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I agree with a lot of what Alexander Stewart says, but we did build a third bridge over the Forth, and we built the Borders railway, after decades of dither and delay by the UK Government. Although I am prepared to criticise my Government, it is not the case that it has done nothing in transport that is worth while. That is very unfair.

This point might be left field, but I have never understood why the park-and-ride facility is on the north side of the Sheriffhall roundabout and not on the south side. It means that people, when parking their cars, need to go around the roundabout to the park-and-ride facility before going into Edinburgh. The park-and-ride facility at the Penicuik end is on the south side of the road. The cabinet secretary might not have an answer to that, but I would like to know whether the facility could be moved.

I congratulate the member on securing the debate.

Way back before the Sheriffhall roundabout was born, City of Edinburgh District Council rejected, pre-construction, the proposal for an inbuilt underpass to future proof the roundabout, advising that it was not worth the cost. How much easier it would have been had that proposal gone ahead—but that was then, and this is now.

It is some considerable time since I first raised my concerns about the Sheriffhall roundabout, which is a major link into and out of the Borders and Midlothian by way of the A7. It is also used by cars travelling eastwards to the Borders and the A68, although there is now, off the city bypass, a slip lane to the A68. Incidentally, Midlothian is one of the fastest-growing areas in Scotland; one need only take a trip around it to see the number of homes.

For more than 20 years, I have, as an MSP, used the roundabout regularly in travelling to and from my constituency, and I have found that, during those 20-plus years, traffic has worsened, with long tailbacks earlier and earlier in the day.

In 2018, the Edinburgh and south-east Scotland city region deal, to which Miles Briggs referred and which had funding from both the UK and Scottish Governments, put forward a proposal for grade separation, with a flyover across the Edinburgh city bypass, taking the A702 north, at a cost at the time of £120 million.

I traced my first question on the subject back to 2017, and another to 10 November 2022, when the then minister responsible confirmed that the project was progressing, and that the public inquiry was set for 30 January 2023. In a later debate, I stressed the issue of the unsafe conditions for cyclists and pedestrians, as the roundabout is known to cyclists as the “meat grinder”. Indeed, I have rarely seen a cyclist navigating the roundabout—and no wonder. Heaven help us if there were to be an accident at the roundabout; apart from human tragedy, we would have traffic seize to a stop in all directions on all the feeder roads into Edinburgh and beyond.

Although the delay was due in part to the 2,773 objections that were lodged, I found it—and still find it—extraordinary that the Greens have always opposed the improvement. Just recently, Lorna Slater, speaking on behalf of the Greens on 15 January this year at the Economy and Fair Work Committee, referred to it as “a dinosaur”, as she considered that it conflicted with Scotland’s climate goals, such as the aim to reduce car travel by 20 per cent.

The Greens’ criticism is misplaced. It is, apparently, no matter to them that buses from the Borders and Midlothian, and the lorries that are delivering goods to and from those areas, use that route and the roundabout because they have to do so, as the Borders railway cannot carry freight. That is not to mention the police, ambulance and fire and rescue services travelling on those roads. Indeed, in the proposed design, there was to be—and there will be—a cycle and pedestrian walkway, which I think is actually very green. Instead, we have lines of vehicles spurting out exhaust fumes as they queue for the light sequences to change. That is hardly good for the environment, and hardly green.

The public inquiry has concluded and, although I know that the Scottish Government remains committed to its £120 million contribution to the project that was announced in 2018, it remains a fact that the independent report has been in the Government’s hands for more than a year and there has been—to some extent—radio silence.

These are my concerns. Delay is annoying enough, but there is also the inevitable inflation of costs for which the Scottish Government will be liable. The £120 million contribution is fixed; it is predicted that the cost will possibly be £200 million, but, going on the cost of past capital projects, I really think that that is optimistic.

So, where are we with the project? I support Miles Briggs and others, and if the Government could give us—and my constituents—an idea of progress, I would like to hear it before I retire next year. Thank you.

On a point of order, Deputy Presiding Officer. Despite the technician’s endeavours, which I applaud, I have been unable to vote. I would have voted no.

I am not surprised that Miles Briggs has launched such a campaign—had he not, I would probably have done so myself. My constituents in the Borders and Midlothian have to use that junction all the time—as do I, because it connects to the A68 and the A7 in my constituency. I add my own concerns about the delay to the project going ahead, because it will only become more costly the longer that the delay continues.

Will the member take an intervention now?

I will be extremely brief. Mr Rowley and many other members of the chamber work very hard as MSPs, as do I. They are really decent people who work for their constituents. Do you not think that the media holds some blame for the way in which we are presented given that most of us are very hard working?

I have two comments. First, when we had our usual suspects, that certainly was not because of lack of effort by me, committee members and officials to have other people come in. We could not really compel people—we can, but nobody has ever used that power. Secondly, the private briefing that I referred to was very important because it allowed vulnerable people to speak off the record. They were free to say what they did. Although we could not directly refer to what they said, it was at the back of our minds when we were dealing with oral evidence in a formal capacity later.

I will return to the report. I very much welcome the debate and assure Jackson Carlaw that I will be wearing sufficient bling tomorrow. It is not known for me not to be noticed, if that is what it takes to get a word in.

This debate is particularly pertinent and serious, given that we see less and less engagement with the democratic process. A new low was reached at the latest UK election, when just 59.7 per cent of those who were entitled to vote did so, and Labour has an overwhelming majority with just 34 per cent of that 59.7 per cent. The first-past-the-post system also distorts the voting in the UK elections. The situation with council elections is worse; sometimes, just around 25 per cent of those who are entitled to vote do so.

In passing, I say to Stephen Kerr that public engagement and accessibility is certainly better here than in Westminster. It is not perfect here, but it is a good sight better.

One looming culprit in the erosion of democratic engagement is the ever-present social media, where there is little accountability for content and where serious political issues can be, and are, reduced to a Twitter exchange. That cannot, in any shape or form, be defined as a debate. Whatever one thinks of the Beeb, it at least has to aim for journalistic standards.

I here make the pedantic distinction between misinformation and disinformation. The former is information that is inaccurate or wrong when that is not necessarily deliberate, whereas disinformation is deliberately misleading—you cannot take the teacher out of me. Let us not muddle them but, instead, call something a spade when it is one.

The report by the Parliament’s Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee—what a title—takes on the tough issue of how to engage with the public at large, which is something that we have been trying to do in this establishment for many years. This Parliament particularly does that through its committees. I have convened four committees, convening justice twice and health twice, and I know how hard it can be through initial calls for evidence, and certainly through calls for oral evidence, to avoid having the usual suspects as witnesses. I do not mean that disparagingly. It is merely shorthand, and we do need to hear from chief executives of national health service boards or from the chief constable of Police Scotland, but it is difficult to hear from what one might term ordinary members of the public.

I agree that it is best and the interaction will have most import if the focus is narrow. That can be achieved through private briefings.

Certainly, if I can just finish this particular part of my speech.

That can be achieved through private briefings, one of which I chaired when I was convener of the justice committee and we looked at the impact of the court process on victims of rape and sexual assault. It was harrowing, but it also allowed the participants to expand on the difficulties they had to overcome in giving evidence to the court. I recall one participant stating that she just wanted her day in court. She was quite taken aback when I gently corrected her and said that she did not want only her day in court but her day in court and a conviction. I gently asked her to consider whether it would be worse to have that day in court followed by a not proven or not guilty verdict. That difficult exchange could have happened only in the security of a private briefing where we could speak freely and it was a two-way street.

I will take Mr Mundell’s intervention.