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I do not have an answer to that question, but we could certainly explore that in discussions with the minister.

I think that there is scope to reflect on the situation ahead of stage 3. Would you like to come back in, minister?

Speaking as a motorist, I welcome sensible investment in our roads, but building roads is not the only way to generate economic growth, and roads are not even the most effective transport infrastructure to achieve that goal. The evidence on the economic impact of road building is mixed. Analysis from the Institute for Public Policy Research shows that investing in roads does not deliver good value for money. Return on investment for road infrastructure is lower compared with other infrastructure investments, particularly in public transport. In a recent SWestrans board meeting, Transport Scotland officials noted that revenue spending on the A75 in the past two years would keep bus services in Dumfries and Galloway running for the next 300 years.

Unfortunately, I do not think that I have time to take interventions.

Of course, buses use the roads too, but the unprecedented growth in traffic and congestion is piling costs on to maintaining the network for all road users, and public transport is not being prioritised as was promised in the national transport strategy.

The notion that upgrading and dualling more roads in Scotland is the best way to boost economic growth and increase connectivity is disingenuous. Investment in our roads for maintenance, improved safety and climate resilience is absolutely necessary, but dualling miles of road to speed up journey times by a handful of minutes is not.

I will start on a note of consensus and refer to the points that Emma Harper has just made. I do not think any member in the chamber would disagree about the need for investment that she set out.

I have not yet heard a single member speak in favour of the Westminster Government’s proposed punitive tax on EVs. It singles those vehicles out and discriminates against them. To answer Jamie Halcro Johnston’s question, I do not know whether that represents a wider approach from the Treasury on demand management. However, if it does, it is starting at the wrong end. It should be starting with sport utility vehicles—SUVs—and not EVs.

The Treasury’s assumption is that driving an EV is low cost. It is low cost, but only if people are able to charge their EVs at home and get access to a low-cost tariff. When I charge my EV at home, I am paying about 8.5p per kilowatt hour at night, which means that my mileage costs are about 2p a mile. However, if I go to a public charger such as those provided by Perth and Kinross Council, I am paying 55p per kilowatt hour. We cannot get into a situation where the cost of EV use starts to creep up above the cost of petrol and diesel. That would absolutely stall the transition to EVs, and it would blow a hole in the Government’s climate plan. The cost of electricity is clearly a political issue, including in relation to the roll-out of heat pumps and the general electrification of our entire society, but it is a critical issue that we need to get right.

Members mentioned all sorts of projects during the debate, and many projects are mentioned in the motion and the amendments. However, I am disappointed that not a single member has mentioned the A83. All the projects that have been discussed are partly about safety, and they are also about making the roads faster, but people in Argyll are completely and utterly cut off when the Rest and Be Thankful is closed. We need to get serious about investment in climate adaptation, because a lot of our roads are simply going to crumble away as we start to go beyond 1.5°. We are seeing more extreme weather events, and the Rest and Be Thankful is a classic example of what can happen.

We need to get real about the economic impact and the cost of road-building programmes. I am seeing an increasing proportion of Government revenue going on servicing the private finance initiative and other models that were used to procure roads in the first place. We do not want to get to a situation where the entire transport budget is eaten up by more and more projects that become harder and harder to maintain and build. There is no magic money tree here.

I go back to the exchange that I had with Finlay Carson. Let us consider the costs of projects that have being named in the debate—£3.7 billion for the A9 from Perth to Inverness, up to £5 billion for the A96 from Inverness to Aberdeen, £64 million for the A77, and £50 million for the A75. That £9 billion of spending on four major road-building projects in Scotland is an exorbitant amount. It is the equivalent of 200 years of the Scottish Government’s budget for all road safety interventions on all roads.

Jamie Greene talked about a moral imperative. There is absolutely a moral imperative to invest in all roads in Scotland. Over the summer, very sadly, I attended a fatal road traffic accident on the A85. Wherever such deaths occur, there are too many. We need to be cutting casualties and making our roads safer—and I am referring to all roads. There is a need to invest here. I accept that there is a need to invest in the A9. There is a need to invest in junctions and a need to invest in parts of the A9 that are currently dualled but where there have still been accidents. However, that needs to be investment in what works, and it needs to drive down the casualty rate.

I want a national transport strategy that is reasonable, sensible and evidence based and that starts to push some Government funding towards projects that will work—ones that will improve safety, keep us connected and, ultimately, get us to a better place as a nation.

Every project needs to be considered on its own merits. If the member were to look at the A9, he would see that its cost benefit ratio did not stack up initially. I am asking for all transport infrastructure projects to be considered fairly against each other as to whether they are delivering the best value for the public pound. Numerous studies have shown that investing in public buses and trains connects people with economic and education opportunities, boosts productivity and aids connectivity, which all contributes towards growth.

There are also clear environmental and health benefits of investing in and encouraging a shift towards sustainable transport. We all know that private car use is responsible for about 60 per cent of road transport emissions, compared with the 6 per cent of emissions that are created by public transport.

Obviously, we have a lot of roads in Scotland—31,700 miles of roads, to be exact, which is enough to travel the circumference of the earth one and a half times. If we compare that with the 1,752 miles of Scotland’s railway network, it is clear that upgrading and dualling the A75, the A7, the A96 and the A9 will not enhance connectivity.

I absolutely accept that we need investment to dual key sections of trunk roads, alongside junction improvements and bypasses to relieve town centres of traffic congestion. However, we do not need investment to build wider roads everywhere that will ultimately result in more traffic congestion and higher maintenance costs.

We need investment in accessible, affordable and reliable public transport. That means upgrading the Highland main line, for example, and delivering projects such as Newburgh station to connect communities to the rail network and create fresh economic opportunities. It means investing in bus services so that they are reliable, affordable services that everyone can access, which is especially important in rural communities, where those who depend on public transport can become socially isolated. Bus priority measures should be delivered in our cities, so that buses can quickly pass traffic jams. The pause in the Government’s funding for those investments was damaging. Delays and congestion have only helped to accelerate the withdrawal of services by private operators that are solely focused on profitability.

In conclusion, we need a Government that is prepared to break the cycle of declining bus services and commit to financially supporting public transport to deliver franchising and public control for bus services, alongside investment in rail and active travel. I look forward to a national transport strategy that goes back to the principles of good transport planning, rather than a slanging match about the dualling of roads in Scotland.

I move amendment S6M-20057.2, to leave out from “recognises” to end and insert:

“believes that future transport investment must prioritise sustainability, equality, public transport and active travel over large-scale road building, and further believes that investment in roads should improve safety, address maintenance backlogs, deliver climate resilience on vulnerable routes, including the A83, help prioritise road space for buses and be matched with ambitious investment in rail, including upgrading the Highland Mainline and reconnecting communities, such as Newburgh, to the rail network.”

Finlay Carson has made a strong case for dualling the A75, but the cost of that would be £50 million and Governments need to prioritise investment. The cost of dualling the A96 would be up to £5 billion—that is £5,000 million. Does he not see that the political priorities are for the A96, not the projects that he has put forward?

Do I have time, Presiding Officer?

Thank you—that is helpful. I think that it adds to the evidence that we have taken already. Before other colleagues come in, I will move on to briefly discuss the definition of ecocide. The committee has spent a bit of time looking at the terms in your bill, such as “widespread” and “long-term”, the latter of which has been defined in the bill as 12 months. There is no definition of “serious adverse effects”. I am interested in your reflections on the evidence that we have taken, particularly in relation to the concerns around those specific terms. What is your response to those concerns, as you head into stage 1?

You might have seen that we took evidence from NatureScot in which it suggested that 12 months is not an ideal definition of “long-term”, because it is very difficult to see how any ecosystem can recover, even from a relatively minor environmental impact over that timescale, so there are some questions about particular definitions in the bill. The question for us as a committee is whether we have the opportunity to think through a lot of that detail ahead of stage 2, which could come quite quickly on the back of stage 1. Therefore, your response to those questions at this point is quite important.

I appreciate that. I go back to my original question. Part of the argument that you make for creating an offence of ecocide is that it forces us to look from the top of that regulatory pyramid down at the regulatory framework, and there are questions that emerge from that. If we put a permitting defence into the bill, does that mean that we are totally okay with everything else in the regulatory framework that protects the environment and sits underneath that defence?

If we accept a permitting defence—there are a lot of other ifs in that regard, such as if the bill gets to stage 2—we are effectively creating a protection for regulators, consenting bodies and those who have permits. That leads to the question whether we are okay with that and whether we think that any potential ecocide events could happen under the current permitted regime. What I am getting from your answer is that the current regime is fine, but culpability and intention remain at the top of the pyramid and are not captured by the strict liability offence at its highest level. I will leave it there, but it is on the record.