Chamber and committees

Will Liam Kerr give way for a second time so that we can have a debate?

I welcome the debate and commend the minister for the personal energy that he brings to this important topic. From my extensive discussions with him over the course of the period in which he has been in Government, I know how seriously he takes the issues, and that he is providing the commitment and leadership that are necessary to advance the agenda.

One of the comments that the minister made in his opening remarks suggested that we must make active travel easier and safer. The more we think about how that can be turned into a practical reality, the better we will serve the interests of the policy agenda.

I took part in a local cycling exercise in the city of Perth. It is a place in which I do not normally cycle; I normally cycle in country areas on very quiet roads. I found cycling in the city of Perth to be a very unnerving experience because of the interplay with, and the volume of, fast-moving traffic. There are significant obstacles to people feeling that it is safe to cycle in particular contexts. That should underpin a lot of our thinking, because it all matters in terms of getting people out of cars and on to the other modes of transport that will help us to reduce carbon emissions.

Since I have been citing him as the principal source of moaning and complaint today, I must give way to Mr Simpson.

I am trying to encourage people to establish a relationship between our strategic commitment to tackling climate change and their being prepared actually to do something about it ground. That is my point.

Let me move to some of the local issues that I told Mr Ruskell I would talk about. One good example that I see in my constituency is that some developments can enable active travel. For example, when the Perth flood defence scheme was put in place, an extensive cycling network was created. It goes off road around the North Muirton area and gives wonderful access to the city.

That will be complemented by the completion of the cross-Tay link route. I know that Mr Ruskell is not a fan of that particular development, but it will create a park-and-choose space where people can park their cars then choose how they access the city from quite far out of the city, in a rural area.

I make the plea to the minister, as I did when he came to visit my constituency, that the Government look seriously at community aspirations for stronger regulation to enable communities to access land for community projects for active travel development. I have a number of examples, particularly in the Coupar Angus, Blairgowrie and Alyth triangle, where great community groups want to establish cycleways but are being thwarted by their lack of ability to progress land acquisition or to deal even with land-access issues, on which public authorities have stronger powers than community organisations.

When I visited constituents the other week, we cycled along the cycle route beside the A90 dual carriageway between Perth and Dundee, on the stretch between Walnut Grove and St Madoes. It is quite literally just a pavement at the side of the A90. For people who cycle along it, even those who are of sturdy determination, it is quite daunting and intimidating. We need to think about how we can develop spaces and routes. St Madoes is a growing commuter community for the city of Perth. There is an opportunity for people to use that route to access the city, but the infrastructure is not quite there. I have written to the transport minister about the issue, and I hope that Patrick Harvie will engage on the matter.

The Government is taking the right steps. I very much welcome the investment that it has announced today and the commitment to active travel. I hope that they will help us to get the modal shift that is necessary to support our ambitions on climate change.

Does Mr Kerr not think that the chances of achieving that objective might be helped by the £20 million transformation fund going directly to local authorities and regional transport partnerships? That is the very wording that his silly amendment tries to delete.

They do not.

Mr Kerr’s reaction to my point illustrates one of the dilemmas. The Conservatives come here unprepared to increase tax but wanting more spending. They come here demanding that we empower local authorities and then demanding that we tell local authorities what to do. Does that not just tell Parliament that the Conservatives are hypocrites on these issues?

Will the member take an intervention?

There is very high satisfaction with Scottish education and very high confidence—as recent opinion polling demonstrated—in the Government’s stewardship of education. The situation is not helped by Mr Choudhury’s characterisation that the Government has “wrecked” Scottish education. What sort of language is that? Mr Choudhury cannot substantiate his point, so that was inappropriate language to use to characterise the situation in the debate. I note that Pam Duncan-Glancy did not use her intervention to come to his defence or to justify his characterisation.

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate on the future of the Dewars centre, which is adjacent to my constituency boundary, in the city of Perth, and is in the constituency of my colleague Jim Fairlie, who I anticipate will contribute to the debate.

As Murdo Fraser has set out, the Dewars centre is an important and significant facility that is very much the home of curling and has attracted a formidable amount of the talent that Scotland has produced in the sport. Murdo Fraser correctly attributes a huge amount of appreciation to the achievements of Eve Muirhead, who originates from Blair Athol in my constituency and has gone on to have the most extraordinary career in international curling, becoming an Olympic champion in 2022. This parliamentary debate gives me a welcome opportunity to compliment her and her squad.

Of course, Eve Muirhead is not the first woman to blaze a trail for curling in Scotland. This debate also gives me a really special opportunity to pay tribute to one of my late dear neighbours, Frances Brodie, who was the driving force behind the group that established the first world ladies curling championship in 1979, and who chaired the first official ladies committee of the International Curling Federation—later renamed the World Curling Federation. Frances was a most wonderful lady, who graced all aspects of the life of our village. From that very quiet Perthshire village, she made a phenomenal contribution to opening the sport of curling to women. She was in every respect a true trailblazer. In 1989, her contribution to world curling was recognised by the federation with the introduction of an award in her name, which has been presented at the conclusion of each women’s curling championship since then. The recipient of the honour, who is selected by the curlers participating in the event, is the curler who

“by deed and action in the course of their performance, best exemplified the traditional curling values of skill, honesty, fair play, friendship and sportsmanship.”

I cannot think of a finer description of Frances Brodie, so I am delighted to have the opportunity to put that on the record today.

As Murdo Fraser said, the issues that the Dewars centre faces are challenging. David MacLehose, the chair of Live Active Leisure, cited the significant pressures of reduced customer income, rising inflation, high energy costs and the impact of long-term public finance constraints. Those are issues with which we all wrestle. As I told Parliament at the time, I set the budget for 2023-24—one of my last acts in Government—in the most challenging context in which I have ever had to operate. The pressure on the public finances will be felt by Governments, local authorities and leisure trusts into the bargain. It is therefore essential that, in every step that we take, we try to ensure that the resources are available to support activities that are precious in our society.

However, we must also recognise that that often involves hard decisions. I have to make the point that I was prepared to take a hard decision to increase the resources that are available in the Scottish budget by increasing taxation, but Mr Fraser and his colleagues were not prepared to support us in that endeavour. There are hard choices to be made if we want public expenditure to be used to support facilities of this type. [Interruption.] Therefore, if we are to have debates of this nature in Parliament, we have to follow them up by being prepared to take the hard decisions that are necessary to increase the resources that are available—I hear the usual muttering from the Conservatives that I always hear when I point out the hard financial realities that exist in this respect. Although I am wholly supportive of the future of the Dewars centre, I point out the hard financial realities that the Conservatives always duck in this chamber.