Chamber and committees

That discussion has to continue with unions, but it is important to provide certainty and stability by saying there will be no office closures. We want to ensure that there are workable and sensible operations for stations, and that has to involve getting the views of unions. Certainly, there are no strikes taking place in Scotland, and I want that attitude and relationship to continue so that we can continue to ensure that we have effective working with our unions.

I think that we are on track. We have about 73 chargers per 100,000 people, which means that we are the second strongest to London on provision, but we need far more. I think that everybody understands that. We now need to know how we can do that and how we can generate private funding for it, because we have already invested about £65 million—a lot of money—to kickstart that interventionist aspect. I am not going to say that I am satisfied; I do not think that that would be reasonable, because everybody knows that we need to improve in order to give confidence for everybody for travel.

Another thing that we want to look at—I know that the committee was interested in this—is how we promote tourism using electric vehicles. We need people to be confident about that, but we have some way to go. However, if that is our drive and aspiration, ensuring that we have EV charging available to people who want to hire electric vehicles and travel across our beautiful countryside using them will help rural areas.

I might come back to you on that, because it is not an area that I have particularly focused on, and Bill Reeve may be able to give more recent information. The ban was brought in during the pandemic, because we were concerned about how people might behave and about the spread of Covid. We recognise that it was helpful in changing people’s behaviour. There are sometimes requests for the ban to be changed. The minister was quite clear the last time that request was made. Bill Reeve may be able to give you more information.

Alison Irvine might want to say whether there has been contact at official level. Last Monday, I met Richard Holden MP, who is a UK minister with transport responsibilities. We discussed experience of the fare cap, so we will exchange information about that.

We also have an interministerial group. I am trying to remember its title. It brings us together with Wales, with the UK and with representation—obviously there is no minister at this stage—from the Northern Ireland Executive. I want to ensure that we learn from one another on lots of aspects of our experience, including on bus issues. Everybody is doing things slightly differently. Understandably, we have a major spend of £300 million on concessionary travel, with 84 million journeys having been taken by under-22s. Many families are dealing with cost of living issues, so that is helping families.

On what it means to individuals, I visited the Children 1st hub in my constituency, where staff told me how under-22s bus travel is helping looked-after children to access basic things such as health provision, which they might not access if it were more difficult for them to travel.

There are consequences from having such provisions. For older people, being able to visit, travel and be active is important. When looking at the value of concessionary travel, we must not underestimate the impact on individuals. We might be talking about 2 million people, but the individual whom I was told about is benefiting because, as a looked-after child, they are managing to access provision that they might not otherwise have accessed, and the value of that cannot be measured in pounds, shillings and pence.

The review is on track. After this afternoon, through officials I will have more information and output for the committee to assess on the stages of delivery. However, I can give you the sense now that the review is not just about fares; it is also about taking a view on how public transport can serve us. Perhaps Alison Irvine would like to come in on that.

Fiona Hyslop has identified an error in her contribution and provided the following correction.

At col 50, paragraph 5—

Original text—

One of the first things that I did as minister back in June was publish “A Network Fit For The Future: Vision for Scotland’s Public Electric Vehicle Charging Network”, in which we say that we are looking to work with the private sector to put in place an additional 6,000 EV chargers before 2026.

Corrected text—

One of the first things that I did as minister back in June was publish “A Network Fit For The Future: Vision for Scotland’s Public Electric Vehicle Charging Network”, in which we say that we are looking to work with the private sector to put in place 6,000 EV chargers before 2026.

I ask Bill Reeve to reply in relation to the timescales.

Well, I am a politician, not a rail expert.

Probably. I will need to tell Parliament, and I will also need to get the decision through Cabinet. Given the committee’s interest, we will ensure that we alert it when the announcement in Parliament is due.

The commitments are in the programme for government. It is a priority for the Scottish Government to deliver on the review, to look at the assessments and to ensure that we have improvements. Our current proposal is to dual the A96, with the priority being the dualling of the section from Inverness to Nairn, where the work is more advanced.

The sensible thing to do is to see what the review says and how the options are assessed, because the options that are recommended will have an impact on the timescale, as will the amount of capital that is available.

I am not talking only about the A96; I am talking about all of the transport budget. You will know that there will be a 7 per cent reduction in capital funding from the Scottish Government in the coming years, because there was no inflation proofing for capital funding. Also, as you will be aware, construction inflation has been in excess of regular inflation. There are challenges for all aspects of construction.

I think that it would be remiss of me to give you a commitment on timescales before we have done the necessary piece of work. We will report as soon as the assessments have been done.