Seòmar agus comataidhean

Go ahead.

I am reading the submission from the Institute for Public Policy Research in Scotland. It says that MSPs will have to decide to approve the carbon budgets

“effectively in ignorance of the policies they would then have to support in order to see the budgets delivered.”

The lack of information is concerning, and it perhaps plays to those, such as Mr Lumsden, who want to weaken ambition for the carbon budget, rather than people such as me, who want to strengthen that ambition.

No climate change plan—not even a draft one—has been submitted. We have only an incredibly thin indicative statement. The Government has rejected the advice of the UK Climate Change Committee on livestock and on peatlands, and policies on heat and on traffic reduction have been dropped. There is no energy strategy as yet. When it comes to Peterhead power station, there is uncertainty about the existing power station, let alone the prospect of a second one.

There are a lot of unknowns here and, quite frankly, I do not know whether this carbon budget is ambitious enough, because it lacks the transparency that successive committees of this Parliament have called for in advance of setting targets, objectives and aspirations around climate change. Although I will not vote against the budget, I find it very difficult to vote for it, because, without that detail, I do not know what it is that we are voting on at this point. I will therefore abstain.

Would the member reflect on the fact that that has been a failure of the privatisation of the rolling-stock companies? They have kept trains running for far longer than they should have done—those trains should have been scrapped far earlier and replaced with a modern fleet.

We have had a pretty passionate debate that has certainly given all the railway geeks in the chamber their six minutes of fame, although Sandesh Gulhane will not be replacing Michael “choo-choo” Portillo any time soon. Kevin Stewart spoke passionately about the campaign for rail in the north-east and Christine Grahame spoke passionately about the Borders railway and next steps there. We have heard about Winchburgh and Newburgh and about new lines in the Highlands.

The cabinet secretary is right to underline the successes that we have had in opening new stations: there are 25 stations on four new lines. I was in Levenmouth earlier this year when the rail line was reopened. It was a hugely emotional day that spoke to the perseverance that Claire Baker referred to as that community built a case for the reopening of the Levenmouth line. It was an incredible day and I am pleased that the number of services has now gone up to two every hour, which is fantastic.

Sue Webber has a point. I never thought that I would say those words in the chamber, but she has a point about how we plan for new or reopened rail stations. The case for the reopening of individual rail stations does not feature anywhere at all in the strategic transport projects review, which is Scotland’s big strategic plan for transport. Rail station reopenings are treated on an individual, case-by-case, basis and not seen as being strategic, even though they are part of a network.

A number of years ago, the Greens successfully made a case to the Scottish Government that we need a seed fund for local rail development to help communities put together business cases for station reopenings. I am pleased that Newburgh, St Andrews and other communities around Scotland have benefited from that, but there is a frustration that it takes years and years to get through the Scottish transport appraisal guidance process, to engage with Transport Scotland officials and regional transport partnerships and to build a case so that communities can become part of that bigger network. I am heartened by what the cabinet secretary said about Newburgh and a decision being made fairly soon, but that has been years in the making and community stamina is an issue.

We have had a few contributions on rolling stock. I quite enjoyed Richard Leonard’s reflection that the rolling stock companies are, in effect, an oligopoly of extractive capitalism. We need to pay a bit more attention to the ASLEF report. The Government has the opportunity here, and in a number of other areas, to issue green bonds that would reinvest the revenues in our public transport system. I note that Caledonian Rail Leasing Ltd is owned by foreign companies. It generated £1.3 billion-worth of dividends between 2012 and 2018, which were largely removed from this country and invested elsewhere. Other models are possible; other models are normal elsewhere. Transport for London invested directly in the trains that were needed for Crossrail. Of course we need full borrowing powers, as Emma Roddick set out, but we can also use the powers that we have.

On the passenger experience, a number of members have talked about timetables and whether we should go back to the timetables of the pre-Covid world. We have to recognise that the world has moved on, and it would be very difficult to restore in full the timetables that we had. There has been a shift to the busiest time—

That was my point—that peak usage now is leisure usage, and that is very much at the weekend. Yes, we should restore services, but we have to see where we are at.

A number of members have talked about safety. Like Jamie Greene, I went to one of the customer service centres that ScotRail runs—I went to the one in Dunfermline, which is for the other half of Scotland. I was impressed by how much attention ScotRail is able to give customers through those customer service points. It is able to offer all kinds of advice and support, but I wonder whether that message is really getting out there. However, I still agree with Katy Clark that we must monitor the changes in ticket office opening hours, and I have concerns about vulnerable passengers.

I will finish by talking about first-class ticketing. The discussion on this today has really just been between me and the cabinet secretary, and I am impressed that she came to the debate with a list of all the services on which there is no first-class seating. However, if there is no first-class seating on the service from Dunblane to Edinburgh, why do we have it on the service from Glasgow to Edinburgh? Really, there is no first-class offering on ScotRail services any more. There is not a leisure first-class offering, as is the case on services that are run by LNER and some other UK train operating companies, so what is the point of it any more? ScotRail gets a little bit of income from it, if, say, a passenger is travelling from Edinburgh or Aberdeen to London. However, overall, on those key commuter routes, we should be freeing up the seats and allowing people to sit anywhere, because the good news is that peak rail fares have gone and I think that we are going to see increased patronage of our railways—

—and getting rid of first class is a good step towards that.

The principle of consent is an essential part of effective sex and relationships education and can help to tackle issues of behaviour and violence at their root. Does the cabinet secretary agree that if we are to tackle those issues of behaviour and violence, in particular against women and girls, all young people, especially boys and young men, should receive education on the importance of consent?

I thank the Scottish Government for giving us the opportunity to acknowledge the progress that has been made in the devolution era to restore our railways and to run them in the public interest. It is a timely debate, coming just one week after peak fares were finally scrapped for good.

The debate is also an opportunity to look forward to the kind of railway that everybody in Scotland wants and can feel proud of: one that is genuinely affordable, safe and accessible, low carbon and pollution free; that provides a reliable service that is welcoming and comfortable; and that reaches many of the communities that were abandoned after the Beeching cuts and need to be connected once again.

There is much to be said about our railways, but I will start where we left off last week. The scrapping of peak fares is what people want. They do not want complex, overpriced ticketing whereby they have to sprint to the ticket barriers to get the last off-peak train.

The days of making rail exclusive and only for the few are coming to an end, but we need to go further. Research from the Scottish Greens shows that the vast majority of ScotRail’s first-class capacity goes unused. Last year, 98 per cent of first-class tickets were unsold.

Our railways should be for all of us. Every journey on a ScotRail service should be a first-class experience. It should not be determined by our ability to pay extra. We have all been in the situation of struggling to find seats or being forced to stand in cramped carriages while the first-class carriage is almost completely empty. Anyone who has got on a busy commuter train from Glasgow to Edinburgh during the festivals in August knows that that can be particularly uncomfortable in the heat and can lead to people feeling unwell. Rail companies across the UK are reducing their first-class services, and it is time for ScotRail to do the same. If we are to have a rail renaissance in Scotland, we need low-cost, reliable and accessible rail.

I am very much aware of that, because I regularly sit in such seats when I travel from Stirling. However, the reality is that, on some of the busiest routes, we still have a nonsensical first class. It is time to look at that again.

An affordable, quality rail service is of use only if people have a station at which to board the train. Many stations that were abandoned in the Beeching era are gone and are not coming back; however, there are still other places within the reach of Scotland’s rail network that would benefit from being reconnected.

For example, in Newburgh, where I was very pleased to join the cabinet secretary on a recent cross-party visit, which I helped the community to host, people have for decades seen train after train go past on the way to Perth and Edinburgh. Children at the local school who dreamed of the railway coming back have now grown up. However, the town is set for major housing growth and the community has its sights set on exciting new opportunities, including the use of the railway and the River Tay together for new ecotourism business. There is a slot in the current railway timetable for a Newburgh rail halt with a low-cost modular station, and that outlay could be recouped easily through increased passenger numbers.

However, Newburgh is not alone, and the demand for more stations is growing. I have been pleased to support four rail campaigns in Fife over the years. One of those—Levenmouth—has now been built; Newburgh is, I hope, on the cusp of a positive decision; and the St Andrews and Dunfermline to Alloa project is waiting for the right moment to progress. Across Scotland, from the north-east to the Borders, communities are developing business cases for new stations. They are building the vision of Scotland’s railways from the bottom up, and they need our support.

Listening to the workers who run our railways is just as important as listening to the communities that they serve. The Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen’s most recent report into the financing of rolling stock reminds us that the job of nationalisation and delivery of a people’s railway is not yet complete. Around a quarter of the cost of every rail ticket goes to servicing rolling stock companies that pay dividends to private shareholders. By issuing Government bonds tied to the investment of proceeds back into rail services, Governments could create a virtuous cycle of investment and reinvestment in a public rail service that we all value and want to grow and develop. ASLEF believes that moving to a public financing model could make 40 per cent savings on rolling stock costs. That is the approach that most of the rest of the world uses to procure new trains.

It is clear that the privatised model has been disastrous. Levels of investment have been far lower than expected, and additional private financial initiatives have been needed to top up investment. Perverse incentives to scrap new electric trains while running older diesel fleets into the ground have been created across the UK. All the while, money is leaking out of the system to foreign owners, while we worry about whether the Scottish Government can justify the relatively small sums to help ScotRail to scrap peak rail fares.

We should be proud of ScotRail, but we should also be listening to passengers, communities and unions about their vision for the next 20 years: a people’s railway for everyone.

I will expand this point first. There has been a shift in that the greatest rail usage is now for leisure travel. The removal of peak rail fares speaks to the post-Covid world that we live in. Yes, there is a need to restore some services, but I do not think that simply going back to the pre-Covid world would be acceptable. I will take the intervention if it is brief.