important to target available resources as they come along on areas that have both economic arguments and safety arguments for developing roads. That must be clearly understood across Scotland. I am sure that we will return to that on many occasions as we talk about road developments.
We have all now become used to the concept of the shovel-ready project. The Government has made clear the need for additional resources to achieve such objectives and all of us in the Parliament understand that. However, since the change of Government at Westminster, additional resource to that which the previous Government intended to provide has already been made available to the Scottish Government. It would be interesting to know how that limited additional resource has been prioritised.
The Minister for Housing and Transport (Keith Brown) rose—
I will just complete my speech; I am not going to say much more.
It is vital to discuss now and in the future how priorities will be set so that, as we all work together to ensure that additional resources are made available whenever possible, we know where resources will be targeted and how the priorities will lie. It is too easy for the Government simply to say what its priorities are and allow us all over the country to believe that we are first on the list. We need to know the order of priorities more accurately so that, when resource becomes available, we can move forward and work together to ensure that serious problems, such as those on the A75 that have been described, are dealt with at the earliest possible opportunity. We hope and pray that no further lives will be lost before we achieve that objective.
17:28
I, too, congratulate Elaine Murray on securing the debate and bringing the issue before the Parliament. We can all agree that it is long overdue to be dealt with. I note that the motion gained support from all four main parties, including the SNP. It is good to see cross-party support.
As a member for South Scotland, I am—like others—keenly aware of how big an issue the A75 has become for our constituents. Too many tragic accidents have occurred on the road in the past few years, often within just days of each other. Transport Scotland’s figures reveal that 209 accidents took place on the A75 between 2008 and 2011 alone. Of those, 55 were serious and—unfortunately—15 were fatal. I accept that the comparison is not exact, but those figures are significantly more serious in every regard than those for the neighbouring A76.
One of the more tedious phrases to have entered political discourse of late—it has been used often in tonight’s debate—is “shovel ready”. Quite how long a Scottish Government project can be shovel ready before ground is broken is anyone’s guess, but the Hardgrove to Kinmount project is shovel ready and has been since the then Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change announced the publication of draft statutory orders in June 2008.
At the time, the minister described the Hardgrove to Kinmount project, along with the Dunragit bypass, as a “multi-million pound investment” that
“will greatly improve traffic flow and connections”.
Crucially, the minister also said:
“These schemes ... will make the A75 a safer route”.
Thankfully, four years later, there is some movement on the Dunragit bypass, but there has been little movement on the Hardgrove to Kinmount project.
Will the member take an intervention?
Will the member take an intervention?
Sorry—I do not have much time.
Given the quotes that I have just read out, I find it curious that the Scottish Government claims that the Westminster Government needs to stump up the cash for the project to progress. The transport minister said clearly in 2008—a whole two years before the coalition Government—that the Scottish Government was investing in those projects.
I do not think that the Scottish Government is fooling anyone with that. Any delay is down not to Westminster cuts but to the fluctuating priorities of this Government. Perhaps the minister could clarify in summing up where that investment has gone in the preceding four years.
The only mention of the A75 in last year’s infrastructure and investment plan was in the section on Government backslapping, in which the Government congratulated itself on improvements to the A77 and the A75. I and my constituents regret that the vital Hardgrove to Kinmount project did not appear to survive.
Members from all parties agree that much more must be done to make this economically important corridor across south-west Scotland safer. The figures that I highlighted earlier are sobering, and the Dumfries and Galloway Standard has reported that the narrow 2.2-mile section of trunk road from Hardgrove to Kinmount has witnessed 80 accidents in just 20 years.
I have written to the minister and submitted parliamentary questions, and I have raised the A75 issue in meetings with him, for which I am grateful. I know that my colleagues on all sides of the chamber have done so too. The issue is far too important to the people of Dumfries and Galloway to be kicked into the long grass, but they are, understandably, feeling ignored and let down.
The best way to conclude my speech is simply to echo the words of the excellent campaign by the Dumfries and Galloway Standard: it is time to bring years of inaction to end and it is time for the talking to stop.
I ask the minister whether he would be willing to meet members from all parties who are interested in this matter on site in the not-so-distant future.
17:32
I thank Elaine Murray for giving us the opportunity to discuss road safety in general, and in particular the A75. As other members have done, I pass on my deepest and genuine sympathies to the families and friends of all those who have been killed or seriously injured on our road network. Police investigations into the accident on the A75 are on-going, so it would be inappropriate for me to comment further on those. We should also take time to remember all the personnel who are involved in dealing with such emergencies and accidents. They are often overlooked, and they do an extremely difficult job.
It is worth pointing out—notwithstanding what I have just said about the accidents that have taken place—that Scotland currently has its lowest figures for road casualties since records began. It would have been good to have had that mentioned in members’ comments on road safety, because it has been the result of a huge amount of work by people not only in the current Administration, but in previous Administrations, and by people who—as I said—do very difficult jobs.
The Scottish Government is committed to further improving safety. Our aim to reduce casualties is reflected in our road safety strategy, and the most recent statistics, from 2010, show that there has been tremendous progress in reducing injuries across the road network. That said, one death is, of course, one too many and the Government is determined to continue to do all that it can to reduce road casualties still further.
We have spent more than £2 billion on roads since 2007. Alex Johnstone was right to say that there was a hiatus before that, and it is not possible to make that ground up quickly. We should bear it in mind, given some of the comments from Labour and Liberal Democrat members, that—as Joan McAlpine pointed out—that hiatus took place at a time of abundant public resources. We are now having to deal with the exact reverse of that.
We have invested more than £935 million in the south-west of Scotland alone on improvements and maintenance.
Will the minister take an intervention?
No, I will not. Jim Hume did not take one from me, which is becoming a feature of his speeches.
More than £27 million has been spent since 2007 on maintaining and improving the A75. We recognise that it is—as Elaine Murray and Graeme Pearson pointed out—a key strategic route for the people of Dumfries and Galloway, and a key link to our ports.
The Government is committed to investment in the road network and that commitment is unwavering. My response to the points that have been made about road safety is that the A75 safety group is due to meet in July. That multi-agency group is made up of key stakeholders from the police, local authorities, Amey, the fire service and the safety camera partnership. That group is committed to improving the safety of the road. I am perfectly willing and keen to raise the issues from this debate at that meeting and also to consider some of the signing suggestions that were made by Elaine Murray.
Over this year we have spent £650 million to try to ensure that our road network remains safe, efficient and effective. In 2012-13, £3 million has been allocated to the Scottish budget for the road safety framework delivery and road safety Scotland activities. We are committed, as Joan McAlpine and Aileen McLeod said, to building the £25.6 million Dunragit bypass, which—like the Hardgrove to Kinmount link—was not done previously, despite the length of time that was available in which to do it. We are having to pick up that slack now. The Hardgrove to Kinmount scheme is shovel ready, which means that when we have the money to get the shovels and go into the ground, we will do that.
Again, as has been pointed out, we made that pitch to the United Kingdom Government. It was not done just because we want more money—although it was probably our money in the first place—but because we had a £1.3 billion cut that comprised £500 million in terms of capital and £800 million in terms of revenue. That was before our capital budgets for the next three years were cut by a third.
It is not possible to wish away those facts and say that we should be doing all the things that were not done before, at the same time as saying that we must cut our budgets. I assume that Jim Hume and Alex Johnstone support the budget cut. We cannot do the same amount of work after such a cut, so they must choose what their priorities are, rather than always asking us to cope with the consequences of their cuts. The First Minister, as was mentioned, wrote to the Prime Minister recently to seek funding for that and a number of other schemes from the Westminster Government. That request was turned down.
There has been some talk of cross-party collaboration. That was how Elaine Murray started her speech, but then it became what Graeme Pearson accused Joan McAlpine of giving—a particular history and a particular set of politics in respect of how that was interpreted over the years when there was a Labour and Liberal Democrat Administration.
Our request for additional funding was turned down. We will seek to do what we can. As Joan McAlpine said, it is much better to look for ways to work together to try to achieve something. That is what we have sought to do over a number of years rather than making simple complaints and accusations. Accusations such as those that were made by Jim Hume are made in the full knowledge that he and his party are responsible for the cuts to our budget.
I welcomed the recent opportunity to write to the Dumfries and Galloway Standard. I recommend it—as other members have done—on its campaign to improve the A75, which is an example of local democracy in action and of pressure being brought to bear. I could not have been clearer in the article that the SNP Government will upgrade the road if the UK Government gives us that funding. We have to find the funding from somewhere. There can be no one who is involved in this debate—including me—who does not want the project to go ahead. I would love to be—I intend to be—the transport minister who eventually says that the road will be built. I want to do it and I cannot imagine that the Opposition parties could come up with any reason why I would not want to do that. Of course we want to do that—not least because we believe that such projects also create jobs. They are good for the economic wellbeing of the country as well as leading to improvements in safety and infrastructure.
Irrespective of the road, one death on our network is too many, especially for the families of those involved. However, we should recognise the substantial improvement that we have made in relation to road safety—we now have the lowest statistics on record, despite increasing car usage. I am determined to do whatever I can to contribute to prevention of loss of life on our roads, whatever the cause.
The Government also recently committed to lowering the amount of alcohol that drivers can consume before driving. That shows the action that we can take as a result of the Scotland Act 2012—we now have the powers to do that.
Elaine Murray may know that a substantial amount of action was taken by the police following the accidents to which she referred in order to try to reduce further the accident rate on the road and to make it safer. The police have said that that will continue and that they will keep an eye on the situation.
On the lower limit on alcohol, on 18 December 2008, the Parliament voted clearly in favour of a reduction in the drink-drive limit. I would like to think that the Parliament stands united in taking that forward. It will result in further safety improvements on our roads. I confirm that we will soon prepare a consultation paper as the next stage in implementation of that change.
The Government is committed to working with its partners to ensure a co-ordinated approach to road safety. I believe that any objective assessment of what we have done in relation to the A75—Joan McAlpine gave us some interesting figures on that—stands comparison with the record of any previous Administration. As the minister who is responsible for safety on Scotland’s roads, as a road user and as a father of three children, I am determined to do all that I can to prevent such tragedies. It is up to us, individually, to do all that we can to improve safety, but there is obviously an expectation on Government in that regard. I think that our record shows that we have tried to do that.
I have taken on board a number of the points that have been made. I am happy to engage in further multiparty discussions on the matter. I am sure that if we work together to find an innovative approach, we can get the right solution.
Meeting closed at 17:40.