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I thank the minister for advance sight of his statement. With COP26 just over a month away, the report is a reminder of the challenge that is before us. Public transport must make a substantial contribution to meeting our net zero ambitions but, frankly, public transport under the Scottish National Party Government is a joke. The total number of annual bus passenger journeys is down 120 million a year since the SNP came to power.

Will the Government therefore finally give councils the resources that they need to reassert public control over local bus services, and help them to provide the routes and fares that people and communities want? Why has it not taken stakes in the private bus companies that it has had to bail out? Does the minister not agree that the Scottish Government has to be bolder on concessionary travel for our young people and extend free bus travel not just to under-22s but to all Scotland’s under-25s?

Finally, how can the Minister for Transport seek to justify how his massive cuts to ScotRail services will encourage more people to leave the car at home and take the train?

He sounds like a Tory—

Yes, I share that concern. We believe in public ownership to make the railway better. We should have a growing rail network and a better rail network with public ownership, but it very much looks like we will have a declining one under the SNP-Green coalition.

The reductions also mean that there will be 25 fewer trains leaving Crosshill station, in the First Minister’s constituency, heading to Glasgow Central station, which is a 33 per cent reduction. Six fewer trains will leave Arbroath, in the transport minister’s constituency, on weekday services to Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee, which is a 12 per cent reduction. Is that really the level of services that ministers intend to build back to in 2022? In agreeing to the motion, Parliament can give its view and call for services to be built back to pre-pandemic levels from May 2022. We accept that the timetables can change, but the overall level of service must not be diminished.

Labour is also calling on the Scottish Government to resolve all current industrial disputes on the railways with settlements that are fair for the workforce. Industrial action during COP26 is likely and would be an international humiliation for the Scottish Government. Is it really willing to stand by and let that happen? That action is not instructed by London bosses, as five SNP MSPs have disgracefully claimed; it is mandated democratically by key workers in Scotland. To suggest otherwise is an anti-union smear against those workers, and the MSPs concerned should apologise.

The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers—RMT—is again in a prolonged dispute with ScotRail. The Transport Salaried Staffs Association—TSSA—has warned ScotRail to expect action over understaffing. Unite the union’s engineering members have voted overwhelmingly for strike action, too. All rail unions are calling for disputes to be resolved fairly, and they have been frustrated with the minister behaving like a Tory transport minister by appearing to rule out intervening unless workers accept efficiencies.

If the minister wants efficiencies and a resolution, he should reassess the excessive fees that his Government is paying Abellio for a six-day-a-week service instead of legitimising a tax on key workers.

The Glasgow Queen Street to Edinburgh Waverley service, via Falkirk High, has been described as the flagship service between our two largest cities. People should not have to wait half an hour to get a train between our two largest cities. Surely, the minister can rule out those cuts—

Of course we are in a pandemic, but we should be making it easier and not harder for people to travel by train. How does cutting train services make it more likely that people will use them? We should stop hiking up fares, provide more trains so that people can travel safely while social distancing, and stop the timetable cuts so that people can safely and conveniently travel and leave the car at home.

After years of prevarication and poor performance, the SNP finally decided to bring ScotRail back into public ownership not because it believes in public ownership as a matter of principle, but because the deal that it did with Abellio was a flop from start to finish. It had to take back the keys.

The Labour Party believes in public ownership of the railways not as a pre-election stunt, but as a way to put the voices of passengers and workers at the heart of the railway. We believe in investing in a growing rail network, not a declining one.

It is time to set out a vision for the future of ScotRail, and it is time for leadership to make that vision real. We need a new people’s ScotRail that is publicly owned and accountable, with representation from Scotland’s passengers and the four joint trade unions on its board. We need a ScotRail that works for passengers, not profit, with affordable travel and improving services. We need a modern ScotRail that is expanding services, decarbonising and driving a modal shift away from Scotland’s roads to Scotland’s railways.

If the minister and his Green colleagues share that vision, they will commit to, first, restoring ScotRail services to pre-pandemic levels from May; secondly, intervening to resolve all current industrial disputes on our railways; and thirdly, withdrawing their feeble amendment and backing Labour’s motion. That is the test for the SNP and the Greens today. Their amendment does not reject overall service reductions; it is a green light for railway cuts. Just as they sold out on a public energy company yesterday, they are set to sell out Scottish passengers today. Their weak amendment proves that the SNP was all talk when it comes to improving our railways and that its deal with the Greens is a sham.

On the day that the SNP and Greens announced their co-operation agreement, ScotRail unveiled proposals to cut 300 services per day. That is thousands every week, and tens of thousands every year. Some 26 million vehicle miles have been stripped from the rail network. Greener government is impossible with a declining network—children who are watching “Thomas & Friends” could tell you that.

The minister says that ScotRail’s proposals mean 100 more services, but that is in comparison to a temporary timetable, and not the pre-pandemic timetable. It is disingenuous to compare the proposals to the current timetable and suggest that service levels are rising. It is time for the SNP to stop the spin, and time for the Greens to stop the cuts.

This summer, an internal ScotRail report by Professor Iain Docherty recommended a 10 per cent reduction to services. Rail unions issued a statement condemning the report, which they said

“seeks to exploit the Covid pandemic and its fallout to attack the jobs of railway workers and cut the services they provide to the public”.

I submitted a motion calling on the Scottish Government to reject the report, and it was signed by three Green MSPs. Nevertheless, ScotRail proposes a 12.5 per cent reduction in services, which exceeds Docherty’s recommendations.

What does that mean in practice? There will be 34 fewer trains, in both directions, between Glasgow Queen Street and Edinburgh Waverley via Falkirk High, between Monday and Friday. That is a 27 per cent reduction in trains available between our two largest cities. Does anyone in the chamber think that that is acceptable?

That silence is very telling.

The vision for a better, green and publicly controlled ScotRail is one that many claim to share. However, the reality of industrial unrest and service cuts is not compatible with that vision. Therefore, I invite Parliament to support the motion and call for an end to industrial unrest on the railways, the restoration of services to pre-pandemic levels and a new vision for a publicly owned ScotRail that works for Scotland’s passengers.

I move,

That the Parliament considers that decisions taken in the coming months will shape the future of Scotland’s railways for years to come; believes there should be no overall reduction in ScotRail services, compared with pre-pandemic levels, when new timetables are introduced in 2022; calls on Scottish ministers to reject overall service reductions; supports Scotland’s railway workers in their current industrial disputes with ScotRail; calls on Scottish ministers to intervene to help resolve these disputes with fair settlements for workers; notes that 22 September 2021 is World Car Free Day, a day to promote alternatives to car use; calls on Scottish ministers to commit to an affordable, clean, green, reliable and modern railway that is publicly owned and accountable, with representation for trade unions and passengers in governance of a new public sector operator, and believes that the Scottish Government should set out a vision for the future of Scotland’s railways based on service improvement, fair work and the decarbonisation of passenger rail services to help meet Scotland’s net zero ambitions.

Will the member take an intervention?

I wish to move an amendment to the business motion, requiring a ministerial statement to take place on Covid vaccination certificates. Scottish Labour requested that at the Parliamentary Bureau both last week and this week.

Parliament voted for certification after the Scottish Government brought forward a debate, but it did so before the Government could set out how the scheme would be implemented. The Government rightly saw the importance of debating the principle of the certification in Parliament. We did not support the Government’s proposals, but it is equally important that there is now proper and full scrutiny in the chamber of the Government’s implementation of the scheme.

The First Minister’s Covid updates are on a range of issues and we need dedicated time, so that members can raise the many questions that they have about the implementation of the scheme. Many sectors of the Scottish economy have questions that they want us to raise on their behalf, and we learned today that the Night Time Industries Association is launching a legal challenge.

The scheme will have a massive impact on businesses and workers and it will go live at the end of next week. We need a statement, because there are still too many unanswered questions. For example, where is the economic impact assessment? Will one be carried out? There are further questions about what is and is not a nightclub and detailed questions for venues that do not normally have door staff about how and when enforcement will be carried out.

I would not expect the Minister for Parliamentary Business to be able to answer those questions now. That is why we need a dedicated ministerial statement, or another debate if the Government wants one, in the chamber to address the many outstanding concerns that our constituents have.

I move amendment S6M-01328.1, to insert after “First Minister’s Statement: COVID-19 Update”,

“followed by Ministerial Statement: COVID-19 Vaccine Certification Scheme”.

What will be in the Scottish Greens’ submission to the consultation? Do the Greens accept ScotRail’s fit for the future proposals, which include cutting 300 services a day?

I agree that public transport is a public service and that the state will have to support it, but if we are not willing to invest in public transport, there is no point in declaring a climate emergency. When declaring a climate emergency, we need to invest in public transport in order to get people using it, which requires greater public investment.