Seòmar agus comataidhean

I welcome the fact that the Tories have chosen the cream of the crop of Scottish Green policies to champion in the chamber. Whether that is just blatant opportunism or a stumble towards one-nation Conservatism, I do not know. However, it is clear that the Tories have noticed the popularity of removing extortionate and confusing peak rail fares.

The Scottish Greens listened to rail unions and championed the scrapping of peak fares when we were in government. Rail union members work with passengers every day, so they know how the railway works, how ludicrously complex the fare system is and how it puts off passengers. The RMT has called the decision to reintroduce peak fares “a retrograde step”. ASLEF said that the decision was “a disaster” for workers. I whole-heartedly agree with the STUC, which said:

“Peak fares are a stealth tax on workers which is bad for the climate, bad for our communities and bad for people’s wallets.”

Public transport is a common good. It is at the heart of everyday life. How we get to work and access learning, how we visit our family and friends and how we engage with our communities delivers tangible positive benefits for all. If the Government is serious about its commitments to cutting emissions from the 5 billion car journeys that are made in Scotland every year and to transforming the way that people travel, we need radical investment into making bus, tram and train travel cheaper and easier than taking the car. A robust route map for reducing car kilometres by 20 per cent by 2030 will be vital to that, and I look forward to the cabinet secretary producing that soon.

Nearly 750,000 young people in Scotland now have access to free bus travel, and more than 150 million such journeys have been made in just over two years. The national entitlement card for bus travel goes further than that by offering young people 50 per cent off their train fares, so we are already creating a generation whose first choice is public transport.

However, I say to the cabinet secretary that it takes time to change behaviour. The off-peak fares trial led to an extra 4 million journeys over nine months, and half of them would have been made by car previously. It did not pass the success threshold that the Government set of a 10 per cent increase in journeys, but people take time and need certainty to make changes to their lives. At the end of this month, the only certainty will be that fares will dramatically increase on many rail services.

I need to progress. I am sorry.

Ticket prices for the most popular Edinburgh to Glasgow route will more than double, from £14.90 to a staggering £31.40. That is a step in the wrong direction. It cannot be right that it is cheaper, easier and simpler to choose private cars over public transport.

The Government’s fair fares review recognised that rail fares are extremely complex and act as a barrier to encouraging a modal shift from car to rail. Simplification of fares and tickets is key to encouraging people on to public transport, and the off-peak all-day scheme was a great start to that. Returning to a complex picture of multiple ticket prices sends us back in the wrong direction and risks passengers abandoning rail altogether and getting back on the road again. We might also see a return to overcrowding on either side of the peak fare timetable, as passengers scrabble to avoid eye-watering prices, leading to a poor customer experience, which would further fuel frustration and a decline in the use of rail.

If passenger numbers go in reverse because of the decision to bring back peak fares, ScotRail’s fare box income will plummet. The cabinet secretary will then have no option but to finally scrap peak fares permanently. In that context, the Scottish Greens are content to back the motion and the Labour amendment in today’s debate, and I look forward to reflecting on members’ comments in my closing speech.

Are there any other thoughts on that?

I will go back briefly to Emily Nurse’s points about the interim targets for 2030 and 2040. There was a great sense of loss, particularly among people in the climate movement, about the interim 2030 target being, in effect, dropped. Obviously, it is now being replaced by a budgeting mechanism. Do you have thoughts on how it can still be articulated? It was about getting three quarters of the way to net zero by 2030. Even if that is not now possible, albeit that we might be three quarters of the way there by 2032 or 2033, people are perhaps still looking for a kind of metric—a measure—although, obviously, the actions are far more important than the targets. Do you have thoughts about how that could be articulated in the bill, if that is not already done?

Thanks for that.

I will stay with you, Emily. I think that the majority of the advice that you provide next spring will be on the seventh carbon budget, which covers the period from 2037 to 2042. How much more advice does the Scottish Government need right now to prepare for a plan that leads up to that seventh budget? Do you and your colleagues need to bring forward a lot of new work to enable the Scottish Government to produce those early first budgets and a climate change plan for that initial period?

Graeme Roy, do you want to come in?

Emily Nurse, I put that question to you.

Do the witnesses from the SFC and the IPPR think that the Scottish Government needs more information in order to devise the first carbon budget? Is any crucial information lacking?

In many ways, it feels like we have been looking at only half the picture. We have been looking at climate and carbon but we have not been looking in sufficient detail at the action, the planning and the fiscal environment to deliver those actions.

Does the way that the bill is structured provide enough time between the CCC offering the technical advice and the Scottish Government—in a chicken-and-egg way—then having to devise a carbon budget that includes all the considerations about what actions are necessary and whether they are affordable to deliver? Is there enough time allowed in the bill to work up that detail, which is essential to our staying on track? Should a specific timeframe be set out in legislation? Is there enough time at the moment?

Emily Nurse, do you have any thoughts on the process post the CCC advice?