Chamber and committees

I will give way in a moment if Mr Doris will allow me to make a little more progress.

The Parliament unanimously backed the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017, which set legally binding targets to reduce the number of children experiencing the effects of poverty by 2030. In the past decade, however, 40,000 more children in Scotland have been pushed into poverty. Thirty-nine per cent of children from an ethnic minority household now live in relative poverty, and the percentage of babies in poverty has gone from 27 to 34 per cent. Mr Doris’s party has been in government, so I will give way to him if he has something to say in that regard.

I opened by talking about rural issues, particularly rural transport. For many rural communities, accessing transport that takes you to work or opportunities for various levels of education or sport is a huge issue. I am keen to discuss the potential of digital demand responsive transport. Although it has been highlighted that it should not be a replacement for wider services, it has had a role to play—for example, people will remember that dial-a-bus services were a feature of our transport network for some time. Can you comment on the potential of such transport to support people, particularly in rural communities, who need extra help to get to the various places that I have mentioned?

I just want to expand on the theme that colleagues have been interrogating.

The 2019 act gives local authorities the provision to run services. We have already had some discussion on that, and I appreciate Paul White’s comment about municipality not necessarily being a panacea. We know that local bus services in Scotland have dropped 38 per cent since 2007, and thousands of routes have been lost. Often those routes connect communities to other services such as rail services, but they also help people in rural communities get to and access work.

We have had a four-year delay in the secondary legislation to enable local authorities to explore and take forward much of this work. In your view, what impact has that delay had? Perhaps I can come to Paul White first of all.

The interesting thing about that is that you have to have access to the technology. Do you see those two things as sitting quite close together? We need to deal with the digital exclusion part as well as making the services available to people.

Mick Hogg, how does digital use affect the rail network and people’s ability to access new services? Is there a concern about people with additional support needs, who may rely on digital but also need human staff there to support them? Do we need to look at both those things?

On the question of how we might sustainably support services to offer additionality in the core services in bus, rail et cetera, Paul Finch mentioned community transport, and a lot of community transport organisations do an excellent job on additionality but struggle with the sustainability of funding. Do these digital demand responsive services and community services need to become much more involved in mainstream funding instead of just being pilot innovations that do not command confidence?

You would acknowledge that a drop of 400 routes is a serious issue for communities across Scotland.

Paul Finch, do you want to comment?

If no one else wants to comment on that, I will go on to digital demand responsive transport.

I am very grateful to the committee for hearing me this morning. I am convener of the Parliament’s cross-party group on changing places toilets, which was newly established this session, so I have had an opportunity to hear from a number of stakeholders who are interested in the provision of changing places toilets across the country.

I am sure that colleagues will be aware of the great benefits that such facilities bring to communities across Scotland. As well as being fundamentally the right thing to do, the putting in place of such a facility benefits the whole community. Where such facilities are not in place, many families feel that they cannot be spontaneous and cannot enjoy the same access to tourism and leisure activities that others do. Therefore, the provision of changing places toilets benefits the wider economy.

The convener might be aware of the changing places facility in Rouken Glen park in his constituency, which opened only recently. It has increased the number of visits, particularly by families who have disabled children, which shows the impact that the provision of such a facility can have.

In speaking to the petition, I must note the challenge that is faced. A party-political pledge was made in the SNP’s manifesto; it was also a feature of the 2021-22 programme for government that a £10 million fund would be rolled out. Evidently, that has not yet happened. I appreciate what the minister has said about financial constraints and challenges, but I believe that the Government is still committed to rolling out that funding by the end of the parliamentary session. I think that what people want is detail from the Government about its intentions for the fund, how applications might be made to it and what structure the process might take. That would go some way towards making people feel confident that the fund will be put in place.

The petitioner runs a business and is keen, as a business owner, to make a contribution, which she wants to be supplemented by capital funding for the wider community. There are many third sector organisations and people who run their own businesses who are interested in putting in some of their own funds in order to make a changing places toilet a reality, but who require additional funding from the Government.

There is a huge opportunity here. People are concerned that, as we approach the midway point of the parliamentary session, progress does not seem to have been made. Progress has been made in other parts of the UK—a £30 million fund has been distributed in England and is entering its second phase—so Scotland is falling behind in the availability of changing places toilets. That brings us back to the economic argument. People might choose to holiday in other places where there is greater provision.

I simply wish to represent the views of the members of the CPG and ask the committee to give the petition serious consideration and to look, at least, at how such provision might be structured.