Seòmar agus comataidhean

I would accept short, medium and long-term plans for capital investments, but you will still have a base price for each of those aspects at the time that you put forward the business case, and that will be based on today’s figure, with a potential inflationary rise over a few years. That is the way that it would be done commercially, so I would be very grateful if you could provide that information.

Douglas Lumsden has some questions, and then I will bring in the deputy convener.

I am looking around to see if there are any other questions.

For the last series of questions, cabinet secretary, I ask you to cast your mind back to June 2023, which is just before you became a cabinet secretary. You were then part of this committee. On 26 June 2023, it produced a report on “A Modern and Sustainable Ferry Service for Scotland”, which I am sure you remember. I draw your attention to paragraph 193, which states:

“There is widespread agreement that the current tripartite arrangement for managing Scottish Government-funded ferries is not working effectively for the Clyde and Hebrides and is not adequately serving ferry-dependent communities. Change is needed.”

Paragraph 198 then states:

“The Committee recommends the Scottish Government should give consideration to a CMAL-Transport Scotland merger, to create a “Ferries Scotland” as an arm of Transport Scotland. This could streamline decision-taking.”

That followed on from a report by the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee in 2020 that said that the tripartite agreement was not working. What are you doing about it, cabinet secretary?

We have had more focused ones since then, cabinet secretary. [Laughter.]

I totally agree. My point is that CMAL is holding pensions that are the responsibility of CalMac, as I understand it, and there is a deficit in the pension fund. I am asking you whether that is going to be resolved in the short term.

Our next item of business is consideration of a negative SSI, the Motor Vehicles (Competitions and Trials) (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Regulations 2025. These SI titles get snappier all the time.

The instrument is laid under the negative procedure, which means that it will come into force unless the Parliament agrees a motion to annul it. No such motion has been lodged, but the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee has drawn the instrument to the Parliament’s attention under reporting ground (i)—defective drafting—and also under the general reporting ground in respect of two further points.

The defective drafting relates to how different types of motor vehicle events are regulated. The DPLR Committee noted that races or trials of speed are authorised and regulated under one set of regulations—the Motor Sport on Public Roads (Scotland) Regulations 2019—whereas other types of competitions and trials are regulated under the Motor Vehicles (Competitions and Trials) (Scotland) Regulations 1976. The instrument amends the competitions regulations by designating four rallies as specified events. However, the Government has now acknowledged that it is the motor sport regulations that should have been used, and it has said that it intends to introduce amending regulations urgently.

The DPLR Committee also reported two more drafting issues: first, the first rally is misnamed in the instrument, as the Scottish Government has now acknowledged—it is not the Robert Albert Clark rally but the Roger Albert Clark rally. The Scottish Government has undertaken to correct that by amending the instrument. Secondly, the committee queried the use of the phrase “public way” instead of “public highway”. The Scottish Government says that it considers the drafting to be clear but will reflect further on whether greater consistency would be preferable.

It looks as though no member has any comments on the instrument, so I?invite the committee to agree that it does not wish to make any further recommendations in relation to it but acknowledges those of the DPLR Committee. Is everyone happy with that?

Members indicated agreement.

?

With Monica Lennon recusing herself from the following decision, are we also agreed to take item 7 in private?

Members indicated agreement.

Our second item of business is an evidence session with the Scottish Government on its transport policies and performance. This is an opportunity for the committee to pick up on the themes that the committee has discussed with bus, train and ferry stakeholders in meetings earlier this year and on visits. There are also other issues within the cabinet secretary’s wide-ranging remit that we may wish to discuss this morning. Those include the decarbonisation of the sector, which is an issue that the committee will return to later this year when it takes evidence on the transport chapter of the forthcoming climate change plan.

I welcome Fiona Hyslop, the Cabinet Secretary for Transport. From Transport Scotland, we have Fiona Brown, director of transport strategy and analysis; Chris Wilcock, director of ferries and ports, and Bill Reeve; director of rail reform. Thank you all for attending.

I invite the cabinet secretary to make some short opening remarks. I try that every time and, one day, I will get my wish.

Okay. Thank you very much, convener.

Having raised that point, I think that it is important to pursue it. A bit of research that I have done suggests that sums of up to £20,000 in relation to admin appointments could be paid on top of a councillor’s salary. It is difficult, because there are exceptions, and I know that the minister has alluded to that. Additional pay and grading might be disallowed in some council areas but encouraged in other areas. I encourage monitoring of that to make sure, and I ask for a clear comment that it would not be expected that people who are getting that additional money would take it on top of their salary. I would be grateful if the minister could say that that is his understanding—unless perhaps it is not.

My question is more on the mechanics of it, convener. I do not know the answer to this, but, if someone is an MP and then gets elected as an MSP, I presume that they will go straight on to being able to employ staff as an MSP, who might also be the staff they are employing as an MP. Have you considered that? Will guidance on that be issued between the two Parliaments? There could be a period in which the MSP and MP are employing the same staff. You are solving one issue, minister, but have you thought about solving the other? Or does it not happen? I do not know the answer to that, but I am sure that you will have looked at it.