It should not have to be spelled out that violence against women and girls is not acceptable. We should tackle that issue at every opportunity and in every setting, not just on buses. It should not be considered only in the context of whether folk get a bus pass. The challenge that we face in tackling violence against women and girls is far broader than that.

The code is laid out in broad terms in order to allow judgment to be exercised as to whether a pass should be removed. As we discussed with the convener, a determination will be made after the process has been gone through. In making that judgment, Transport Scotland will ask the person who has been reported what they believe the situation was. The decision will be made by Transport Scotland.

As far as abusive, threatening or indecent language is concerned, that will be a judgment for Transport Scotland to make, because that is an operational issue.

No, it would not. It is about what happens during the travel.

Yes.

Correct.

You are talking about two different things. Is there zero tolerance of violence? Absolutely—of course there is and, in particular, there is zero tolerance of violence against women and girls. I would not be vague about that.

I see where you are coming from. I think that you are trying to use the ability to remove the bus pass as a cure for antisocial behaviour across society—but it is not. The order is about protecting people who are travelling on the buses. When they are travelling on the buses, if people are carrying out antisocial behaviour, a sanction can be placed on them and that should be used as a deterrent. I hope that very few people, if any, will have their passes removed from them, because the threat of the deterrent should be enough to make them behave in a way that is appropriate.

A letter was received from the following representatives of bus companies: Sarah Boyd from Lothian Group; Duncan Cameron from First Bus Scotland; Colin Craig from West Coast Motors; Fiona Docherty from Stagecoach Ltd; Alistair Todd from Todd’s Travel; Simone Walsh from Scottish Citylink; Sandra Whitelaw from Whitelaws; and Tony Williamson from McGill’s. It said:

“There have been queries as to why a national approach to this is required, rather than it being dealt with locally through our own Conditions of Carriage. We believe that as the Concessions Schemes are National Entitlements (rather than determined at the local level) they should be accompanied by a national standard of conduct and potential sanction.”

The bus companies are asking the Parliament and the Government to do this for them, but that does not remove their ability to use their conditions of carriage.

There are a number of different points in there, so you will have to forgive me if I forget some of them. You will have to come back and remind me of the issues that you have raised.

The removal of a pass will not solve all antisocial behaviour. You are absolutely right that there will be people over the age of 22 and under the age of 60 who commit antisocial behaviour, and those people will be dealt with through the conditions of carriage of the relevant bus company.

Should we have national conditions of carriage? You might be able to do that if you had a national bus company, but we do not. We have individual private companies that have their own conditions of carriage. The concessionary travel scheme is a national scheme that is delivered by the Government through Transport Scotland, so the bus companies are asking for a national approach and conditions of carriage for the scheme itself. That is what they have asked us for.

On how we change behaviour, we are dealing with a wide range of measures. Siobhian Brown has been carrying out work on antisocial behaviour. We will be engaging with education facilities to ensure that young people understand the conditions of the scheme, as well as with older and disabled people, so that they also understand the conditions of the scheme. They will be given that information when they are given their passes.

We have engaged very widely, including with the Scottish Youth Parliament. We did not engage directly with the Young Scot card administrators before we announced that the order was being laid, but there has been a lot of engagement with young people themselves. The Scottish Youth Parliament asked for direct correspondence and engagement with Carole Stewart and her colleague. Carole sat down with the Scottish Youth Parliament to discuss what it meant for those young people.

Some of the SYP members’ concerns were about how they felt on buses. We know that there is a wider societal issue of antisocial behaviour, and the removal of a bus pass will not solve all of that, but the SSI will allow us to have in place a deterrent, which has been asked for by the bus companies, by transport users and by the Parliament. That is what we are delivering.

Yes.

I was merely going to ask whether the member accepts that this is an opportunity to put a deterrent in place for antisocial behaviour. However, he has made his position clear, so that is probably a moot point.

Again, messaging goes beyond what the scheme is trying to do. The antisocial behaviour—