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In debates led by Mr Simpson, I am sometimes reminded of a much-loved 1970s television character. It is not Fred Flintstone but Mr Benn. In each episode, Mr Benn would choose to dress up as a different character and would then go on an amazing adventure in which he would learn about new things. So it is with Mr Simpson. One day, he is the Lycra-clad cycle activist convening the Parliament’s cross-party group on sustainable transport; the next day—as we hear today—he is Mondeo man railing against an imaginary war on the motorist. Then, another day, we get Councillor Simpson, the erstwhile defender of local government decision making and autonomy.

However, unlike Mr Benn, Mr Simpson and his colleagues cannot be all things to everyone. If someone supports the rights of cyclists, walkers and wheelers one day, they have to follow through and support policies that tackle congestion, invest in places and make streets safer. That is what workplace parking levies do.

If Mr Simpson champions local decision making, as he does from time to time, he must trust councils to make the judgment about whether workplace parking levies are right for their areas—or not, as the case may be.

If the member wants a deposit return scheme to be delivered faster, why did he and his party vote against it several years ago? Why did he vote for a delay in the introduction of the deposit return scheme back then? Why has he changed his position?

I will do my best, convener. I appreciate that we are going back to a lot of the fundamental arguments of the scheme that were debated back in 2019, but where will the funding go? Will it be in addition to the funding that councils have already allocated to public transport schemes to make people’s journeys to work easier? Some people will look at this and think, “I might have to pay more money to get to work. How will my travel to work be easier as a result?”

I can see concrete additional benefits such as the acceleration of existing programmes and schemes that councils are considering or bringing in new initiatives such as park and rides or better public transport facilities to make it easier for people, rather than having people think, “This is just another tax that I will have to pay.”

You are getting hung up on the word “modelling”. This is not a simple input-output spreadsheet, in which one puts the cost of WPL in and then gets a kind of output from it. All councils need to consider the experience of places where workplace parking levies have been introduced and need to have detailed discussions with employers that operate in their areas, and with communities, about how the scheme might work.

It is only through doing that work that we will understand the aspirations of employers and whether they might wish to move back to city centre locations that would benefit the local economy and might have lower numbers of parking spaces. We will not put all that data into a spreadsheet and suddenly get an answer. The process requires that discussion with individual employers—that local democratic process—to work out how a workplace parking levy could be introduced.

We have good evidence from places where the scheme has been introduced in England. The quicker we can introduce WPL in Edinburgh and Glasgow, the quicker we will have a solid base of evidence to empower other local authorities and decide whether the scheme is the right thing for them. We can only get to the end of the process by learning through doing and implementing the workplace parking levy on the ground.

I come back to what has changed since 2019. The climate emergency has accelerated, and we in the committee all know how hard it is to bring down transport emissions. The low-hanging fruit is gone; we have to make decisions. The Parliament decided in 2019 to put the levy in as an option for local authorities to deliver.

We also know that congestion is not coming down in our cities, which is damaging not just to our health but to our economy. Seven billion pounds were lost to the UK economy this past year through congestion, which does not benefit anybody—neither the businesses that have concerns about the workplace parking levy, nor any part of our economy or society.

Monica Lennon talks about the decline of bus services. We share some concerns in that area. I see the scheme as a way of investing additional resources and funding to give everybody a much better alternative to the car. That process needs work, and the existing programmes of local councils will not be enough to meet the 20 per cent vehicle reduction—

Yes, if I have time.

I need to make a bit of progress, Mr Simpson.

The purpose of the local transport strategies, which will have to link into the national transport strategy, will be to drive down congestion to meet the 20 per cent vehicle mileage reduction target. The investments that WPL will be used to fund have to be able to meet that target and work with that direction of travel. It is not a money-making scheme, Mr Simpson. It is a tramline-building scheme. It is a cycle lane-building scheme. It is a bus priority lane-building scheme. That is what WPL is for. It is about investing in the future, and it is high time that we got on and delivered it.

I really fear that this debate has been a complete waste of time. I totally respect that Graham Simpson has an ideological opposition to the workplace parking levy. He is entitled to have that, and he was entitled to challenge the provision of the workplace parking levy in the 2019 act—I cannot remember if he did, but the Tories certainly tried to get it struck down during the passage of the bill. However, we are beyond that point now, and the motion that he has moved today will not remove that provision from the statute book. If he wants to remove it from law, he is more than welcome to bring forward a member’s bill and make the issue a defining campaign of this parliamentary session, but his motion to annul will not do that.

It is telling that a similar provision remains in UK law. Some councils have made use of it and others have chosen not to, but there has been no attempt by the UK Government to remove it. If Mr Simpson wants to remove the provision from Scots law, he is more than welcome to try to do that, but that is not the effect of his motion—it might be his intention, but it is not the effect.

I know that, after the passage of the 2019 act, virtually all local authorities in Scotland had detailed discussions about whether they wanted to introduce the levy—I remember engaging in those discussions with local authorities in my region. Some of the councils that were more rural in nature discussed the issue with local businesses and major employers in their towns and cities and decided that either the time was not yet right or that it was not a provision that they wanted to pursue. We need to empower local authorities and trust them to make those decisions. Jackie Dunbar made the key point: we need to ensure that that discussion happens locally, and the decision about whether to push forward with the levy should be taken at that level.

What has changed since 2019? Well, we have a climate emergency—

Thanks for that further reassurance. My other point is about something that was in your letter to the committee. You made the point that we might see employers starting to shift away from out-of-town locations and back into city centres. It is clear that our city centres have been gutted because of Covid and the economic downturn, which have also affected small businesses. Is there evidence for that? Are there promising signs from Nottingham or other places that our town centres might be revitalised as a result of the workplace parking levy? That would benefit everybody, particularly small businesses. Would that add another lever to encourage the regeneration of our high streets that we desperately need?

It can. I share your concerns—I had a similar issue with the X53 bus, which I brought to a members’ debate. There has been a lack of transparency from the companies about why they are pulling certain services, and Covid has had an impact on that situation as well. It comes down to the imagination of councils to devise local transport strategies that put in place local bus partnerships, which could include municipal bus companies, that ensure that we can make services viable. If that work were part of a local transport strategy, I do not see why we could not see additional investment—I stress the word “additional”—in those kind of initiatives, under the legislation.

It is for us to push the boundaries, use WPL to incentivise investment in public transport services and ensure that those services are in place when WPL is rolled out. The case is stronger now, particularly given the cost of living crisis, for bringing in a measure that can drive that investment and give ordinary families the public transport systems that they deserve and need.

I take exception to what Mr Simpson is saying. I do not think that we will see councils spending workplace parking levy income on building motorways. That is not what the levy is for. It is an anti-congestion measure, and a measure for investment in the alternatives that people desperately need. It would be bizarre for councils—