Chamber and committees

The minister does not wish to intervene, and the reason is that, although the SNP might agree with us that those roads and others need to be upgraded, they have become ensnared by the extremist Greens. Maggie Chapman has already declared that she is confident that the A96 project will not be viable for environmental reasons. Anyone who is hoping that Ms Chapman will be overruled will have to wait for the results of what is being described as a transparent, evidence-based review that will not report until the end of next year. The Government is kicking the can down the road to keep happy a party that would take us back to the horse and cart era.

Will the member take an intervention?

We learned today that full lifeline ferry services to Harris and Uist will not be reinstated next summer. The Isle of Harris transport forum says that that could cost the island £3 million a year in lost business and that it wants a meeting with the minister. Will he commit to meeting it and reinstating the full ferry service?

“Carry on”, he says.

Investing in roads is what this is all about, and if we invested more in roads, Mr Ruskell would not have his car broken by potholes.

The SNP might have been taken hostage by the kaftan crusaders opposite, but that does not mean that the people of the north-east and elsewhere should suffer as a result. Those of us who live in the real world know that Scotland needs to keep moving, that our connectivity needs to be improved and that, if we do that, we can, in the words of the Minister for Transport, Graeme Dey:

“improve road safety, journey times, and journey reliability”.

Long, slow-moving lines of traffic, stuck on roads that are not fit for purpose, and belching out fumes for longer than is necessary, do not help climate change and they do not help the economy. By improving existing roads, we can help to tackle climate change. We can build in electric vehicle charging points, hydrogen refuelling stations, and cycle and walking lanes. Mr Ruskell would be delighted by that.

We are way behind where we need to be with the charging infrastructure. The Scottish Government has a target of 30,000 chargers by 2030, but at the current pace it will take until 2066. I wish all members long and happy lives, but I do not think that many of us will be around to see that. If we are serious about climate change and getting people such as me and most other members to ditch our petrol or diesel motors, it is no good just banning the sale of new ones, because there will be plenty of old ones on the road for a good while yet. We need to provide the infrastructure to persuade people that electric vehicles are a viable option.

So far, I have mentioned only the A96. That is seriously unfair, so I will rectify it. Let me move on to the A9—although I would rather not. It is shameful that the main artery from Perth to Inverness is not a dual carriageway. Fergus Ewing knows that. It is not just unfair to people who need to travel to and from Inverness and beyond, it is unfair to businesses that are trading from and with the north. It is often the peripheries that suffer—the north-east, the north-west, the south-east and the south-west—but they are every bit as important as the central belt, and it is not perfect, by any means.

Donald Cameron will talk about the A82 and A83. We have debated them previously to little effect in the way of outcomes. Brian Whittle will talk about the A77, which is the vital link to and from Ayrshire. He will also talk about the A75, which is the seriously lacking artery that links Gretna to Stranraer. It is essential to our connectivity with Ireland and to the economy of the south-west that that road be dualled.

The A74 and M74 are much improved—it is possible to travel north from England up the west quite easily, as long as you do not want to veer off to the left. However, on the other side of the country, the experience on the A1 is not so great. Why are we so petty that we do not even allow Transport Scotland to engage in the union connectivity review, when it could result in money flowing to Scotland to improve roads such as the A1 or the A75? It is quite pathetic.

All Scotland needs to be connected. Some members of the Scottish National Party understand that, and all Conservative members understand that. We need ministers to stand up to the Greens, because better roads can also mean a better environment.

I move,

That the Parliament recognises that driving in most parts of Scotland is a necessity; believes that the Cooperation Agreement between the Scottish Government and the Scottish Green Party Parliamentary Group should not prevent or delay the delivery of any future road projects, and calls upon the Scottish Government to reaffirm its commitment to dualling the A9 and A96 and commit to upgrading the A1, A75, A77, A82, A83 and A90.

Will the minister take an intervention?

I appreciate that you are up against the clock, convener, as the committee always is. I will be as brief as I can be.

The committee will be aware of the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee’s decision on the regulations. I sit on the committee, but I am not the convener, so I cannot report back in that sense. However, the committee took the view that the procedure for bringing in the regulations—they come into effect and then the policy committee looks at them, as it is today—was inappropriate and wrong. On a point of information, we are in discussions with the Government about setting up a series of protocols to determine when the made affirmative procedure should be used. I think that that will be useful for everyone.

If I have time, I want to make a comment that people, if they wish, can respond to. Professor Leitch mentioned his experience of the rugby on Saturday and also referred to football matches. I did not go to the rugby, but I have spoken to people who did, and they said that they were just being waved through. Someone told me that one of the stewards said, “The app’s down—in you come.”

I have been to three football matches since the scheme came into effect, and the checks, such as they were, were cursory. You flash a bit of paper at a steward, it is not looked at in any great detail—it could be anything—and you get waved through. If any club in Scotland did anything different, it would cause absolute chaos. If they were to start scanning everyone they would not get everyone in.

I therefore think that the way in which things are working on the ground makes the scheme pointless. People are not being checked properly and are still getting into events. I have to say that I am comfortable with that, because I cannot see how else you can do it.

When I was last here, I asked about theatres. Ms Sadler told me that all Scottish theatres are exempt from the scheme. That is the case legally, but the picture out there is rather confused. For example, some events at the Usher Hall here in Edinburgh are requiring a vaccination passport to be shown, while others are not. Other theatres seem to be doing their own thing. The Playhouse—

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I seek your guidance. During the debate, Sandesh Gulhane intervened on Liam Kerr. He was interrupted by the Deputy Presiding Officer, who told him to hurry up and ask a question. Mr Kerr was untroubled by the intervention, which seemed perfectly normal to me. Can you advise whether there is now a time limit on interventions and whether they need to end in a question?

The debated is titled “COP26: Action and Ambition”. I fear that we will see little of the former and only warm words about the latter, because that is what we get in SNP Scotland. Just today, we learned that the SNP’s target to meet 11 per cent of non-electrical heat demand from renewable sources by 2020 has been missed by a mile.

Most of the people of Glasgow and the surrounding area will be unaffected by COP26—unless, of course, they want to get into and across the city centre. In that respect, it will cause a big amount of hassle and inconvenience. Delegates will get the five-star treatment and be kept away from the rubbish in the streets and the creaking public transport system, while locals are told to keep their distance for the fortnight.

If anyone wanted to get into Glasgow, there would be little point in driving. They might think that turning to public transport was an option, but not if the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers has anything to do with it. The barons of that particular union have decided that the latest pay offer should not be put to its members and are hell bent on causing chaos—unless they have changed their minds in the past couple of hours.

To strike for the entire period of the conference is irresponsible. They should do the right thing and ditch the strikes. Perhaps if the transport minister did what I have been urging him to do for weeks and got round the table with the RMT, they could be persuaded to tone down the posturing—for that is what it is. They know that nationalisation is coming and they smell blood. We can see through it, so they need to grow up.

After the conference, we need a transport system that is greener. Transport is the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. We all know that we need to decarbonise the way that we travel. It is therefore ironic that delegates to the conference will be ferried around in electric cars charged up at electric vehicle charging points powered by diesel generators. Who are we trying to kid here? Or, if they are lucky, they may get to go on an electric bus.

No.

The coalition of chaos’s programme for government announced plans to remove the remaining 4,400 diesel buses that are currently on the road by 2023. That is a noble and lofty ambition—which they will get nowhere near achieving at current rates. There is £50 million in the pot from the Scottish zero emission bus challenge fund when it will take £640 million to replace those 4,400 buses.

I will be taking part in a mass cycle ride to Glasgow a week on Saturday. People from all parts of the UK are wheeling their way to the city, which leads me on to action and ambition.

If we want to get people out of cars and on to bikes or public transport, that needs to be funded. We do not achieve that by cutting rail services and cutting projects such as the dualling of the East Kilbride line—the member for East Kilbride did not give an opinion on that. That is not how to do it.

A Cycling Scotland survey showed that people would be motivated to cycle if there were more cycle lanes, traffic-free routes and off-road cycle paths, because the main barrier to cycling is feeling unsafe on the roads. Cities such as Glasgow and Edinburgh need to show the ambition of, say, Paris and make themselves bike and pedestrian friendly. We also need properly organised and integrated public transport systems, such as those in London or Manchester.

I am afraid that Glasgow is not miles better on this or anything—rats apart—but the COP26 delegates will not get to see any of that.