Chamber and committees

The cabinet secretary will be aware that the City of Edinburgh Council has the highest pupil teacher ratio in Scotland, which is my greatest concern, alongside changes in pupil behaviour. One of the key bits of information that we are receiving is about primary school teacher levels not being what they are in the independent sector. The Scottish Government and the City of Edinburgh Council are maybe not alive to that impact. I would like to take up the cabinet secretary on the offer about data, because it is important to be on top of that for the next school year.

Finally, I will ask the Minister for Higher and Further Education about one of my favourite topics—it is one of his favourite topics, too—which is the clawback of funding to universities. I have recently visited a number of universities, which have outlined that, if there were to be a new model for clawback—which is on money that has already been given to the sector—they would be in a much better financial space. What sort of review will take place on the different models that are being suggested, especially regarding part-time studying opportunities that could be developed, including in relation to social care and the national health service workforce? Given all the issues that we are acutely aware of with higher and further education finances, that proposal seems to be a positive solution.

Do you expect the review to be published before the recess?

As we have heard, teacher numbers fell by 598 last year. Can you confirm to the committee that the Scottish Government will now not meet its pledge to recruit 3,500 additional teachers?

My next question returns to the free school meals issue. It is important to look at the situation in the round. Having ditched the pledge, the Scottish Government has re-adapted it in recent years. However, a Sunday Mail freedom of information investigation has reported that families whose children are not eligible for free school meals are facing a 20 per cent increase in the cost of school meals. In relation to the cost of the school day, what have the Scottish Government and COSLA done to engage with parents who are not entitled to free school meals in relation to the additional cost that they face?

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I have red lights flashing up on my screen here—sadly, that is very much like the Sheriffhall roundabout.

I thank colleagues across the chamber for supporting my motion and allowing the debate to take place. As those members who were in Parliament in 2018 will know, this is not my first speech on the Sheriffhall roundabout—or indeed on the Edinburgh city bypass; I have been campaigning on the issue throughout my entire parliamentary career.

The Sheriffhall roundabout, for those unfamiliar with it, is the only at-grade junction on the Edinburgh city bypass, and it is a notorious bottleneck where commuters who are heading to work, people who are visiting family members and loved ones and businesses that are transporting goods regularly face gridlock.

A solution, in the form of a flyover to separate local and through traffic, was agreed as part of the 2018 Edinburgh and south-east Scotland city region deal, a £1.6 billion partnership between the Scottish and United Kingdom Governments. With an initial allocation of £120 million, the project promised that there would finally be smoother journeys and safer roads for Lothian and the surrounding region.

Sheriffhall has been steeped in controversy from the very beginning. Forty years ago, when the roundabout was being constructed, many people—including people who worked on the original planning of the road, whom I have met—made it clear that a roundabout was not appropriate for the bypass and would cause congestion.

Seventeen years ago, in 2008, an upgrade to the junction was first flagged as a priority as part of the Scottish Government’s strategic transport projects review. It then took 10 years for the Government to commit funding to the project. In the seven years since that funding was committed, however, absolutely nothing has been done to alleviate the needless waste of time and money that commuters face every day, as well as the pollution that is caused.

In 2020, a Scottish Green Party review brought the little progress that had been made to a screeching halt when it objected on environmental grounds. The Greens have branded the proposed flyover “a spaghetti junction”, but it is unclear whether they think that traffic sitting stationary in traffic jams on the bypass, with drivers now opting to cut through the city centre to avoid that traffic, is better for our environment than cleanly flowing traffic that is confined to the outskirts of the city.

Nonetheless, a public inquiry on the matter in 2023 pushed ministerial approval back even further. A decision was expected a year ago, yet it remains, as the Cabinet Secretary for Transport has said, “under active consideration”. Twelve months without a decision is not consideration—it is dither and delay. Last week, I asked the cabinet secretary whether Scottish National Party ministers would finally commit to the project before the election in 2026. However, after nearly 20 years, and more than £6 million in consultation fees, we have seen no further progress.

The frustration is felt, as I know, by MSPs from all parties who represent the area in Parliament; by businesses in the city and in neighbouring communities; and, as we saw at the meeting of the Edinburgh and south-east Scotland city region deal joint committee just last week, by the commuting public. I know that representatives of all parties who sit on the joint committee are really frustrated, and the committee’s members were—rightly—outraged when Transport Scotland refused even to attend its meeting. Furthermore, the committee expressed its embarrassment at having been made to look ineffectual by ministers who keep delaying a decision on the Sheriffhall upgrade, which is—let us remember—the region’s key flagship transport project.

As a Lothian MSP, I continue to be contacted by exasperated constituents, who cannot understand why such an obvious infrastructure problem has not been resolved. However, it is not only an Edinburgh issue. As my colleagues will confirm, and as the joint committee has highlighted, the A720 is integral to the economy of not only the surrounding south-east region but the whole of Scotland.

I go back to what I said in my previous debate on the subject: Edinburgh and the south-east of Scotland form one of the key growth areas of our economy, and we need to ensure that there is investment in the right infrastructure—in this case, the Sheriffhall junction. Gridlocked trunk roads are bad for the economy and create a poor impression for inward investors and those who want to visit our area. Lothian has the fastest-growing population in Scotland; indeed, it will account for 84 per cent of Scotland’s predicted population growth over the period to 2033. Edinburgh alone is growing at nearly three times the rate of the Scottish average, and its economy reflects that. However, if we want to sustain that growth, we must ensure that our infrastructure is future proofed.

A 2016 report, “Europe’s Traffic Hotspots: Measuring the impact of congestion in Europe”, by INRIX, a transport information company, identified the bypass as the most congested trunk road outside London, with four of the UK’s worst bottlenecks located on the A720. The report predicted that the 455 traffic hotspots in Edinburgh, of which the bypass was the worst, would cost the Scottish economy as much as £2.8 billion by this year alone.

As I have mentioned, the initial budget for the project was £120 million, but, with inflation, it is now likely to exceed that and will reach a figure between £200 million and £300 million. We do not know how much it will cost overall; indeed, my colleague Colin Beattie asked about this last week, and did not get a response. We need to hear that from ministers.

Worse still, £6.4 million has been spent on consultants for designs that, six years afterwards, remain on paper. That is public money—my constituents’ money—-that has been wasted, while the road remains clogged. More than 75,000 vehicles already use the bypass every day, and Transport Scotland’s modelling predicts that it will be being used by 102,000 vehicles a day by 2037.

East Lothian and Midlothian are both home to major house-building projects. As more and more homes are built, the pressure on transport infrastructure will only grow, so delaying the upgrade of the Sheriffhall junction risks making the situation worse for all those involved.

We must not forget that there is also a safety issue to be considered at the heart of this. Sheriffhall’s current design, whereby local and through traffic collide at a single level, is a recipe for danger, and accidents and near misses are frequent. The proposed flyover should separate those flows, reduce congestion and improve sight lines.

I am grateful to the many constituents who have signed up to my campaign and have expressed to me their concerns and ideas. I acknowledge that the Sheriffhall junction is not the only problem on the A720; the entire road is inadequate for our growing capital city, and a wider review is needed. It is clear to anyone who uses the road that we need significant investment at the Gogarburn and Newcraighall roundabouts, too. A truly strategic transport system would also improve the sustainability of transport options as part of that wider investment.

SNP transport ministers have allowed this key transport project to stall. The sad truth is that despite those ministers—many of whom I have met with over the period—saying that the upgrade of Sheriffhall is a priority for Government, it has not been taken forward. Even when the money has been committed and consultations have taken place, the stalling has continued.

I have a lot of time for the cabinet secretary, but I know that members across the chamber will share my frustration at the lack of progress to deliver the upgrade to the Sheriffhall roundabout. I hope that tonight’s debate will get the project back on track and get the upgrade the green light—finally—so that we can take forward this most important strategic transport investment for the Lothian region.

Moreover, I hope that the cabinet secretary, in responding to the debate, can take forward a number of suggestions and provide answers to the following questions. First, why it is taking so long for a decision to be made by ministers, who have had the report for over a year now? Secondly, will she agree to a cross-party meeting to try to get the project taken forward as soon as possible? Thirdly, can she give an assurance that a decision will be taken before the end of the current session of Parliament?

Finally, I thank all those members who are going to speak in the debate, and I look forward to hearing their contributions.

If the project had progressed as part of the city deal, an upgraded roundabout would have opened this summer. There is concern that Transport Scotland is not engaging with the city deal partnership, which is frustrating for people who are actively working on the project, so will the cabinet secretary instruct Transport Scotland to attend the partnership’s meetings in the future?

This week, I launched a campaign so that people across Lothian can make their voices heard about this notorious junction. After 20 years of discussion and the spending of more than £6 million on consultation fees, we are no further forward. Motorists across Lothian have had enough of the delays. Can the cabinet secretary confirm that the project will be given the green light before the next Scottish Parliament election?

That data would be useful. I want to move on to clawback for courses not delivered because I know that is another concern. Again, the Scottish Government is allocating this funding and then asking for it back from the sector. How could that be reformed? What impact does that have? I will go to all the university principals to find out what this year’s clawback currently stands at.

Do you have a figure for the money allocated by the Scottish Government that is then being taken back?

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. I must say that I have found this a frustrating session. We need to understand the human impact of the cuts that we are talking about. As an Edinburgh MSP, I have had people at my surgeries in tears because they are having sleepless nights and are not sure what is happening. The University of Edinburgh is a major employer in the city. We have covered a lot of questions and I do not have time to go back to them all, but we need to see transparency around these decisions for all universities going forward.

I want to follow on from Bill Kidd’s line of questioning about the impact of the cap on the number of Scotland-domiciled students attending Scottish universities. How many students from Scotland are attending English universities and paying tuition fees there who would otherwise be at Scottish institutions?