Chamber and committees

Convener, I do not really have anything else to ask, although I may jump in later. We will see how it goes.

That is not uncommon. You have just spelled out the difficulties, and I think that reforming the area would help thousands of people not just in Edinburgh and Glasgow but, frankly, right across Scotland, although the situation mainly affects those two cities. I am pleased to hear what you have said and I would be grateful if you could keep us informed.

Let us talk about your work. I was going to ask how you have been getting on since you became chair of the commission, but I think that you have answered that already. You have also talked about how you have been dealing with the pandemic, so I do not really need to go into that either.

In the previous parliamentary session, prior to your appointment, our predecessor committee visited your offices with Lord Pentland as our host. I found the visit really useful, and I think that we got to meet all the commissioners. Would you consider hosting another such visit?

Wherever it happens, such a visit would be useful. Indeed, I found it useful just to hear in more depth about your work and to speak to individual commissioners. After all, they all have their own specialities and different backgrounds. As I have said, I—and I think all the members of the predecessor committee—found the visit really useful.

All my questions have been covered, but I want to go back to my own area of interest that the convener mentioned: tenement repairs. As the convener said, I chaired a working group on the issue, and the recommendations that stemmed from that work have led to your being contacted. Given that this is a personal priority, I wonder whether you can give us any idea of the timescale for such work if you were to take it on. When would it start and how long do you think it would take?

I thank the minister for advance sight of his statement. There was very little in it that was new, although the report makes for interesting reading.

The Scottish Government wants half of diesel buses to be replaced by low-emissions buses by 2023. Bus operators tell me that that target has no chance of being achieved. How, therefore, was that date arrived at, if not on the back of a cigarette packet?

There are problems with getting the charging infrastructure in place. One operator that I have spoken to is using diesel generators to charge electric buses. You could not make it up. What is the minister doing about the infrastructure issue?

Rural buses travel longer distances. That makes charging electric vehicles even more challenging. Will there be any additional support to help rural operators with that?

The report mentions the further issue of getting new buses built. It calls on the Scottish Government to work with bus builders across Europe. That does not excuse using taxpayers’ money through the Scottish ultra-low-emissions bus scheme to buy buses that are built not in the UK nor even in Europe but—probably subsidised—in China. What will the minister do to prevent that from happening again?

Will the minister take an intervention?

I find it extraordinary that a transport minister, speaking in a transport debate, did not take any interventions.

I thank Scottish Labour for bringing the debate to the chamber. It is being held against a backdrop of looming service cuts, on-going industrial action and a forthcoming change of ownership of our rail operator. Today, as we have heard, unions have been protesting outside the First Minister’s official residence, calling on her to stop the service cuts. The RMT’s Mick Lynch says:

“With COP26 just weeks away, it beggars belief that the Scottish Government is happy to preside over massive cuts to rail services, despite this being a sustainable and low carbon form of transport. This will do nothing to make Scotland a ‘Net zero nation’ and will just push more people into cars.”

Mr Lynch is absolutely right about that, but he might want to reflect on the fact that strikes achieve the same thing. It is clear to me that, if the cuts go ahead, they will be here to stay and the direction of travel will not be good.

It is easy to be critical when anything goes wrong on the railways. We have all done it in relation to leaves on the line, the wrong kind of snow, station skipping, fare increases, late trains, no trains, breakdowns and now strikes. There is a lot to criticise, and there always will be, because running railways is a fiendishly complicated business.

However, we have to be honest and say that, although privatisation of the railways led to some improvements and an increase in rail travel, it has not been the roaring success that many hoped that it would be. We should also be honest and say that nationalisation is not the cure-all that Labour and the SNP think that it will be.

The industrial action on Scotland’s railways should serve as a warning to the Government: there could well be more where that comes from. Today’s debate should be about a positive future for our railways; it should not be about industrial strife. That suits some people’s narrative, but not mine. The minister should insist that parties get round the table and accept mediation. Perhaps he can address that point later.

We need to move away from the “private bad, public good” mindset and accept three things. First, we want trains to run on time. Secondly, we need simpler, cheaper fares and easier methods of getting tickets. Thirdly, we need more lines connecting more communities—that means not only reopening old lines but improving what is there. It is nonsense that the largely single-track lines that link Aberdeen, Inverness and the central belt are not electrified, and we need to improve the line beyond Inverness too.

Patrick Harvie tells people to “Take. The. Train”, but that is just not an option for many people, even in the central belt. As members know, the United Kingdom Government is to create a new public body—Great British Railways—which will own the infrastructure, receive the fare revenue, run and plan the network, and set most fares and timetables. Network Rail will be absorbed into that new organisation.

Great British Railways will simplify the current confusing mass of tickets; standardise mobile and online ticketing; and end the need to queue for paper tickets. It will contract with private companies to operate trains to the timetable, on fares that it specifies, in a way that Transport for London uses. I like the TfL model—we should consider it in Scotland. We do not have to do so, however.

We know that the Scottish National Party wants to take Scotland’s rail services into public ownership from next March, but we do not know any of the detail of what that will look like, or have any in-depth explanation of what its proposals—we do not know what those are—will deliver for the passenger. Our amendment calls on the Government to come up with that explanation; the minister can perhaps do that later.

We want to see a green recovery, and public transport should be at the heart of it. That will need investment and commitment; what it does not need is dogma, and I fear that that is where we are headed.

I move amendment S6M-01300.1, to leave out from “supports” to end and insert:

“notes the disruption that the RMT strikes have been having on passengers across the country and calls on the Scottish Government to work to deliver a resolution; further notes the Scottish Government’s intention to nationalise the service in March 2022 and therefore calls for the details and costs of its plans to be published urgently; believes that any operating model must put delivering a reliable and affordable service for passengers at the heart of its aim; notes the work of the Williams Rail Review and calls upon the Scottish Government to consider its recommendations carefully; further calls for the Scottish Government to undertake a review of disused tracks and stations with a view to reopening those that would support local growth and connectivity, and notes that, for many people across Scotland, particularly in rural areas, car travel is a necessity not a choice.”

On that point about getting around the table, can the minister explain further what that is? Is it mediation?

I did not shout up a moment ago, but we are wholly opposed to the cuts. As I will make clear later, my concern is that they will just stay when ScotRail is nationalised, and things will get worse and worse. Does he share that concern?

As you are aware, convener, because you will have read the papers, the instrument deals with where checks can be made on animals. In essence, it would allow checks to be carried out on animals and related products at an appropriate place rather than, as happens at present, at the place of destination of the goods. That sounds not too controversial, but the Scottish Parliament information centre has informed us that no reason has been provided as to why that should be the case. SPICe goes on to say that there has been concern from stakeholders around the issue.

Given that, we should flag up the matter to the lead committee, which I believe is the rural affairs committee—although it has a slightly longer title than that—just to ensure that it casts its eye over the matter. The instrument raises important policy matters, which are not for us to consider, but the rural affairs committee might want to have a look at it. I accept that the negative procedure is correct, but the instrument raises important issues.