I think that I have good behaviour on that count, convener. Good morning, and thank you for the invitation to give evidence on the 2025-26 transport portfolio budget. The budget, which is investing more than £4 billion in transport, seeks to make real, substantive and sustainable progress in delivering on the priorities of Government and, critically, of people, businesses and communities in Scotland.

Across Government, we want to improve public services to be more efficient and effective. In transport, that means making them more productive and sustainable for the public purse. We are proud that, here in Scotland, our rail services and a significant part of our ferry services are publicly owned and controlled, and we want more people to choose to travel by public transport for work, study and leisure. That helps make our public transport system more financially sustainable and reduces carbon emissions from travel.

We are investing more than £1.5 billion in Scotland’s railway to support the provision of ScotRail and the Caledonian Sleeper passenger rail services, and to maintain and renew network infrastructure in Scotland. We are renewing Scotland’s rail fleet with investment of £158.6 million, which will allow us to start the procurement of the intercity train fleet replacement and complete the enhancement and electrification of the East Kilbride line.

We will spend £533 million on our vital ferry services, supporting our island economies and connectivity, as well as strengthening resilience across the network. We intend to deliver six new major vessels to serve Scotland’s ferry network from early 2025, followed by a further seven electric vessels in future years.

Improving public transport is part of our response to the climate emergency, but we know that we need to do more. Therefore, in 2025-26, we will prioritise £263 million for sustainable and low-carbon travel to encourage more people out of their cars and on to more sustainable transport options; to help local authorities leverage more private investment for electric vehicle charging; and to create safer and improved routes for walking, wheeling and cycling.

Crucially, the budget will include a new bus infrastructure fund to help local authorities to reduce the impact of congestion on bus journey times for passengers and make travelling by bus more efficient and attractive. That comes on top of our record funding for bus services, ensuring that more than 2.3 million people continue to benefit from free bus travel. We will begin to extend our offer to asylum seekers and young islanders relying on ferry services.

The ability to move people, goods and services around Scotland and beyond is a key building block to growing the economy, leisure and tourism, and making our nation more prosperous. Next year, we will invest more than £2.1 billion in transport infrastructure to maintain and improve our assets and make our transport network safer.

I am determined that we make progress towards completion of key projects. The Scottish budget will enable the Tomatin to Moy section of the A9 to be dualled, and for progress to be made on procurement and development of the remaining sections, as well as on dualling the Inverness to Nairn part of the A96 corridor.

The budget will enable Transport Scotland to invest in a safe and reliable network, support the transition to net zero and improve how we help to keep families, friends and communities connected, nationally and internationally. I welcome the opportunity to discuss how we intend to do that and to take members’ questions.

In terms of funding and deployment, a lot of the £30 million of the total of £65 million that we have allocated to date is being spent this year. Eighteen local authorities have already received funding, with another 14 to receive it in this financial year. That allows us to leverage in investment from the private sector. Increasingly, people are aware that the private sector should be picking up more of the responsibility for that. We set out our EV draft implementation plan at the end of last year.

On charging, some electric vehicle infrastructure funding has been paid out to date. On additional funding, I ask the officials where we are likely to get to next year. However, most of it will be deployment of funding this year for delivery next year. A lot of the focus on electric funding next year is on what we can do to help vehicles in particular.

If any of the officials wants to give information about additional funding for EVIF for next year, that would be helpful.

I think that I did. I said that, when I was in Inverness, I announced one of the early allocations for this year.

Again, that kind of deployment, particularly in places such as Skye and Fort William, would be a decision for the Highland Council. My instinct as a former tourism cabinet secretary is that our tourism season is extending and extending; it used to be in the summer months, but it now runs from March right through to November. As a result, one could probably make a strong case for permanency of provision.

Our role, though, is to provide the funding; we do not identify specific locations. That is why we are working in partnership with local government—they are better placed to identify individual areas. Your point about the A82, Fort William and Skye is well made, but I think that there should be permanent rather than pop-up provision there. After all, if you are making that investment anyway, you are probably better to put in more permanent rather than just pop-up provision, but I will take the issue away for discussion with my Convention of Scottish Local Authorities colleagues and hear their thinking on it. It is probably quite a creative matter to consider.

Officials can correct me, but I do not think that there is anything for loans for individual households. However, your point is well made. We have tenements, housing without driveways and so on, so how we support the market in that respect is increasingly becoming part of what we need to look at.

When it comes to deploying these things, a number of innovative inventions are being put together in Scotland by Scottish companies, but one of the biggest issues is ensuring that you do not disrupt pavements for people with disabilities and so on. I go back Bob Doris’s question; whatever we do has to be accessible to everybody, and we need to look at what can be done in that respect.

I visited Trojan Energy up in Aberdeen and saw its very interesting invention. There are others, too—I should say for clarity that I am not promoting that product alone. What we have done is bring together officers from the Society of Chief Officers of Transportation in Scotland to try to identify areas of commonality, guidance on what can be done and, in particular, standards. Part of that is about how we can cut down on regulation and planning to ensure rapid deployment when we are in a position to do this on a mass scale. That work will help ensure that we are in a much stronger position when we move to deployment.

The Greens brought in the target for that percentage spend on active travel as part of the Bute house agreement, which, as members well know, has ended. Our challenge is how we ensure that we continue the momentum of very welcome investment in active and sustainable travel.

As we wrote to the committee—I think Gillian Martin wrote, with input from me and my transport officials—on 4 December 2024, last year’s budget for active travel had to be scaled back. The active and sustainable travel budget went down to £157 million. As you will have identified, that has increased in this year’s budget, so we are trying to recover from where we were.

We had challenges last year. You will remember that some of the active travel funding went to support the extension of the peak fares removal pilot. Some of it obviously had to be returned to the Government in the spring budget review, and the spring budget figures will identify the extent of that. We are now able to increase active travel funding to about £187 million, which is an increase from what it was last year, but we are not getting back to the targets about which you are talking.

The most important thing is deliverability, and all these schemes can sometimes take longer to deliver than others. We do not want to lose the momentum in the projects that are available to be invested in, which is why I am pleased that, should the budget pass, we will be able to keep the momentum of investment for active and sustainable travel. Local councils are very keen to see this investment.

I hear what you say.

There is an increase in road safety investment. Even this year, it was at a record level, but we have managed to increase it again in the 2025-26 budget. A significant amount of the investment is for road safety work by local authorities. There is already a road safety improvement fund, which continues; it allows local authorities to identify support. Junctions, in particular, can be an issue. Individual councils can bid into that, including for road safety work related to 20 mph zones; councils are also allowed to use local authority transport grants for that work.

Some local authorities are moving swiftly ahead with the roll-out of 20 mph zones. Scottish Borders Council is an interesting example that is already seeing the benefits of the roll-out. As more councils deploy 20 mph zones in key areas, the investment to support that is reflected in the road safety budget, as well as in local authority grants.

Reliability is really important, and we are investing in buses to ensure that we have reliability. On the paused funding, we are now releasing funding for bus infrastructure, which is very welcome.

I reflect that Mr Fairlie and I had very good meeting with the Scottish road works commissioner, who will focus on the information that can be provided for buses. There is an increase in the amount of emergency works that are being carried out on bus routes. Clearly, as those are emergencies, they must be dealt with. Utility works are increasing, which causes disruptions. If bus companies know about problems with road works, they can put in place diversions and so on. We are looking at everything that we can do to identify how we can help to make buses more reliable, and I welcome the fact that the commissioner, who has responsibility for looking at such issues, is engaging directly with bus companies, which will be helpful.

On what we can try to do to leverage in funding, I will just reflect on my comments to the deputy convener. There is a significant amount of funding in buses, some of which goes on free travel for the under-22s. That is determined by legislation that is scrutinised by this committee and passed by this Parliament. Making changes—to leverage that into providing more security for more rural routes, for example—will take a significant amount of thought. We are working on that.

It is either that or we can come back to you in writing. I had better not talk about that issue.