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Does anyone else have a view on that?

How big a priority is that? You said that discussions are on-going, but from the point of view of passengers, you are dispatching trains when you could fill up those trains more and generate more income for the sector.

I appreciate that, convener.

My question is about the infrastructure and how you keep it going. There was a comment earlier about the £400 million that is being invested in making the infrastructure climate resilient. At the weekend, I met a train driver, and he was saying that, when you carry out repairs and maintenance on the lines and the areas beside them, landslips can happen. For example, when you remove trees, it removes the resilience of the land beside the railway. I just wanted to flag that up.

Moreover, the rail unions have said that there has been a lack of investment in on-going infrastructure maintenance, and staff are being laid off by the major subcontractors. There seems to be a disconnect between the huge amount of money that you are putting in to make the network resilient and the fact that staff are losing their jobs. What are you doing to keep the set of skills and the knowledge that those staff have and ensure that the long-term future and safety of the rail infrastructure are not going to be compromised, because of short-term savings? The two things feel as if they are at odds with each other.

The other joined-up thinking issue concerns not tickets but timetables, in terms of linking different types of services. How can you make that information accessible to people? What work is being done with the different sectors, so that people have opportunities to use different services?

My questions follow on well from that discussion. The issue is not only about ticketing; we also need to think about co-ordinating timetables, particularly when it comes to access to rail services. In our session with the previous panel, we spent a lot of time talking about how delayed and slow bus services are. Trains are a lot faster, but there is the issue of how people access stations. Could more be done by way of co-ordination across rail and bus services that would work to up the number of people who use the railways in Scotland?

Thank you.

Okay—that is good. I will feed that back.

The issue that I was raising about chopping down trees was not about the principle—after all, they do get too big—but about the resilience of the infrastructure afterwards and ensuring that it is not vulnerable to extreme weather. I must be unlucky, because I have had several train journeys cancelled, either because of landslips or because electricity has not been available for the train at the time. For me, there is definitely a resilience issue that needs to be addressed.

It is just a quick question on the use of the under-22s scheme. What work is the sector doing to keep those passengers on the bus when they hit 22? I know that quite a lot of young people are not having driving lessons now because they are really expensive. What is the sector doing to market the opportunity to people who have left further or higher education or are in employment? Are you doing partnerships at regional levels with employers to persuade young people to stay with the bus? Is there an opportunity not only to reduce emissions but to generate more income for the sector?

Paul, is there an opportunity for doing that right across the country with the bus sector, the business community and the public sector?

This has been a constructive discussion. The issue for me is around timescales and action. It is about what will happen after our discussions today to ensure that public sector bodies are more engaged in relation to putting homelessness up the list of priorities, and to ensure that we have the appropriate accommodation, where and when it is needed.

Underpinning a lot of our discussion today is the issue of homelessness prevention. We all know from our constituents that the effects of pressure and stress on health before someone becomes homeless are huge, that they rocket once somebody becomes homeless, and that the recovery process is huge. Mark Griffin made points about that, and those points have been made by colleagues across different parties.

Graham Simpson made a point about students. I have also met Slurp, of Edinburgh University Students Association, which is very involved in the cross-party group on housing. It is a now issue for students, not a theoretical issue, because it is impacting on their studies now. The constructive nature of this discussion is therefore important.

Mark Griffin referred to work in relation to GPs and the pilot scheme, which all needs to be pulled together.

Legislation is important in giving legal duties, but we need to see what action is going to be taken in relation to the partnership working that Bob Doris mentioned. It is about the culture of getting moving on this.

On the point about prisoners, I have been to a prison in my region and I know that it is moving to talk to somebody who is about to be released. They have served their time, and they honestly do not know what is going to happen the week after. That makes them vulnerable, which is not good in terms of people moving out of the justice system and on to proper jobs and employment.

There is strong agreement here, which I hope that the minister will pick up on. I therefore want to withdraw amendment 1080. However, the minister needs to listen to all of us, cross party. We need action on this issue. There is time between now and stage 3, which gives us scope to come back with detailed amendments if we are not happy. However, I hope that the minister will work right across the public sector, because the human cost as well as the economic cost of homelessness is massive, and this bill is an opportunity to address it.

Amendment 1080, by agreement, withdrawn.

Amendments 1065, 1001, 1081, 1021, 1082, 1002, 1066, 1083 and 1084 not moved.

Amendment 1049 moved—[Paul McLennan]—and agreed to.

Amendments 1085 and 1091 not moved.

Section 41, as amended, agreed to.