Chamber and committees

Those are big and major strategic projects. Strathclyde Partnership for Transport is leading on putting together what is required for a business case for the Glasgow metro scheme. You will know from your experience on the committee that business cases have to be presented if there is an approach for national funding and so on.

On developments with Aberdeen rapid transit, Aberdeen has led in many ways in terms of using bus. I am less familiar with the third project relating to the south of Scotland—it has not come to me, given the stage that it is at. The business cases will need to come to us when it gets to the point of looking for national funding. In fact, all those projects are still some distance away. Local authorities will identify what funding they have to bring, and, given that the projects are longer term, what financial mechanisms they might want to deploy, using their borrowing and other powers, to help to finance the roll-out. Consideration of that aspect is really important. A lot of advisory work goes on in that regard, with Transport Scotland providing that advice.

There is also a lot of planning work. Indeed, the other day, I had a debrief from people who are involved with the national census, who told me about the statistics and information that they have at a micro level, which are helping to inform the plans for the Glasgow metro.

The partnerships are not accountable to me. We have set out the plans, the projects and the priorities in relation to where we will provide support, but it is important to note that there is not a command-and-control aspect regarding the projects.

You also asked about the 20mph speed limit. All the local authorities have set out how they will do that. It has already been rolled out in many areas; in many other areas, the roll-out is a wee bit slower. I will dare to say that my local area of West Lothian is perhaps slower than other areas.

What is really important, though—and we know this from the history of moving to the 20mph speed limit in different parts of the United Kingdom—is that there is a strong consensus on doing this at the local level and on a cross-party basis. I am confident that it will be rolled out—and rolled out effectively—by the end of the year in every single local authority. I cannot take responsibility for every single one of those local authorities, but the vast majority are well on their way to delivery.

At the last road safety partnership group meeting, which I chaired just a few weeks back, that was one of the areas that our colleagues in COSLA and another member of the group, Colin, spoke about—I am trying to remember his second name, but I will check with our colleagues who work with local leads on road traffic management and update you on that.

I do not want to say that some local authorities do not take road safety seriously, because I think that all local authorities take it seriously, but I think that some local authorities are more organised in how they are managing it and it has a higher profile in terms of how it is viewed within some local authorities.

Another area that the people from road policing are quite keen on is making sure that road safety is seen within the context of community planning partnerships; perhaps, in some areas, it has a higher profile and importance. What is really interesting about the reports from COSLA is that, when its relevant committees have engaged on road safety, there is a great deal of enthusiasm from the local councillors who sit on those committees. I think that there is a real appetite to drive this forward, but you are right about the best practice point.

I am not in a position to say what that best practice is, but collaborative work is one of the things that our SCOTS leads, our local authority leads and our COSLA leads want to do in a supportive environment.

That is not to say that people are not doing the things that they can do. Sometimes it is about the resource and the tension that is put on that, but there is a great keenness to use the funding that we are providing nationally to help them.

Interestingly, we recently appointed someone from Public Health Scotland to be part of the road safety partnership, as road safety is also a public health issue. People often see road safety in terms of construction on the roads, but it is actually about how people behave and how traffic is managed to make a difference. Your points are well made, and I will feed them back to the road safety partnership.

The legislation on LEZs and what the money can be used for is very tight in that it is specifically for air quality and the enhancement of specific areas. That is governed by law, so the money cannot be used for anything at the council’s choice and whim, as some people think. Let us put that one to bed.

Some local authorities, including my own, do not even have powers to reinvest penalty charges into roads. There are different experiences in different parts of the country. There is no magic bullet for road safety, but the point is that everybody can contribute something.

We are also pursuing road policing. There is an important, constructive and challenging report into road policing from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland. The police are changing what they are doing and that will become obvious when that report is published.

The reason why it is important is that local authorities often say that local road policing is not as it has been and they have criticisms of it, which gives them an excuse not to do anything. We are trying to get everybody to do more, and if that happens, we will start to have more of an impact on our roads.

I am actively considering what that will look like. I am not in a position to tell the committee just now, but it will be set out in the climate change plan.

Car use in Scotland is currently contributing significantly to carbon emissions, and that must change. In 2022, car use accounted for 39 per cent of all transport emissions in Scotland, and for 12.4 per cent of total Scottish emissions. However, Scotland is a rural and sparsely populated country, so we will always need vehicles—including cars—to enable people, goods and services to get around, to and from Scotland and beyond. Therein lies our challenge but also an opportunity for safer, fairer and healthier communities.

We need to encourage more people out of their cars, to use public transport where they can and to switch to zero-emission vehicles. That requires investment that also benefits those without access to a car, not least so that people see the alternatives to car travel as affordable and sustainable.

The Scottish Government remains committed to reducing car use, and we are working with COSLA and the regional transport partnerships to take forward recommendations from Audit Scotland’s report. National Government cannot do that alone and, later this spring, we will publish a renewed policy statement with COSLA on car use reduction. The evidence shows that reducing car use also means reducing demand. Local authorities have powers in areas such as parking and planning to develop schemes locally. However, so far, only a few have shown interest in doing so.

As I advised Parliament on 6 March, we intend to review the target of 20 per cent by 2030, informed by the forthcoming Scotland-specific carbon budget advice from the United Kingdom Climate Change Committee. UK Climate Change Committee advice outlines that improvements to make buses and active travel more attractive, affordable and accessible will allow 7 per cent of car demand to be switched to public transport and active travel by 2035, and that there is potential for the UK Government to go a further 3 per cent on modal shift, through things such as reducing congestion.

When we set the 20 per cent target, it was ambitious, but that level of reduction will now not likely be required. However, even with the switch to electric vehicles, there is still a need for car use reduction, due to the emissions reduction benefit as well as the wider societal benefits. We therefore continue to invest to provide alternatives to travelling by car. In 2025-26, we will invest £263 million in sustainable travel measures, including putting more zero-emission buses on Scotland’s roads, helping local authorities leverage more private investment for electric vehicle charging and creating more safer and improved routes for walking and cycling.

Last month, I joined Xplore Dundee to welcome 12 new electric buses that had been partly funded by our Scottish zero-emission bus challenge fund, in which every pound that has been invested has attracted a further £3.20 in private sector investment. Scotland’s zero-emission bus fleet comprises 800-plus electric buses, while more than 200 million free bus journeys have been made by under-22s, helping them to choose to travel more sustainably from a young age.

In 2023-24, Scottish Government investment delivered more than 115km of new and improved active travel infrastructure, with much of that providing safer routes to school for children, benefiting their wellbeing and helping to protect them from the risk of harm and vehicle accidents. Last month, I joined young people in Milngavie to see how it is safer for children to walk, wheel, cycle or scoot to nursery and primary school. That is healthier and helps to make children happier, which is an important factor. Cutting car journeys and reducing emissions allow us to not only address the climate emergency but improve the health and wellbeing of people and communities and make communities safer for people to live in.

That is the context for our evidence to the committee.

No, it is not. That has been a challenge for society across many areas. When the target was set, I was Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Fair Work and Culture, and I was clear that it was an opportunity to try to make a change. However, society has changed, and it is difficult to interpret a lot of the transport data, because of the change in people’s work patterns. Virtual and home working has affected how many times people travel. We also know from rail and bus services that, increasingly, weekends are busier, because people are working from home during the week and they want to enjoy their leisure time at the weekends.

Generally, fewer people are travelling, because of the wider societal impacts, but I do not think that the step change that many people would have liked has happened. Although car use is down by 3.6 per cent in comparison to 2019 levels, there has not been the complete change that many people had hoped for. That is not specific to Scotland; it is the case across the world.

I will leave it there, then.

Perhaps I can help by telling you what the City of Edinburgh Council and Glasgow City Council have said about the matter. In its city mobility plan, the City of Edinburgh Council says that it has committed to using

“a range of demand management tools, such as timing windows and access restrictions, to manage these vehicle movements.”

It notes that

“Demand management tools are widely used across the city, for example, through the imposition of parking restrictions and the operation of bus lanes.”

The council has indicated that

“One of the tools that could be explored to support demand management is a ‘pay as you drive’ scheme”

to reduce the number of cars in the city and to generate revenue

“to improve sustainable travel modes.”

That does not mean that the council is going to do that, but it wants to have the powers to do it. It has checked the legislation and regulations that have existed since 2001.

In Glasgow City Council’s city government budget proposals for 2024 to 2027, it is noted that

“A project team will also be formed to progress business cases to utilise current and upcoming powers from the Scottish Government that have the potential to generate additional revenue for the city, including but not limited to the Transient Visitor Levy, Congestion Charging and the Workplace Parking Levy.”

Those powers already exist—the transient visitor levy already exists, for example, but the council needs to decide how to use it.

It is a situation in which local authorities—obviously, Glasgow and Edinburgh are the biggest cities in Scotland—can decide what they want to do and see whether they already have sufficient powers to do what they want to do.