Chamber and committees

The forthcoming Transport Bill will support our aspiration to deliver a safe, efficient, cost-effective and sustainable transport system for the benefit of the people of Scotland.

Its detailed content is still in development but we anticipate that the Bill will include provisions on obstructive and inconsiderate parking, the regulation of road works and bus services, and smart ticketing. By helping to tackle issues such as congestion and irresponsible parking, we would expect the Bill to be of benefit to all road users, including cyclists.

As part of the Active Travel Task Force work, which I announced in November last year, a review of barriers to better infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists is underway. The Task Force has received written and oral evidence from many stakeholders and will submit recommendations to me by the end of this year.

Transport Scotland works in partnership with local authorities and other partners to keep under review cycling and other active travel projects. Our Cycling Action Plan for Scotland 2017 outlines how we will deliver our vision with monitoring and evaluation as a core outcome.

Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that the Armed Forces, veterans and their families receive the best possible levels of support. We are keen to see the local Veterans First Point (V1P) services succeed and become financially sustainable in the future.

To help the NHS led partnerships as their UK Government LIBOR funding came to an agreed end, the Scottish Government offered all Partnerships interim funding on a 50:50 basis, and continues to fund the V1P Central Team for its network training and governance role. Six of the eight partnerships accepted this matched funding offer for 2017-18. In total this year the Scottish Government will provide £824,591 to support the network.

In addition, the Scottish Government has made further funding offers to all eight Partnerships for 2018-19 and 2019-20 on the basis of a 50 : 50 matched funding arrangement. Those areas which decide not to continue with a V1P service are expected to fulfil their statutory duties and provide services and support to meet the needs of veterans.

My officials at Transport Scotland engage regularly with ScotRail on progress being made to install cycle parking facilities at railway stations. Since the franchise commenced in April 2015 nearly 1,300 additional cycle parking spaces have been rolled out at 44 stations, including Elgin and Inverurie on the Aberdeen to Inverness line. Proposals are currently being developed for additional cycle parking facilities at Dyce, Aberdeen and Inverness station.

ScotRail has also rolled out the Bike and Go hire scheme at 12 stations including at Aberdeen and Inverness station.

Day to day operation of train fleets and how they manage passengers on board rests with ScotRail. They are currently finalising the layout and operational aspects of how on-train cycle storage will be managed to maximise the number they can carry when the 26 refurbished HSTs enter service on Scotland's Inter-City routes next summer. However, Transport Scotland has recently reached an agreement with ScotRail to increase the number of spaces available at intermediate stations from 2 to 4 and with 6 spaces (3 per power car) available for end to end journeys on the HSTs planned to be introduced into service in the latter part of 2018.

The Franchise Agreement requires ScotRail to ensure that rolling stock includes a bicycle storage area with space for storage of at least two bicycles. The HSTs by comparison will now have at least ten cycle spaces.

Cross border passenger services are operated under franchises specified and awarded by the Department for Transport, with the exception of The Caledonian Sleeper service. The Scottish Ministers are entitled to offer advice on the specification of these services (to the Secretary of State for Transport) as they relate to Scotland. But the Scottish Ministers do not have any contractual or financial agreement with any Train Operating Company (TOCs) operating under a DfT franchise.

The new Caledonian Sleeper trains, to be introduced during 2018, will also have enhanced capacity for the carriage of bicycles. Trains to and from each of the five Caledonian Sleeper destinations – Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Inverness and Fort William – will each have space for ten bicycles.

All local authorities are able to bid into the Community Links fund, administered by Sustrans and funded by Transport Scotland, for building cycle paths in both urban and rural areas. Once built, the local authority or other bodies such as The Forestry Commission, Scottish Natural Heritage, the National Parks or Scottish Canals adopt the path and maintenance then becomes the responsibility of that organisation.

In 2017-18, the Scottish Government provided over £3 million pounds to expand and maintain the National Cycle Network, most of which is in rural areas.

The projects in development, other than those already in construction, which will be taken forward by hub North Scotland Limited are:

Lossiemouth Learning Centre, Inverurie Community Campus, Alness Community Campus, Linkwood Primary School (Elgin), St Brendans Community Health (Barra), Isle of Skye Community Health and Badenoch and Strathspey Community Health (Aviemore).

The hub programme supports a long-term planning approach to identify the building needs of the participants in each territory, including the North Territory, to support the delivery of improved community services.

hub North Scotland has a contractual key performance indicator to monitor spend on projects with SMEs, which is achieved through monitoring the value of work packages placed with tier 2 sub-contractors.

For the Elgin High School project, there were 65 Tier 2 work packages valued at £23.22 million. Of the Tier 2 Subcontracts, local sub-contractors (from Moray, Aberdeenshire and Highland) were given the opportunity to bid for 40 work packages worth £19 million, with 18 of those Tier 2 Subcontracts being awarded to local subcontractors, with a total value of £12 million.

In addition, it is understood that some of the Tier 2 sub-contractors have sub-contracted with local Tier 3 and 4 sub-contractors and suppliers but we do not hold further details on that breakdown.

The Scottish Government is supportive of the research Citizens Advice Scotland and Ofcom are doing in relation to this issue. I am also reassured to note that the UK Consumer Protection Partnership, which is chaired by the UK Government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, has agreed work to review existing evidence on parcel delivery surcharging as this is an important strand of work. This is being done with a view to coordinated action by partners to address any consumer detriment, as appropriate and I can reassure you that, for our part, we will seek to ensure that UK Ministers deliver much needed fairness in cases where the regime of charges is discriminatory against communities in Scotland, as we firmly believe that examples of unfairness will emerge from this analysis.

The Scottish Government has no powers to make renewable energy generators declare the amount of community benefit payments committed to or paid out. However to ensure openness and transparency into the process we established a Community Benefit register and encourage all generators to complete when community benefits arrangements have been agreed. The register is maintained on our behalf by Local Energy Scotland and can be found at http://www.localenergyscotland.org/view-the-register/.