Chamber and committees

Does the First Minister think that it is appropriate for the Scottish Government’s active travel minister to turn up to a bikeability event for kids and not join them in wearing a cycle helmet?

I want to press the cabinet secretary on roads again. There is a slight increase in the total budget for motorways and trunk roads, but the road improvement budget has been cut. Will she, once again, have a stab at the question of whether, under this budget, the A96 will be fully dualled? Is there money for that?

I am listening very carefully to what the minister is saying. Does he not accept that dualling the East Kilbride line was not just an idea, but a promise that was made by Michael Matheson? If it does not happen, how do we get the resilience that we do not have right now, with trains sometimes stopping at Busby? How do we get more trains if the line is not dualled? How can that be achieved?

I thank the minister for that answer—of course, he did not actually answer the question, which was asking for his response to the report. I am not sure whether he has read it, but it was produced for Scotland’s four rail unions and is at least a vision for the future. We have heard nothing like that from the minister so far.

ScotRail is to be nationalised in March. We do not know anything about the governance, staffing, timetables, tickets and rolling stock. We do not know whether there will be redundancies. However, we know that there will be a series of big-bucks appointments, as that is already in process. Will the minister agree to cross-party talks on nationalisation? Will he make a statement on where we are with that, given that we are only a few months away? Will he also involve the unions in the process?

Mr Sweeney is absolutely right—the Borders railway is in the same position.

The minister and I have spoken about the East Kilbride line, and I thank him for that. He will say that there is potential for the £40 million cost of dualling the line to spiral. However, there is such a risk with any infrastructure project, and it has to be factored in. It does not mean that the project should not be done.

Collette Stevenson, the new MSP for the town, has been quoted as saying that £100 million is still being invested in the East Kilbride corridor—I assume that she is referring to the entire line into Glasgow—which, in her view, is

“great news for the people of the town”.

It is great news for the town only if there is a guarantee of more trains; a guarantee that no hold-ups will be caused by there being only one line; and a guarantee of extra car parking at the new Hairmyres station rather than the reduced number of spaces that is now being mooted. I am afraid that none of that is being delivered right now, so it is not good news for the town at all, and it is not gesture politics to point that out.

East Kilbride is growing at a rate of knots; thousands of houses are being built on what was green-belt land to the south-west of the town. We should be doing all that we can to encourage the people who live in those houses to use the train, so we should be increasing the capacity and frequency of services. We should not be taking a short-term view based on current usage, because it will bounce back. I see the minister shaking his head, but it is a short-term view.

At one time, the line continued from East Kilbride to Hamilton. When East Kilbride became a new town in 1948, the line beyond the town was closed, and in the mid-1950s, the dualled section from Busby became single track. Diesel replaced steam in the 1960s, and in 2000 the Hairmyres loop was built, which allowed for a half-hourly service.

Of course, we are not the only place to have a single-track line and diesel trains. The Borders line, as Paul Sweeney mentioned, is the same. The line from Perth to Inverness is single track, and so is the far north line. There will be others that members may wish to highlight. All those deserve investment, too—it should not be a case of divide and conquer. If we are serious about cutting carbon emissions from transport, we need to persuade people that they are better off not driving.

East Kilbride could be a great example of what can be done, and the ambition should not end at dualling and electrifying the existing line. Right now, if someone wants to get anywhere in Scotland from the country’s biggest town—people from Paisley may disagree with that title—they have to go via Glasgow or drive. If we are to be truly radical, we should look to go beyond dualling only to East Kilbride. Why should we not extend the line again, maybe even to Hamilton at some point in the future?

I will end with the quote that I started with:

“The work involves not only electrifying the line but dualling it”.

That is a promise, and no amount of weasel words can wriggle out of it.

Will the member take an intervention?

I thank all the members on all sides of the chamber who signed the motion that has enabled us to have this debate.

I start with a quote:

“the East Kilbride line is one of the areas that we have identified. I was there fairly recently, and the investigation works have started. The work involves not only electrifying the line but dualling it, which will provide it with much greater resilience and capacity to help to support the people who make use of the services. It also involves enhancements to East Kilbride railway station which, in my view, is unacceptable in its present form. That is why that work is one of the early actions that we intend to take forward.”—[Official Report, Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee, 2 September 2020; c 34.]

Those were the words of the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Infrastructure and Connectivity, Michael Matheson, when I questioned him at the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee in September last year. That is the same Michael Matheson who described the service to East Kilbride as “inadequate” and not “up to scratch”. While posing in a hard hat on the line, he said:

“The combination of projects at East Kilbride and Hairmyres will transform the services into Glasgow in the next four to five years and is part of a major investment by us ... We want to make sure the line is able to cope with ever growing demand for rail services on this route and these are ambitious plans to take forward for the benefit of those who make regular use of the service on this line.”

One would think that all was well—and it was, until October, when Transport Scotland sneaked out the announcement that we are not actually going to get a dualled line between Busby and East Kilbride and that the line will be decarbonised, which may or may not mean electrified. The line from East Kilbride runs into Glasgow, through part of East Renfrewshire and then through the south side of the city. Going from East Kilbride, it is a single line until Busby, apart from a small loop at Hairmyres so that trains can pass each other. Only diesel trains operate on the line, and it is clear that, if we want to get to net zero, we need to tackle such lines.

We also need to encourage people on to the trains. One problem with a single-track line is that, if problems occur, as they do, the trains just stop. If they are coming from Glasgow, they usually go no further than Busby. That is why I, along with the former MSP for East Kilbride, Linda Fabiani, and others, have been pushing for years to get the line dualled and electrified. As members have heard, we got agreement for that, but it has now been torn up, with no consultation whatsoever.

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the report, “A Vision for Scotland’s Railways”, produced for Scotland’s rail unions. (S6O-00498)

What do you think, Dr Fox?

I thank both witnesses for coming. It has been very interesting so far.

I have to praise Dr Fox for some of her work so far, including her book “The Devil is in the Detail: Parliament and Delegated Legislation”, which I was thinking of putting on my Christmas list. However, knowing my family, I will probably end up having to buy it myself. It looks like an absolute bargain, so I will be rushing out to get it.

Morag Ross made a number of interesting points earlier, one of which was about how we as parliamentarians deal with stuff after it has become law. When something has been put through under made affirmative procedure, it is already law, and we scrutinise it as such—as opposed to as something that is not already law. She is absolutely right that there is a tendency for parliamentarians to look at stuff that is already law and say, “Well, it is done; we will just nod it through.” Sometimes, the law has already been overtaken or amendments have been lodged or it is null and void, and so we think, “Well, I’m not going to bother with this.” However, that is not the way it should be, and the purpose of this mini-inquiry is to consider that issue.

In the interests of time, I will not go over the same ground. I am keen to explore solutions as to how we improve things. When the Scottish Parliament debates regulations, they go through this committee, as we have a remit; then to a policy committee—in terms of this inquiry, coronavirus-related regulations go mostly to the COVID-19 Recovery Committee—and then to the full Parliament. When regulations get to the full Parliament, the opportunity for MSPs to debate them is extremely limited, as there is only a minister and possibly one member from each party taking part. There is some very important stuff going through the Parliament—Craig Hoy has mentioned vaccination passports—yet the debate is extremely limited.

Perhaps this is a question for Ruth Fox. You mentioned that, in Westminster, MPs get a 90-minute debate, which we do not get. Is there something there for us in Scotland to look at?