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I am not sure that I necessarily agree with that point, because it was considered and it was part of the evaluation. I reiterate that I wanted the peak fare reduction pilot to be a success, and it was extended not just once but twice.

You will be familiar with the fact that we reckon there was an increase in rail demand at that point of 6.8 per cent. That represented around 4 million extra rail journeys over nine months, of which 2 million were journeys that would previously have been made by a private car. That is in the context of around 5 billion private car journeys annually, and it represents a reduction of less than 0.1 per cent of car-based carbon emissions.

Part of the assessment and the evaluation was to ask people whether they would have previously travelled by car, to identify whether there was a modal shift. That was one of the key points. In fact, if you go back to the original launch of the pilot, you will see that modal shift was clearly set out as one of the main aims. The interesting thing is that since the pilot ended, rail use has increased.

The pilot attracted people to rail to try to reduce their costs, which is why I wrote to every MSP identifying flexipass use and season tickets. We have seen almost a doubling, in fact, of the number of sales of flexipasses and season tickets. Price does have a part to play, but it is a fact that we have had an increase in rail patronage even after the pilot ended.

Was modal shift part of the original intention of the pilot? Yes. Did the pilot achieve the shift that we wanted or desired? Unfortunately, and regrettably, no. However, patronage of rail has increased. We want to encourage more people to use rail, and it is good that more people are using rail.

A 3.6 per cent reduction in car use since 2019 is still a reduction in car use.

We are making changes—

I think that that is an eternal challenge not just for this area of policy, but right across Government. When it comes to capital funding, we are looking forward to receiving the UK Government’s multiyear capital assessment over the summer, which will be helpful more generally.

I will give the example of the funding for bus priority measures, which I am very supportive of. I have explained why that was one of the funds that we had to pause. I deliberately use the word “pause”. Why did we have to do that? When I came into post, I was struck by how long it had taken some local authorities to develop their plans to spend that money. That is not a criticism—I understand that there are planning issues when it comes to activities such as prioritising bus lanes. That funding then had to be paused. However, with regard to the funding that has been allocated to that this year, because the schemes that had been prepared are ready to go, we will be able to progress those. Last year was a very difficult year, but we have tried to bridge that.

That is why the partnership with local government is really important. We know that we are all heading in the same direction when it comes to what we want to achieve. There are schemes that are ready to go because the preparation has been done. It is important that the funding for active travel, in particular, goes directly to local government, because that allows local authorities to build experience and expertise that are transferable. However, until such time as we can provide the certainty of multiyear funding across Government, that area will be a challenge, because a lot of the funding is for new infrastructure.

Once an active travel network has been built, it can be built on further. Local authorities and local communities have a great deal of ambition and enthusiasm in that regard. I visited Clackmannanshire, where work is being done to connect towns. I also visited Milngavie, where a lot of the traditional routes are to Glasgow. People forget that active travel can help people to travel within communities that do not have established bus or train routes. Active travel infrastructure is reconnecting communities, which is good from a societal point of view.

Active travel funding has a big impact on those communities in which it is spent, but we want to provide a bit more certainty. Although I am not able to provide more certainty with regard to multiyear funding at the moment, the move to a common platform and the changes that have been made in relation to the new tier 1 and tier 2 funding for active travel will allow local authorities to plan a bit better. Councillor Macgregor might want to reflect on that.

Do you have to?

This last year is probably the one in which I have had the fullest involvement, as the cabinet secretary, in the preparation of budgets, although I had to manage decisions on some of the budgets that we had to deal with during the emergency measures in the previous financial year.

Transport is a large budget, but a lot of that has, understandably, to be spent on safety issues. We have £1.5 billion for rail, a lot of which has to be spent on the services that we provide under control period 7, with Network Rail providing the infrastructure and ScotRail providing the services. Rail and road safety is absolutely imperative for us, as one would expect from the Government.

One challenge that we have had, which is reflected in the report, concerns short-termism in budgets, in particular with capital spend, where we have applications and so on to go through. I am sure that the committee is well rehearsed on the point that one-year budgets are extremely difficult. It is a challenge for us to provide multiyear funding for active travel, and for bus priority routes and bus infrastructure, which is another good example. We are putting sustainable travel and bus infrastructure funding together, because local authorities can make some sensible decisions around combining active travel and bus planning. If they are going to do something to a route, they can do it once, rather than twice, so that gives them better flexibility. Nonetheless, that multiyear funding is a challenge.

With regard to discretionary spend, I assume that the committee looked at some of the challenges last year, in particular where there were in-year changes to the Scottish Government’s budget. A lot of that came from the UK Government at the time and was outwith our control. That meant that we had to adjust our spend, and it was easier to adjust what was seen as uncommitted spend that had not been legally contracted. Unfortunately—I feel very strongly about this—that meant that there were big challenges for our active travel and bus funding, because that spend was not already contractually committed.

Climate change challenges, by their very nature, mean that we will have to do things that we have not done previously, and do more of them, including on active travel and bus. I welcome anything that the committee can do to help in that regard. As the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, I am very keen to try to embed climate change funding as part of our budget funding more generally. The new carbon budgeting, and other aspects that are coming in, will—I hope—reinforce that position, but it is a challenge.

Thank you, convener.

Yes. Indeed, in this year’s budget, there is £400,000 for that. We are working with an organisation—I am not sure whether it is the Energy Saving Trust—to fund the colleges. It goes back to Colin Beattie’s point, because that provision will also be needed for trucks and heavy duty vehicles. We are funding colleges in that respect; in fact, I have visited Borders College to see its work to train up car technicians to deal with not only traditional internal combustion engine—ICE—vehicles, but EVs, too. The project is good and has been well received.

Moreover, the additional funding that we have provided for the coming year will be for reskilling and upskilling, too. Part of our draft just transition plan for transport, which is currently out for consultation, is about how we ensure that the workforce is skilled up and ready to move into the EV space.

Would I like more funding for the transport budget? Yes. Would I like to use that funding for bus services? Yes. However, there are obviously competing demands.

I think that 74 per cent of public transport journeys are made by bus—is that correct?

In national planning framework 4, there is a focus on environmental sustainability, and the door is open for good decisions to be made by local authorities. There should be more proactive use of section 75 agreements in order to meet local transport needs and ensure integrated transport planning, because people expect to have active bus routes to locations. I do not want to make a particular criticism of the local authority in the case that Stuart McMillan mentioned, but those considerations must be front and centre. That is why partnership working is really important.

I refer the committee to a previous report by the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee. When I was its deputy convener, that committee produced a very good report on local authorities being delivery partners in relation to net zero. The report covered issues relating to planning and other areas, because there needs to be partnership. However, partnerships need work; they cannot be taken for granted. That is why Gail Macgregor and I are working on improving the governance, as recommended in the report.

There is also the matter of the governance arrangements in relation to the work on climate change, which involves the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government, the Acting Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy, Gail Macgregor and key members from local government. Car use reduction is just one aspect of the whole picture, but the holistic picture, which is what I hope we are giving you through this evidence, is that we are absolutely focused on that and are trying to improve it with our partners.