Chamber and committees

I believe so. From the check that I have made, it published documents in 2023. That is its own timeline. On the basis of that timeline, and that evidence, that would mean that a decision on whether to go to a panel would have to be in place by the end of 2026. Is that correct?

The committee has received only limited evidence on the matter. Only one individual and two organisations have so far provided evidence, because the committee has had little time to pursue the issue. In the latter part of the evidence that we received from Get Glasgow Moving it referred to SPT’s own timeline for the Strathclyde regional bus strategy process, which is part of its review of the franchising model. It set out that

“its franchising proposals will not be ready for the full independent financial audit (to be followed by the statutory public consultation) until the end of 2025.”

It went on to say:

“This means that they will not be ready for final approval until later in 2026.”

It then explained:

“This gives a window of at least a year for the necessary legislative changes to be made”.

Does that timeline for SPT seeking to take the matter to a panel sound right, given the evidence that we have received?

Therefore, your answer to that question is no.

I am questioning that because of what Get Glasgow Moving said about what would happen if the panel issue was not resolved. To be fair to it, I am paraphrasing what it said and it might want to challenge this, but it said that, if the requirement for a panel cannot be removed within that timeframe, the SSI should be passed as an interim measure only, with a view to doing something more appropriate in the future. With regard to the timeline that SPT has set out, is it likely that primary legislation will be brought forward between now and the end of 2026—or at least later in 2026—to remove the requirement for a panel to consider any franchising proposal?

You also cannot bind any post-2026 Government anyway. I am conscious that, even after an election, legislation tends to get pushed back as committees are established and priorities are set. That is helpful, thank you.

However, that legislative change would not happen before the end of 2026.

I am conscious that that matter is not necessarily entirely within your portfolio responsibilities. However, like any good Government, you would always want to learn lessons from experience and build on those. I have no doubt that, if the Government felt that there was a more appropriate mechanism in the future, it would want to introduce that.

I have no problem with taking further evidence on the issue, but my overarching concern is that if we were to annul these regulations, there would be no pathway for bus franchising. If the view is that the existing and, indeed, additional safeguard that was put into the legislation at the time is not enough—that is, the provision relating to the traffic commissioner, which was put in because of an issue with regional transport planning authorities doing this on their own and whether they would get it right—the only recourse that we will have will be to primary legislation in order to legislate for something different.

I am just mindful of that issue. There needs to be a pathway for bus franchising, which I am a fan of—indeed, that is why it was in the legislation. If there were a motion to annul and the committee were to agree it, there is a risk that we would have no pathway to franchising in Scotland. From my understanding of what we have heard, primary legislation would then be required, which I suspect would put things back by years.

Thank you, convener, and apologies for missing the start of the evidence.

I am trying to get a clearer understanding of the dynamics of the situation, which a number of you have referred to in your evidence. Clearly, there will be changes. When you are planning anything over a five-year period, you build in a range of risks into that five-year process, and there are a range of assumptions that you have to make. Of course, those assumptions could prove to be wrong, for a variety of reasons, and some of the risk that you may attach to some of those assumptions may eventually prove to be wrong, too. As climate science develops in terms of its own intelligence and understanding of what is happening, you have to take account of that. Technology can play a role, and there will be a degree to which the public sector and the private sector take up some of the finances that are required to meet this challenge.

I will explain what it is that I am trying to understand from your comments so far. In setting a five-year carbon budget, whether it is aligned with the UK or not, and in then producing a climate change plan alongside that, the biggest elephant in the room is probably the finance that is required to deliver those things. What do you think should happen if the Scottish Government sets a five-year carbon budget and sets out its climate change plan but then finds that decisions that are taken elsewhere—for example, a cut to capital expenditure by the UK Government—have a direct impact on the delivery of its carbon budget and on delivering its climate change plan? How do you think the process should work so that the Scottish Government could come back and point out that a 9 per cent cut to its capital budget has a direct impact on its ability to fund some of the programmes that would deliver on its carbon budget? How do you think the Scottish Government should go about saying, “Hold on—we need to take a step back now,” having set a budget for five years, so that it can revise it as a result of a decision made elsewhere in the UK that has a direct impact?

I suspect that Cornilius Chikwama is probably the person I am directing my question to the most here. Can you give a sense of how we achieve clarity and clear direction, which we heard about earlier, on how we are going to achieve our targets but also, as our colleagues from local government have said, how that will be financed?

That is helpful. Section 36 in the existing legislation is basically a catch-up plan for a gap that has opened up. For example, if we were meant to get to 60 per cent but we are at 55 per cent, the Government is legally obliged to show how to close the gap that has started to open.

I am conscious that, in earlier exchanges, there was a discussion on the dynamic nature of the reporting mechanism and the monitoring of it, which is critical to ensuring that the Government is on course. Is there a need for us not necessarily to have the section 36 provision as it stands in the existing legislation but to ensure that there is a mechanism whereby, if it starts to become obvious that a gap is opening up, the Government is legally obliged to bring forward clear plans on how it will close that gap? The danger is that, the longer you leave it, the greater the gap becomes over time. Should we not look at some form of mechanism in the bill to require the Government to do that?