Seòmar agus comataidhean

Do you see things through that lens?

What are the implications of the provisions of the Natural Environment (Scotland) Bill that feed into your major workstreams?

Would a better approach not be to have national conditions of carriage that apply to everybody, and to look at ways of enforcing them? This committee received evidence from West Midlands Police, which has introduced a travel safe team on buses, as we are doing with ScotRail, to make sure that the buses there are safe.

We have also had evidence to suggest that those who are perpetrating antisocial behaviour on buses are often males over the age of 22, who are not affected by the concessionary schemes because they are not eligible for them. I am trying to understand the Government’s national approach to enforcing conditions of carriage and making progress in that regard.

Last week, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs announced, in relation to the railways, 11 key actions that have been agreed with the unions to make our railways safer. I am just not seeing it with the approach that we are discussing. I am seeing the bus companies arguing for a restriction on the national entitlement card, but I do not see evidence that that will lead to any behaviour change whatsoever.

Finally, I will ask about the consultation on the code of conduct. Clearly, bus companies have been calling for it to be brought in for a long time and have been part of those conversations. However, have you engaged with organisations that understand young people in particular, such as the Young Scot card operators and the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland? How have they been involved? If you are talking about changing behaviours, it is really about getting inside people’s heads and thinking about motivations and how you turn the situation around. I am not seeing the involvement of the Scottish Youth Parliament or organisations that work with young people in the production of the code of conduct, but perhaps you will want to inform me otherwise.

I am aware of lots of good examples—I can see them on my back doorstep. The key issue here is that you have a target of halting nature loss by 2030. When it comes to woodlands, are we going to meet it?

Okay—it will be really challenging.

Back to you, convener.

In a second. The order also poses the risk that we conflate bad and discourteous behaviour on buses with serious criminal behaviour. Even though we have a revised code of conduct in front of us that focuses more on criminality and harassment, there is still a danger that judgment calls will be made and that bad behaviour on buses will be conflated with criminal behaviour. At the end of the day, the order will not make any difference at all.

I would like the Government to put in place the approach that has been taken on the trains with the ScotRail travel safe teams. I know that the Government has work very closely with the rail unions on that, and I think that a better approach can be taken on buses, learning from that experience on the trains, but I just do not see the order making any difference at all.

I will not stand in the way of the order—I will abstain—but I tell you now that I do not think that it will make any difference at all, and that there will still be risks and dangers. The real issue here—restricting people who have shown clear criminal behaviour—will still exist and will not be addressed by whether somebody is going to pay a quid to get on a bus or get on the bus for free.

Minister, did you want to come in?

But we are talking about half the bus industry’s income. How can that be a no better, no worse approach? Would the industry miss it if this money disappeared?

Thanks.

I have one last question. I am aware that, at long last, a scheme has been put in place to extend concessionary bus travel to people trapped in the asylum system, who have no recourse to public funds and are effectively destitute. However, I believe that the current budget for the scheme will end on 31 March. Will the Government extend that provision into next year?

Okay. Well, £4 million seems like quite a low amount.

I want to talk about the overall spend, though. We are looking at £472.8 million—half of the Scottish bus industry’s income. The industry says that the scheme is neither a benefit nor a disbenefit to it, but, when we see those figures, it is hard to see how it is not a massive benefit to the industry when substantial numbers of people travel by bus who would not do so were it not for the Government’s investment in the schemes, which is very welcome.

How do we get more out of this? What about the conditionality for the bus companies? What about the linkage with investment in better bus services at either a community level or a regional level? What about the Government’s target for a vehicle mileage reduction? Are we getting the most out of the investment? Could we be hitting other public transport policy objectives by using the existence of the cards and the massive investment as a lever to get more bang for our buck?

What does Transport Scotland think about it? Does it have any creative ideas as to how we could use that huge investment to get more people out of their cars? What is the offer for people out there? Are we linking this with travel planning for colleges, universities and workplaces? I do not know. As a transport policy, this has been fantastic, and it is a great initiative that supports individuals. However, when it comes to all the wider transport issues that we are really struggling with at the moment, how do we use this to drive modal shift? That is the key question. What do your officials have to say about that?

11:00