Chamber and committees

Will the minister give way?

Far from the minister saying that she will be prepared to, or could, call in schemes or direct councils on what the charges should be, she is clearly not prepared to do that.

She mentioned Nottingham, which is a very interesting example. Nottingham is about to increase what it charges companies. The reason for that—the minister, probably, and Mr Ruskell, certainly, will rejoice at this—is that the money that is taken in by the Nottingham scheme has gone down, because fewer people need parking spaces. Mr Ruskell will think that that is a good thing. However, in order to fill the gap, the council is increasing the charges. That leads us to the conclusion that, in Nottingham, the example so lauded by some people around this table, the charge is actually a money-making scheme.

If the minister wants to press ahead with the scheme, she should at least fix the cap element of the regulations. I am sure that she could do that.

Exemptions have been mentioned, and the Scottish Police Federation made some very strong comments about that. Calum Steele, its general secretary, fears that the charge could be passed on to rank-and-file police officers. However, if it were not to be passed on to them, it could hit overstretched police budgets.

Unions have come out against the scheme. Keir Greenaway, senior organiser for GMB Scotland, said that the lowest-paid workers would suffer at the worst possible time, with the rising cost of living. He is absolutely right.

As I pointed out two weeks ago, more than half of the employers in Nottingham have passed the parking levy, which is set to be nearly £500 a year per parking space, on to their staff. Some of those staff will be low paid. The scheme is a regressive tax.

I am aware of those three. You have just completely contradicted yourself—

It has been a very full debate, so I do not intend to delay the committee for much longer. I will simply make a couple of points. The first is a point that nobody has really addressed—the minister did not address it when I intervened on her; instead, she wanted to talk about Brexit. This is not the right time to introduce the instrument, because companies and employers are suffering. We need to be building back from the pandemic. The wrong way to do that is to impose extra taxes on employers, which could potentially be passed on to employees—that could well happen.

The matter of exemptions has been raised. The minister has the power to introduce exemptions, but it seems that she does not want to use it. That could cover people such as shift workers. I used to be a shift worker and I had to work in a city centre. There was a concern, particularly for some of my female colleagues, about having to walk through a city centre late at night. What about people who work in an industrial estate at night where there is no public transport? Their employer could well decide to pass on the parking levy to staff.

Mr Sweeney makes a very good point. Too often, such changes are decided between public bodies such as Transport Scotland, councils and the police, and the public do not get to hear about any of it. It is worth highlighting that point to the lead committee.

I am quite astonished that the minister and her official have just confirmed that there is no limit whatever on what councils can charge for a licence. That will frighten the life out of businesses in Scotland.

Scottish Chambers of Commerce and Glasgow Chamber of Commerce—Glasgow is one of the cities in which the levy could be introduced—say that the levy should be scrapped or at least put on hold while we recover from the pandemic. Have you considered doing that, minister?

I am not scaremongering, and there is a difference between penalty charges—you are right to mention them, minister; I think that the maximum penalty charge for non-compliance is £5,000—and the licence charge, which is what I was asking about, and in relation to which you have confirmed that there is no upper limit. I will leave it there, convener.

I go back to the Nottingham scheme on a point of information. Just more than half of companies that are involved in the scheme pass on the charge to their employees—that is a fact. That goes back to the convener’s first question. However, my question is on something different. Minister, I cannot see anything in the regulations or the parent act that sets a limit on what councils can charge for a licence. Can you help me there?

I thought that it would be much safer to turn up in person than to rely on technology. For the new member of the committee, I note that, two weeks ago, I tried to make my pitch but my parliamentary Surface device decided to turn itself off as I was in mid-flow and about to get into the meat of the issue.

I will go over some old ground. In the previous parliamentary session, two cross-party groups covered work related to that of the proposed CPG on sustainable transport. There was a CPG on cycling, walking and buses, of which I was co-convener, and a separate CPG on rail, of which John Mason was co-convener.

In the previous session, a number of us who were involved in the two groups got together and thought that it might make sense to merge them into one group in the next session. Those talks have continued, and we decided that it made far more sense to have just one group.

As you will be aware, convener, part of the reason behind that is the problem—which we will probably face as we go through this parliamentary session—of MSPs attending CPGs. There is a rush of enthusiasm at the start, then numbers start to tail off. Perhaps that is an issue that the committee could monitor. That situation is not fair on the groups that turn up, particularly if it is an in-person meeting.

I turn to what the proposed CPG would intend to do. In the past, CPGs have tended to become talking shops, where people who agree with each other speak to one another They go away and everybody is happy but then nothing happens. To make it worth while, a CPG should actually do something—it should do some work, do research and produce reports. I want to be involved in the CPG on sustainable transport because everyone who is involved in it agrees with that.

We have a programme for the first year. If the establishment of the CPG is approved, the first piece of work would be to look at traffic reduction policy. Last week, the Scottish Government produced a paper spelling out how it would like to see car miles reduced over the next few years. We would drill down into that.

If our establishment is given approval this morning, the CPG will meet at lunchtime and we will have a presentation from Scottish Government officials and someone from Transport Scotland, to get that ball rolling. We would probably like to meet every month. We have quite a programme of work. We would seek to produce reports with recommendations.

We would look at traffic demand management and at how to get the modal shift so that people walk, cycle and use public transport more. I know that there is at least one committee member who has strong views on that. That issue is really important.

Whatever you think of cars, getting people more active is a positive thing. That is what the group will consider. It will also look at public transport. It is vital that we consider ways to help public transport to build back better, if I can borrow a phrase, and get more people on to buses and trains. The CPG will not be a talking shop; it will be a working group.

I am happy to take any questions.

Good.