Chamber and committees

I have been reading about the requirements for a significantly greater level of support at registration stage than is normally required. It seems that there are additional burdens there, which may not be fair. What is your feeling about that?

A lot of that is helpful. We would love to have you out in Hamilton to listen to residents. Taking the bus away in 2020 during the pandemic was a cynical move, and it needs to be looked at afresh. I appreciate that the issue does not sit entirely on your desk; it needs a collaborative approach.

I think that we all welcome those powers for local government, but the resource has to match them. The community bus fund, which is worth £74 million from the Scottish Government, is for all local authorities. Glasgow City Council says that taking control of a bus operator would cost it more than £200 million, so is that £74 million enough in your assessment? Is that being looked at? What more can be done financially to support local authorities?

My questions are also about the community right to buy. Cabinet secretary, can you explain why the approval rate for late applications is 42 per cent, which is lower than the 73 per cent rate of approval for timeous applications? Are the additional requirements for communities making late applications proportionate and necessary?

Indeed. Thank you.

That is really helpful. I agree that there is a wider context. However, I want to bring it back to rail staff. It is really good to hear that there are now more than 30 travel safe officers. They have an important role. I hope that that will help to improve public confidence and get people using the rail network in greater numbers. However, the rail unions, including the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers—I am a member of the RMT parliamentary group—have raised concerns about their members, who are very much on the front line of this. What will you be doing to look at their safety and wellbeing and how they feel about the issue? As you know, a lot goes unreported and we do not always get the full picture. As we deploy more and more workers to try to deal with the issue, they might be the ones who have to absorb a lot of the abuse. What specific actions will be taken to protect them and to make sure that there is a zero tolerance culture across the rail network?

That is correct, convener—it is my turn.

Good morning, minister and officials. I welcome Mark Ruskell asking about the ticket offices, and your reassurance, minister, that there will be no closures in Scotland. I am speaking later today at the annual general meeting of Disability Equality Scotland, as its patron—that is in my entry in the register of members’ interests—and I know that people there will also welcome that reassurance.

You said that opening hours are an operational matter for ScotRail. Is it your view that you would not want to see any reduction in the capacity and availability of staffed ticket offices?

I am sure that we will return to that issue. Thank you for those updates.

How important is bus travel to the Government meeting its target to reduce car kilometres by 20 per cent by the end of the decade?

That was helpful. We all need to get on the bus a bit more often.

If we put aside the pandemic, which is not easy to do, we can see that there has been a decline in bus passenger numbers. That trend pre-dated Covid, and is despite the fact that the Scottish Government and partners have done a lot of pro-bus investment and made a lot of pro-bus policy. What explains that decline in bus patronage in Scotland?

The issue has a lot of strands. You have touched on behaviours and attitudes and the importance of affordability and alignment. I want to look at accessibility. Many of us support the expansion of free bus travel to under-22s, but what about communities where the availability of bus services has reduced? You would expect me to mention Hamilton and the X1 service, which I have written to you about recently. What about people over 60 and those who are under 22 who desperately want to get on a bus but for whom the service is no longer there? We have heard, including when you were a member of the committee, about communities feeling that they are now bus deserts, because there simply is not a bus to get on.

You probably have one of the toughest jobs in Government, and we all wish you well, but what is being done to look at the areas where the alignment is really out of kilter? We have free bus travel, but the buses are disappearing. Companies are saying that there are big shortages of drivers. There are big factors, including post-Brexit issues. Are we getting everyone round the table to look at the matter in a joined-up way?

When I speak to people in my local community in Hamilton, they just cannot understand why an express bus service like the X1, which took people from a major town such as Hamilton to Glasgow, no longer exists. That is at a time when people are being asked to leave the car at home, to choose active travel and to think about what they are doing in terms of the climate and nature emergencies, but the infrastructure and services that people need are simply not there.