Chamber and committees

It is usual to begin a members’ business debate by thanking those who have chosen to stay late for it, and I have a double reason to thank those who have chosen to stay late on the last day before recess. I am grateful to those who have chosen to participate and to those who added their names in support of my motion. Those names include members of four political parties. I am sorry that they are not represented in the chamber, but they are represented in their support for the motion.

I will begin by talking about the state of Glasgow’s bus services. People standing at a bus stop in Glasgow will rarely hear anyone ask when the bus is due or see them check the timetable, because most people quite simply know not to bother. People are far more likely to ask whether the bus that they want has been and gone, because the idea of actually relying on the published timetable is largely a joke. Even at the few stops that have electronic displays, the more typical experience is to watch as the minutes count down to the time for the bus that you are waiting for and then to roll your eyes as the time disappears from the screen, although the bus never appears on the road.

The network is fragmented, with different routes being covered by different operators who do not recognise one another’s tickets. I made a recent trip to a Glasgow hospital for reasons that I will not go into but that are nothing that most men in their 50s have not experienced. I will spare members the grisly details, but I was attending a public service that people need good-quality public transport to be able to reach. I can honestly say that the task of planning and undertaking the multi-operator bus journey to get to the hospital was significantly more stressful than the medical procedure that I was there for.

Bus fares are simply ludicrous, with an all-day city ticket on First Bus costing almost £6 and—bizarrely—two single journeys costing even more than that. No one believes that they are getting value for money—and that is before we consider whether the routes that we need can be depended on. Just today, I had an email from a constituent about another cancelled bus route, this time the number 65 between the city centre and Halfway in Cambuslang, which First Bus has confirmed it will end in just a few weeks’ time.

The system is not working. Deregulation, privatisation and running public transport for profit have never worked for passengers. I am pleased that the Greens have made good progress in recent years on some important improvements, most significant of which is free bus travel for young people and for asylum seekers. However, the truth is that bus services in Glasgow, and in much of Scotland, bear no comparison with those in many other European cities and countries.

Even in other parts of the United Kingdom, such as Manchester, dramatic progress has been made in recent years. I was very amused to see ahead of the debate the rather childish name-calling from Sandy Easdale of McGill’s in today’s Glasgow Times. He claimed that Manchester’s franchising has been a “disaster”, so let us take a look at some of the results of that disaster. Patronage has increased by 14 per cent year on year in the first franchising areas, and punctuality regularly exceeds the 80 per cent target, compared with a rate of 66 per cent before franchising. Communities are better connected, with more residents living within a five-minute walk to a half-hourly service, and there are more affordable fares, convenient integrated ticketing, cleaner and greener buses, and a pilot of 24/7 bus services, reinstating night-time services to the north-west of the city for the first time in a decade. The Bee Network combines buses, trams, trains, walking, wheeling and cycling to create a seamless travel experience in the kind of disaster that Glasgow’s bus services can only dream of.

I recognise everyone who has put in tireless efforts to campaign for a better bus service for Glasgow, notably Get Glasgow Moving, and I commend the work of the Scottish Trades Union Congress and others who are building the case for change and pointing to solutions. What are those solutions? The first stop is franchising, which brings public control over routes, fares and service standards—things that are currently dictated by private operators. Franchising in the Strathclyde Partnership for Transport area would be the first test case for the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019. However, as well as the process being slow, the 2019 act requires the plan to come under the scrutiny of an independent panel convened by the traffic commissioner for Scotland. The equivalent legislation in England does not have that requirement. SPT has asked that the panel approval process be removed, and a very simple bill in this Parliament could remove that unnecessary step.

SPT also estimates that it could take seven years to introduce a bus franchise. In the meantime, it plans to move ahead with a bus service improvement partnership. However, I share the concerns of Get Glasgow Moving, which suggests that any use of the BSIP programme would delay efforts to establish the franchise. SPT could avoid the BSIP route if the Scottish Government provided funding to accelerate franchising.

From there, we need to go on to public ownership. Taking bus fleets and depots into public ownership would, in the first instance, give franchising real teeth. A franchising arrangement that left fleets and depots in the hands of private companies would be a half measure. According to STUC data, First Glasgow has a 10 per cent profit margin compared with 9.1 per cent for Scotland’s only publicly owned bus company, which is Lothian Buses. Lothian Buses has returned a dividend of £36 million over the past decade. If it was a private service, that money would have gone into the pockets of already wealthy people. Instead, it has gone where it should go—back into improving the service that people rely on.

If we really want to redesign the network to improve frequencies and coverage, introduce flat affordable fares, expand fare-free travel and create a unified information and ticketing system—in short, if we want to create a bus service that works in the public interest and returns revenue to the public purse—the next stop should be full public ownership under a municipal operator. That is the vision that we should be working to realise in Glasgow and then in the rest of the country: transport as a public service. It can happen, but it needs Scottish Government support, investment and political will. Glasgow deserves world-class public transport.

Would the minister just accept as a point of fact that the situation down south is so much easier because it does not have that unnecessary step, which adds nothing of value to the process? We should surely be making it as quick, simple and easy for SPT and others as possible.

Mr Doris makes some important points. I again make the case that the other changes that we need to make in the transport system for climate purposes, such as road pricing in whatever form it will take, need to be seen as a source of revenue for investment in public transport. Does Bob Doris also acknowledge the statistic that I referred to in my speech, which is that Lothian Buses, which is already in the public sector, returns revenue to the public purse? Although it may cost some investment to reach a point where a service can generate revenue, once we are in the position of running bus services in the public interest, that revenue can be put back into the public good.

I did not expect to have to do this on the last day of term.

Will Pam Duncan-Glancy take an intervention?

Pam Duncan-Glancy makes an extremely important point. I assume that she would agree that the experience of disabled travellers in Manchester shows that genuinely displaying ambition about the renewal of bus services—as regards both infrastructure and vehicles—highlights that a more integrated approach can result in dramatic improvements in accessibility.

[Made a request to intervene.]

I am grateful to Graham Simpson. I apologise to him. I was not aware that he was joining us online when I made my comment about parties being represented in the debate. I put on record my recognition of his long-standing interest in the issue.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I am sorry, but I think that our hearts are all sinking at the idea of a repeat performance. I am sure that the member thinks that this is very funny, but is there anything in standing orders that requires him to speak to the amendments in the group rather than making other random points that take up time and try our patience? [Applause.]

The envelope is not fixed. The cabinet secretary’s statement acknowledges that tax policy will have to play a role if we are to avoid damaging cuts to public services. The plan that she has published today commits to ensuring that local taxes are fair and sustainable. Why, then, has the Government continued to oppose Green proposals to revalue council tax, which is the most substantial local tax that exists? Why does the work to replace that broken, outdated and deeply unfair tax seem to have stalled completely?