Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government intends to dual the A9 between Perth and Inverness by 2025. Design work is progressing well with the statutory process underway for eight of the remaining nine schemes. We are currently on track to deliver the dualling programme within the £3bn estimate already identified. The A9 Dualling - Case for Investment, published in 2016, reports a benefit to cost ratio of 1.12.

In terms of the A96 Dualling, the Scottish Government intends to dual the A96 by 2030, subject to the satisfactory completion of the statutory process for each section. At this early stage of development it is difficult to give an accurate estimate of the cost of the dualling programme. However, it is estimated that the cost of dualling will be similar to that for dualling the A9 and be in the region of £3 billion. The published A96 Dualling Strategic Business Case reports a benefit to cost ratio in the range of 1.0 – 1.25.

As the design and preparation of both programmes proceed, a more detailed estimate for each section of the programmes will be developed.

The Scottish Government has not received a financial claim from Caledonian Sleeper relating to industrial action by the RMT union in 2019.

Section 16 of Volume 2 of the Invitation to Tender, published on Transport Scotland's website, set out requirements for Environmental Management, including arrangements for minimising the generation of greenhouse gases and carbon release. The operator is also required to co-operate with Transport Scotland on the publication of emissions information during the term of the contract.

Until the new contract is awarded, this is a live procurement and there is a limit on what information can be provided at this time. A redacted version of the signed contract will subsequently be made available on Transport Scotland's website.

The ScotRail franchise agreement contains a number of obligations placed in terms of delivery and enhancement of catering services. Responsibility for the delivery of these, including any relevant risk assessments, lies with the franchisee not the Scottish Government. However, the franchisee’s delivery of these obligations is monitored and, where it fails to meet them penalties can be applied. ScotRail has recruited new catering staff who are now in post and they have given assurances that they expect this to improve catering services on key routes.

Left luggage facilities at stations are not covered in the ScotRail Franchise Agreement.

The Scottish Government has no plans to further increase the speed limits for HGV’s in Scotland at this time. However, we are awaiting the Department for Transport publishing the full 3 year report into the evaluation of the HGV speed limit increase in England and Wales later this year. It is our intention to re-examine the evidence once the report has been published and this will be critical to understanding the impact of the HGV speed limit change on driver behaviour, vehicle speeds, economy, environment as well as casualty and collision reduction. Our assessment will also consider the evaluation of two reports published on Transport Scotland website in July 2018.

Serco Ltd are the preferred bidder for the next Northern Isles ferry services contract. The current contract has been extended to 31 January 2020. The Green Travel campaign will be launched during the next contract set to commence on 1 February 2020. The operator of the services will fully engage with passenger groups and employees, and their trade unions, as it currently does during major campaigns. This will continue throughout the next contract.

Transport Scotland is unable to provide a breakdown of the timetable adjustments without first having a detailed timetable study undertaken.

Transport Scotland is confident that the current infrastructure can support the operation of up to three 28-container trains on a normal day, but consideration would need to be given to running some of these trains overnight – providing the industry could agree to amend the normal overnight route closure times used for maintenance and engineering work.

As set out in the Government’s answer to question S5O-03467, the actions we are taking to address climate change are set out in our Climate Change Plan, published in February 2018.

The Plan explains our policies and proposals for meeting the annual carbon reduction targets up to 2032. We have committed to updating that Plan within 6 months of the Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill receiving Royal Assent, to show how we will meet the more ambitious targets given in the Bill. In doing so, we will build on the outputs from The Big Climate Conversation, in which over 2000 people have participated so far, the interim report we have requested from the Just Transition Commission, and the forthcoming report on progress in Scotland from the UK Committee on Climate Change.

All answers to oral parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/report.aspx?r=12228 .

There has been no discussion with UK Government regarding proposals to bring Ferguson Marine into public ownership to secure the jobs, complete the vessels and develop a long term future for the yard.