Chamber and committees

Thank you very much, convener. I also thank the committee very much for inviting me to discuss the draft order.

As the committee is aware, free bus travel has been a truly transformative policy, helping to reduce child poverty, grow the economy and tackle the climate emergency. In December of last year alone, more than 15 million journeys were undertaken by those eligible for free bus travel, and the vast majority of those journeys were undertaken by individuals who exercised their entitlement to free bus travel responsibly.

Unfortunately, a small minority do not travel responsibly, and their behaviour, whether it be abuse towards drivers, intimidation of passengers or vandalism, is unacceptable, making others feel unsafe and eroding confidence in public transport. This new piece of legislation will allow concessionary travel to be suspended for or withdrawn from anyone who breaches the forthcoming code of conduct. The code will set out appropriate behaviour for those who travel on the bus network using their entitlement to free bus travel, and it, and the accompanying procedures, will apply to all users of the national concessionary travel schemes, regardless of age.

We are taking a phased approach to implementation. This will not be an overnight change, but it is an important step forward. The legislation sets out the framework and, once put in place, it will send a clear message that antisocial behaviour will not be tolerated.

For this change to our free bus travel schemes to be successful, on-going and open engagement with stakeholders in the policy development process is essential. I am grateful to the many organisations that have been working, and which continue to work, with officials to ensure that the implementation of the new legislation will result in an effective and equitable process. Detailed reporting and suspension procedures, as well as the code itself, will be shared with the committee in due course.

The order is one of a range of measures that we are introducing to set out our expectations with regard to safe and responsible behaviour on Scotland’s public transport network. We are developing a multifaceted approach to encourage positive behaviour on the bus network, including by developing educational materials, outlining responsible behaviour on buses and exploring additional visible safety measures, such as the potential for travel safety officers. They will provide a multipronged approach to ensure the safety of drivers and passengers on buses.

The initiatives complement the Scottish Government’s wider approach to tackling antisocial behaviour, which includes the prevention and early intervention approaches taken in the violence prevention framework and the cashback for communities programme, as well as the package of measures that we are putting in place to ensure responsible behaviour on Scotland’s rail network. Our aim in introducing the legislation is to protect a benefit that helps tackle poverty. By making buses safer and more welcoming, we will ensure that those who rely on free travel can use them with confidence.

I commend the order to the committee, and I am happy to take questions on it.

Is that in the code at this point, Carole?

I apologise to the committee that I did not allow officials to give you a copy of the draft code at this stage. I also apologise to the officials, because they have done a hell of a lot of the work on this, but I was not comfortable with it being shared at this stage in its draft form, because I wanted to make sure that we had done everything. I apologise to the committee that I have not done that. We could sit here for as long as you need to look at specific examples—Carole Stewart will be able to answer questions on those.

I am disappointed that you are talking about the measure being headline grabbing. Its purpose was certainly not to be headline grabbing. Its purpose was to respond to the calls from large numbers of people for the bus operators to have the ability to remove a bus pass, or at least to give the information to Transport Scotland to enable it to remove a bus pass.

Will it solve the problem on its own? Absolutely not. It is a societal problem, and we have had discussions on it in the committee and in the chamber before. The order will not be a panacea or a silver bullet; a range of other work is on-going. As I said in my opening statement, we have the violence prevention framework and the cashback for communities programme, and work is on-going to try to ensure people’s safety when they are travelling on public transport of any kind in a number of areas. Ms Brown has taken forward work on youth behaviour and antisocial behaviour.

There is a range of work, but this measure is one tool in the box that is available. If people are entitled to free carriage, that can be withdrawn from them if they continue to cause incidents of extreme antisocial behaviour or persistent antisocial behaviour. It is not the silver bullet—it was never intended to be—but it is certainly something to consider.

Again, I apologise to members for not giving the committee a copy of the draft code of conduct.

I will ask Carole Stewart to pick up that point.

In legislation, under the current code, what would that be?

As we currently sit here, I do not know the answer. We will go away and look at that.

The reason I am uncomfortable with presenting the code at this stage is exactly because I do not know whether we have the detail on those kinds of questions. However, I am happy to take away as many questions as the committee wants to ask us; that way, when we present the code to the committee, those answers will be there.

Again, we are still working that bit out. We cannot bring in the lifting of the entitlement at this stage because there is still a lot of work to do on the details. The principle of card removal is one thing that we have tried to get done in order to give the clear signal that, although the use of a card is an entitlement and a right, it is one that can be removed if people engage in antisocial behaviour.

We are still working through the details of what the code will include. The stuff that we are hearing this morning is incredibly valuable, because my officials and I will use it as the code is developed fully. Questions of the kind that you have just asked are still being worked on as we speak.

We can also share the current code as drafted for comments from the committee. If the committee comes back with comments and suggestions, we will be more than happy to look at them.

That is why there is on-going work to ensure that we get this right.