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At the last road safety partnership group meeting, which I chaired just a few weeks back, that was one of the areas that our colleagues in COSLA and another member of the group, Colin, spoke about—I am trying to remember his second name, but I will check with our colleagues who work with local leads on road traffic management and update you on that.

I do not want to say that some local authorities do not take road safety seriously, because I think that all local authorities take it seriously, but I think that some local authorities are more organised in how they are managing it and it has a higher profile in terms of how it is viewed within some local authorities.

Another area that the people from road policing are quite keen on is making sure that road safety is seen within the context of community planning partnerships; perhaps, in some areas, it has a higher profile and importance. What is really interesting about the reports from COSLA is that, when its relevant committees have engaged on road safety, there is a great deal of enthusiasm from the local councillors who sit on those committees. I think that there is a real appetite to drive this forward, but you are right about the best practice point.

I am not in a position to say what that best practice is, but collaborative work is one of the things that our SCOTS leads, our local authority leads and our COSLA leads want to do in a supportive environment.

That is not to say that people are not doing the things that they can do. Sometimes it is about the resource and the tension that is put on that, but there is a great keenness to use the funding that we are providing nationally to help them.

Interestingly, we recently appointed someone from Public Health Scotland to be part of the road safety partnership, as road safety is also a public health issue. People often see road safety in terms of construction on the roads, but it is actually about how people behave and how traffic is managed to make a difference. Your points are well made, and I will feed them back to the road safety partnership.

The legislation on LEZs and what the money can be used for is very tight in that it is specifically for air quality and the enhancement of specific areas. That is governed by law, so the money cannot be used for anything at the council’s choice and whim, as some people think. Let us put that one to bed.

Some local authorities, including my own, do not even have powers to reinvest penalty charges into roads. There are different experiences in different parts of the country. There is no magic bullet for road safety, but the point is that everybody can contribute something.

We are also pursuing road policing. There is an important, constructive and challenging report into road policing from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland. The police are changing what they are doing and that will become obvious when that report is published.

The reason why it is important is that local authorities often say that local road policing is not as it has been and they have criticisms of it, which gives them an excuse not to do anything. We are trying to get everybody to do more, and if that happens, we will start to have more of an impact on our roads.

I am actively considering what that will look like. I am not in a position to tell the committee just now, but it will be set out in the climate change plan.

I am not sure that I accept your analysis. There are two aspects. There is what is built into the existing climate change plan and the emissions reductions that we are expecting, which you are familiar with, and then there is what we will do next to deliver on the stretch targets in the Climate Change Committee’s carbon budget. The stretch targets are additional.

A lot of what you reflected on is already built into changes that will be based on demand reduction, which comes in different shapes and sizes. Most of that will be driven by the EV mandates that are reserved to the UK Government, including a shift towards all new cars being electric as opposed to any other type. We agree on that on a four-nations basis, working with the UK Government. The big driver for change in the existing plans comes from the EV mandate. We do not have control of that lever, but we have some input and we work co-operatively with colleagues from across the UK.

You asked what will come next. We do not have control of some of the big issues. Aviation and shipping are challenging areas; we can do certain things, but there are limits to what we can do.

Some 15 per cent of our transport emissions come from HGVs, so we are determined to do additional work on that and have already done a number of things. We have published two iterations of work that was done with Heriot-Watt University on where HGV charging points might be placed. The university has identified a need for 63 of those sites, and we currently have 27. That will give electricity networks and fleet companies an indication that will help them with planning.

It is a big challenge to finance that work, because HGV fleets are expensive and, as we know, most of our HGV fleets belong to small and medium-sized enterprises. That is why we are working with a consortium to identify potential funding routes and why we have our HGV market readiness fund, which is open to SMEs that have fewer than 50 vehicles in their fleet.

The answer is yes. I have given an answer. There is an issue with car use that goes back to your previous point about demand management. If there is a significant shift—more than anyone expected—away from petrol cars to electric ones, the amount that demand management will need to contribute will also change; that is what the Climate Change Committee is telling us.

I am not saying that demand management cannot be part of the mix; there are incentives, too. Indeed, there have been incentives from the UK Government, and we have been looking at second-hand purchase schemes to allow those who are on lower incomes to purchase EVs. There is the incentive side of things, and then there is the demand management side, which will be led by local authorities. However, if, as we are being told, less of a reduction in car use will be required to reduce emissions, because of the use of EVs, the number of cars might actually increase. The context, therefore, is different.

I am not disputing that demand management is one part of the mix, but we should not understate the fact that, in order to go further, we will have to start to tackle some more challenging areas. As I have said, HGVs represent one of the most challenging areas. We know that there is a journey to go on, but we have started in this year’s budget to try to get things moving.

The money for EV charging is not part of that funding—that is separate and has been annotated separately.

We talk about active and sustainable travel because feedback from local authorities suggests that when they plan and design their routes—I am sure that Mr Doris will recognise that an awful lot are under construction in Glasgow—they have to think about not only the cycling routes but the bus routes. The smart thing to do when looking at works on roads, not least to minimise disruption, is to consider what is needed for bus infrastructure as well as for active travel—that is, the traditional walking, wheeling and cycling.

Officials can correct me if I am wrong, because I do not have the exact figures to hand, but that accounts for roughly £168 million of the proposed spend. It is consistent with our budget for last year, not all of which, I recognise, was spent. The fact is that we had a very challenging year; as you will remember, there was an in-year budget by the incoming UK Government, which had consequences. It made our own budget very challenging, and not everything could be spent in that year.

As for the proportions of spend, I am pleased to say that, for 2025-26, £37.5 million of tier 1 funding for active travel has been announced, and we have been able to announce the tier 2 funding for construction-ready active travel projects. All of the active travel parts of the budget have been announced, apart from some design work and certain design elements.

There is funding for bus infrastructure, which I know that the committee was very interested in—

That is still the plan. We have to consider how we can fund the A9 work. There is a proposal to use a mutual investment model to fund some sections, which would involve using revenue from a privately funded model, similar to that which the Welsh Labour Government has used, particularly on roads.

We must work closely not just with Transport Scotland colleagues but with those in the finance and exchequer directorates. The discussions are on-going—in fact, I met the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government to discuss the MIM proposals in this very room just a few weeks ago. I cannot tell you where we are with the final decision, and I will need to take the issue to the Cabinet. We will make the committee and MSPs generally aware of the decision on the use of MIM to fund the work.

On your latter point, I do not underestimate the significance of the Climate Change Committee’s recommendations and advice. It will be interesting to see what the UK Government’s plans are when they come out shortly.

If everybody is driving an EV rather than a petrol car, that will have a different impact on emissions, but we cannot deal with the hypotheticals of a plan for the A96 that does not currently exist. It can exist in part, because the development of some parts of the A96 is further on, but I do not want comment on a road that we have not made any decisions about; to do so would be conjecture.

I think that your expectations of the climate change plan are different to what the climate change plan needs to be. I am not in charge of the climate change plan—

We are expecting the UK legislation before the end of this calendar year, but I cannot tell you when that might happen. It is a complex piece of legislation, but as soon as it is published, we will want to move quite quickly to let you know the timetable. I am just putting it on your radar, because it is a serious piece of work.