Chamber and committees

Okay. So you will be looking at things such as the condition of the police estate, and what are, in a lot of cases, crumbling police stations—

Before I move on, convener, I wonder whether other members want to come in.

Okay. As I said earlier, these schemes can use up an awful lot of public money. Is your report going to look at who is responsible for spending that money and developing the schemes?

Will the report look at the number of health boards and the value for money that that represents?

Just one more, actually. It relates to your planned audit on best value in policing, Auditor General, which you are going to do in conjunction with His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland. Our predecessor committee, in its legacy report, said:

“The Committee is strongly of the view that there needs to be a full and comprehensive review of police governance and accountability arrangements.”

Will you look at that, and how will you work with HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland?

Thank you. I am looking forward to seeing that piece of work.

Moving on to something else, I note that you are doing an audit of resilience in flooding. That will certainly be of interest to other members; I know from chatting earlier that Mr Beattie has a case study that he might want to mention, and Mr McMillan has a case study on his patch, too. Indeed, the convener and I have a great interest in the big scheme that is being planned for Grangemouth.

What level of detail will you be going into in that piece of work? Will you be looking at individual schemes such as Grangemouth, for example, which is going to use a lot of public money? How will the work link with your planned work on climate change? Will you be looking at case studies and examples of work that has already been done, and will you be looking at things that you think have worked and things that have not?

The debate has been interesting; I use that word to be generous, because the debate has not really told us anything that we did not know already. We already knew that there are parties in the Parliament that are anti-motorist, and that includes the governing party.

Sue Webber’s motion covers all bases, as did Miss Webber, but there is a lot to say. We have billed the debate as “ending the ‘war’ against Scotland’s motorists”—it can feel that way sometimes.

Before I get to the various points that have been raised, I start by praising the cabinet secretary. At last week’s Public Audit Committee meeting, she was honest enough to admit to me that the target to cut car miles by a fifth by 2030 is dead in the water. In fact, it was never possible, because to do so would mean taking even more punitive measures against motorists than we already have, and it would require an improvement in public transport provision, which is the carrot that we need to encourage people to use their cars less. According to Transport Scotland, public transport use would have needed to increase by 222 per cent. Given that the Government has reintroduced peak fares on trains and is not off the starting line with integrated ticketing, that is not going to happen.

As the Auditor General said of the now-axed car reduction target, there never was a delivery plan. He did not say that the reason for that is that the actions that would be needed to achieve the target would be unpalatable. Our motion calls on the Government to incentivise people to use their cars less, which is entirely right. I do not want to drive everywhere, but most of my journeys are by car, as I have no viable alternative. If I need to get about in Edinburgh, I often use the excellent public transport system, or I walk or cycle. In East Kilbride, where I live, and in the rest of Central Scotland, the public transport system is not so great, as Meghan Gallacher and other members from the region know very well.

I am about to mention Mr Stewart, as he gave an unusually amusing speech and revealed my colleague Douglas Lumsden to be a cheerleader for LEZs. Mr Lumsden is back from his tour of LEZs—that is good.

Members would think that the nonsense would stop there, but they would be wrong. We now know, thanks to evidence supplied by COSLA and Transport Scotland to the Public Audit Committee last week, that Scotland’s largest councils—Glasgow City Council and the City of Edinburgh Council—want to continue to wage war on their citizens, with plans to introduce road pricing. The Glasgow transport strategy commits Glasgow City Council to lobbying the Scottish Government to introduce national road user charging, which would allow for regional schemes. Edinburgh wants to go down the same route, if necessary—and you can bet your bottom dollar that it will consider it necessary. However, that can happen only if we give those councils the power to do so, and we should not.

Scotland is a diverse and very rural country. People need to drive. We should not treat motorists as the enemy, as some in the chamber want to. Cars and other vehicles are essential—let us treat them as such.

Although it is true that transport is the biggest-emitting sector, it is also true that the economy cannot function without it. People and goods need to get about and we should be making it easier, not harder, to do that. That is why it is essential that roads such as the A9 and A96 are fully dualled, and that the M8 is improved, as frustrated driver Meghan Gallacher called for. It is why the SNP’s move to cut the national speed limit on single carriageway roads to 50mph is wrong—the right approach is a local approach. There are some such roads on which driving at 60mph is crazy. The SNP should change those speed limits, but not everything else.

Measures have already been put in place to make life difficult for people. Low-emission zones, which penalise those who cannot afford newer vehicles, are an example. Glasgow went first, started its enforcement in June 2023 and botched it. It was followed by Dundee, Aberdeen and Edinburgh. Liam Kerr has told us in no uncertain terms about the impact of the LEZ in Aberdeen.

Like you, minister, I do not have time.