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That would be a desirable outcome. I will not comment on two negotiating bodies when there is a live negotiation going on.

No, you did not. It actually started with your predecessor.

Well, I was not the convener at the time of that inquiry. For the record, I need to recognise that, although I took part in all the evidence sessions, I was not involved in the final drafting of the ferry report, which was a very good report. A lot of the recommendations in that report are now evident in the award that has just been presented. We sent the committee a letter explaining that, which went through, point by point, some of the things that the committee recommended, which have now been given effect.

I have said this before and I will say it again: I strongly believe in the Parliament’s committee system. That report provides a good example of where a number of committee recommendations have been realised in the delivery of the ferries contract.

There is a serious issue right across Government in that we need to make sure that all pension schemes run by public bodies are in a good state. I worked in pensions a long time ago, and I merged some of the first organisations back in the 2007-09 period. With any governance and with any organisation, my advice has always been to get pensions sorted for everybody, because the security of employment and pensions is vital for any organisation. Especially when an organisation is busy procuring a third of our fleet and doing extremely good work in negotiating Ardrossan and other aspects, you need to make sure that its staff are looked after and that you give them confidence in the future.

I am content if the regional transport partnerships are content. That is basically my answer.

National transport strategy 2 was launched by one of my predecessors—I acknowledge Mr Matheson at this point. It is an important document that brings the sector together. We had a transport summit recently, with a focus on the value of transport document that I just referred to. What was quite striking and remarkable was the number of people from across the sector—operators, regional transport authorities and local authorities—who said that NTS2 pulls everything together and gives everybody guidance on what they need to produce. There are individual projects in NTS2, but Ms Lennon outlined, quite correctly, the general approach.

On bus and train, we are seeing an increase in uptake. That five-year period covers the Covid pandemic period, and some modes have returned more rapidly than others. I think that train came back more quickly than bus. Bus had been a problem, particularly for older people, but we are currently dealing with pressures on the concessionary scheme, with older people starting to come back to bus, which puts pressure on our budgeting because it is demand led. We can tell from uptake that the picture has improved. It is wrong to say that there is a problem of bus not returning to pre-Covid levels, because in some cases it has, and we will start to see reports from this year that we are on that trajectory. Abolishing peak rail fares is part of encouraging more people who have not used rail before to do so. Working with our operators, we have done well with recovery there.

I absolutely agree about road safety. I have concerns about that, and, in difficult times, I have managed to increase the budget for road safety nationally and locally. There are differences in relation to local fatalities, and we are concerned about trunk road fatalities. I get reports on every single one of those deaths, and it is salutary to remind ourselves of the issues. We have managed to go back to deploying our advertising budget.

Speeding is an issue. Another of my serious concerns is fatalities in which people have not been wearing a seatbelt. In a collision, if you are not wearing a seatbelt, you are more likely to die. Well over 20 per cent of people who die on our roads were not wearing a seatbelt. That, in and of itself, is an issue.

We are also tackling the issue of distracted drivers. I chair the road safety programme—I know that this is quite a long answer, but we can provide the committee with more detail on the programme’s actions if it is interested. We have researchers working between Transport Scotland and Police Scotland to home in on what the issues are. We are doing a lot of work co-operatively with motorcyclists on road signage at particular bends and how motorcyclists should approach them. That is one of the successful elements of the programme.

We are also identifying when and where issues arise. August is an interesting time. It is outside our school holidays, but there is good weather. That can create issues, so how do we tackle them? There are a range of issues. A lot of people think that road safety is about the condition of the road, but there are very few instances where that is what led to a fatality. Often, it can be driver behaviour, which is difficult to talk about when people’s families are grieving.

Distracted driver behaviour is one of the things that we have real concerns about. We are trying to address that with some of the camera work and other developments that are coming into place. We are also developing, with Police Scotland, the digital evidence sharing capability—DESC—programme, which I know a number of members are interested in. Dashcam footage can be uploaded, to help people to learn about different experiences. That issue is getting my and my colleagues’ full attention.

Clearly, local roads are the responsibility of the local authority. Therefore, it is their responsibility to identify whether there are particular areas of concern and to decide how they deploy their resources and funding. Local authorities know that, if they have concerns about excess speeding in a particular area, for example, they can ask for that to be monitored for a period. We need to make sure—and we do make sure—that local authorities know about that, because they do not necessarily make use of that facility.

Local junctions can often be a concern. From your experience as a planner, you will be familiar with the designs of different junctions and how local authorities can use them. That is where some of the national funding for road safety can help.

Further, the 20mph speed limit is being rolled out in our cities and towns and elsewhere across Scotland. That will help to make a difference—it improves survival rates. You are seven times more likely to survive if you are hit at 20mph than if you are hit at 30mph. We are supporting local authorities in that roll-out. Those are all things that we can help local authorities with, but they have to identify what they need.

We have a very good relationship with the Scottish Collaboration of Transportation Specialists—SCOTS—which is the local authority transport leads group. The transport leads also sit on the national road safety partnership, and we work very closely with them to share experiences and good practice. It is fair to say that local authorities take different approaches. We are trying to bring best practice together, but that has to be led by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. I am pleased that the transport lead, Councillor Gail Macgregor, now attends the road safety partnership. COSLA and SCOTS are very much part of this work, which is why I say that it is a partnership. We cannot do everything for local authorities in their areas, but that is the type of thing that can be done.

It is important to understand that the projects are locally led by the regional transport partnerships, including the one relating to the Glasgow metro.

Mr Ruskell asked whether it is “on track”, but there was never a timeframe as to when it would happen.

I am not in a position at this time to tell you how long that will take. I would be making it up if I did, and I do not do that.