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Will the minister take an intervention?

Scottish Labour believes that key routes in Scotland must be upgraded to improve road safety, reduce journey times and support local and regional economies. In many parts of Scotland, there is no practical alternative to the car, so the routes that we are debating are essential.

How we prioritise investment in transport generally is crucial. We must take full account of road safety, economic and community development, and our climate change ambitions. It is disappointing that the Conservative motion, which comes just days after COP26, makes no mention of climate change at all.

One of the reasons why so many people in Scotland have to rely on private fossil-fuel-burning cars is that the alternatives are not good enough or simply do not exist. I recognise that Mr Simpson mentioned that in his speech, but that is a serious omission from the Conservative motion. We should be united in challenging the Scottish Government to do more than just provide better road infrastructure; we should be challenging it to reverse the decline in public transport and address car dependency.

The reality is that public transport under the SNP Government is a joke. Bus passenger numbers are at record lows, and ScotRail is proposing to cut 300 services a day. Labour says let us make the road network better and safer for motorists, cyclists and pedestrians, but let us also use this debate to call for practical alternatives to the car.

There is no question but that road maintenance suffered badly during the years of austerity. We have already heard that. The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities says that its capital funding from Scottish Government budgets, supported by the Greens, has been cut by 6 per cent in real terms since 2013-14. For many councils, capital grants are not enough to meet existing spending requirements, let alone support the transition to net zero. The chronic underfunding of Scotland’s councils has to be challenged and reversed.

The roads that are identified in the motion and in our amendment are part of the trunk road network. They are the direct responsibility of the Scottish Government. It is the Scottish Government’s responsibility to ensure that vital infrastructure is upgraded appropriately; to prevent impossible detours at the Rest and Be Thankful; to make good on its promises to the action group and ferry firms in the south-west of Scotland that are served by the A75 and the A77; and to tackle potholes on the network, the number of which is up from just under 4,000 in 2007 to 21,000 now.

I say to the Scottish Government that creating a more resilient transport network is about more than roads. The total number of bus passenger journeys in Scotland is down by 121 million under this SNP Government—a record low. A country that is serious about tackling climate change is not a country with record low levels of bus patronage.

It has been the policy of this SNP Government to preserve a broken bus market. Even now, with new rules secured by my colleague Colin Smyth that make public control of buses possible, there is no strategy to remake local bus services. When it comes to bus services, the preferred option of the SNP is, and always has been, the status quo.

Well, the status quo is not good enough. Bus services should be run for passengers before profit. If democratic alternatives to a broken bus market are good enough for Lothian, London and now Manchester, they are good enough for Glasgow, the west of Scotland and the rest of Scotland. The Government should be prepared to support councils choosing to bring bus networks under public control, and it should do so with investment.

The Scottish Government once described the Abellio deal to run our railways as “world leading”—but not any more. ScotRail will become a publicly run operator again after the Scottish Government was forced to bring it back into public ownership. However, under current plans, it will inherit a diminished timetable. We cannot shift travel from Scotland’s roads to Scotland’s railways if the rail network is being cut and the ambitions of COP26 are not being realised.

To drive modal shift, it is time that the Scottish Government finally delivered easier, more affordable travel. The COP26 summit showed that smart, integrated ticketing is possible, but it was restricted to COP26 delegates. Integrated ticketing makes travel easier. It should not be just for the select few at COP26; there must be integrated smart ticketing for all, all year round. Dublin has just announced an affordable 90-minute fare with free transfer across bus services. If Dublin can do it, why can we not? If there is to be a legacy from COP26 for the people of Scotland, let it be seamless, integrated ticketing on our public transport network.

Let us make travel more affordable for all. As a minimum, Parliament should endorse calls to extend free bus travel to the under-25s. To tackle the climate crisis and make transport more resilient, the Scottish Government must invest wisely and show the leadership that has been lacking for far too long. That is what our amendment calls on it to do.

I move amendment S6M-02138.1, to leave out from “recognises” to end and insert:

“regrets that car dependency remains the norm in Scotland, partly due to Scotland’s inadequate public transport system; calls upon the Scottish Government to upgrade key routes, such as the A9 and A96, A1, A737, A75, A77, A82, A83, A90 and other vital road links, to deliver improved road safety, journey times and reliability; considers that decisions about investment in transport infrastructure, including roads, must have due regard to road safety, economic and community development and climate impact; further considers that local government requires a fair funding settlement to allow councils and communities to improve local roads and cycle routes, to bring local transport under democratic public control and invest in better local transport and green infrastructure; believes that all parts of Scotland would benefit from enhanced public transport, and calls upon the Scottish Government to support integrated ticketing on public transport, action to reverse the decline in local bus services, the extension of free bus travel to under-25s, the dedication of 10% of the transport budget to active travel, and the restoration of rail services to pre-pandemic levels.”

Will the member take an intervention?

Mark Ruskell voted for the budget.

When I last asked him about industrial action on the railways, the transport minister said that that was nothing to do with him. Will he confirm today that he has rejected a counter proposal from the RMT that would resolve the dispute?

I will.

We clearly need investment in our bus network if we are serious about tackling climate change, and the Government needs to ensure, again, that the rhetoric matches the reality and that it gets the resources that it needs.

The bus market is broken in Glasgow and in the west of Scotland. Labour fought for improvements to the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 to make local control a reality through public ownership, but the Scottish Government’s bus partnership fund is directed at operator-friendly improvements. There is no strategy to intervene in the market in Glasgow or anywhere else in Scotland to put the interests of passengers first.

If public control is good enough for Edinburgh and London buses, and for the modern, thriving cities of Europe, why is it not good enough for Glasgow and the west of Scotland? Public transport should be a public service again if we are serious about tackling the climate emergency.

Earlier this week, the First Minister said that COP26 must produce

“credible action, not face-saving slogans”.

I certainly agree, but, unfortunately, “face-saving” is the default setting of the Government all too often. No platitudes to world leaders, no gestures at the conference and no greenwashing of the Government benches in Holyrood can change that. On so many issues, there is a gulf between rhetoric and reality under the SNP, and it has been exposed by COP26. This is no time for self-congratulation in Scottish politics; it is time for some self-awareness. The Scottish Government must confront its record.

The Government’s motion specifically refers to the co-operation agreement between the Scottish Greens and the SNP. I want to address what that agreement means for transport, which, as other members have said, is a major emitter. The Labour amendment in the name of Monica Lennon makes it clear that delivering

“better, regular, interconnected and affordable public transport”

in the interest of Scotland’s passengers is one of the principal ways in which we can make a difference.

As Monica Lennon said, on the day that the SNP and the Greens announced their coalition, ScotRail unveiled a consultation on a new timetable that will cut 300 services per day compared with pre-pandemic levels. That means drastic reductions in the number of rail services to and from Glasgow, the COP26 host city. The Minister for Transport has defended that consultation. He refused to accept calls to restore services to pre-pandemic levels. He ignored those cautioning against reducing rail capacity when we are facing a climate emergency. I will be interested to hear the thoughts of the Green minister on that in her summing up.

Car travel has already returned to pre-pandemic levels, but the use of public transport has not. A modal shift to our railways is essential, but we cannot achieve the modal shift that Scotland needs if the Government makes it harder for people to leave the car at home. That is a critical challenge for us.

I want to acknowledge the rail workers who kept Scotland moving throughout the pandemic. Even if there is a resolution to the outstanding dispute with the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, which could continue during COP26, the past few months have still been immensely difficult for industrial relations on the railways. The Scottish Government must take its share of the responsibility for that.

The new publicly owned ScotRail must provide proper representation for trade unions in its governance structures. Passengers must be represented, too. They deserve improving and affordable services. There is no reason to hike passenger fares in the coming year, which is what is set to happen, and it will again chase people away from using public transport.

The most common form of public transport is not the train, but the bus. However, as Monica Lennon said, bus services are also in decline in Scotland. Under the SNP, the total number of bus passenger journeys in Strathclyde and the south-west—home of the Glasgow city region and the host city of COP26—has fallen by 79 million. In the greater Glasgow and Strathclyde area, 48 million vehicle kilometres have been lost from the bus network and fares are up by a fifth.

For many communities, ferry services are quite literally a lifeline. Their importance is exemplified by the fact that ferry usage has remained high even in the teeth of the Covid pandemic, more so than other forms of public transport. It is shocking to see the extent to which the Government has, for years, presided over the decline, decay and neglect of Scotland’s ferry services, to such an extent that The Times recently reported that the worsening ferry crisis is “driving people off islands”.

There can be no doubt that the CalMac fleet is old and exhausted and is now prone to breakdowns, delays and chronic disruption. That means putting good money after bad. Reliability is damaged, so that many in those communities can simply no longer rely on the services. In my West Scotland region, the ferry services to Arran and Cumbrae are a case in point. Services are operating on such a tightrope that, on 10 October, a single positive Covid case on the Ardrossan to Brodick route cancelled all sailings, which meant that the only way on or off Arran was via the route from Lochranza to Kintyre.

Just the following day, the Largs to Cumbrae route was out of commission until the evening. A replacement vessel was eventually sent from the Coll and Tiree route, but that meant that that service in turn had to be cancelled. Meanwhile, the ferry serving Coll and Tiree recently broke down for the second time in three weeks. That is little wonder when the ferry is 30 years old and counting, which is five years older than the recommended 25-year lifespan of a ferry.

Almost half of CalMac’s fleet is now over 25 years old and prone to mechanical breakdown. Those ferries should be being replaced, not pushed and pressed beyond safe and reliable limits in a failed bid to patch over the enormous ferry failings of the Government, which sat idly by while unions and experts warned of the perfect storm of operating an ageing fleet with growing passenger numbers. Passenger numbers increased by 23 per cent between 2015 and 2019, yet only one large and two small CalMac ferries were introduced in that period.

The Government has also presided over the fiasco at Ferguson Marine Engineering Ltd, such that, as we have heard, we are now buying second-hand ferries from other countries and a Scottish yard supporting Scottish jobs and owned by the Scottish Government cannot even make the shortlist to build new ferries in Scotland. The Government just piles insult upon injury. It would be completely unacceptable if there were any further delay to the ferries that are currently being built at Ferguson’s. I ask the minister to confirm that there will be no further delays to those ferries and to explain why he has not visited Ferguson’s to see the state of the project for himself, because that is inexplicable.

The Government needs to get a grip and finally to do the right thing by our island and coastal communities. We need a national ferry building programme to replace our ageing ferry fleet and bring jobs to the lower Clyde and the communities that have been so ill-served by the Government. As we go forward, there should be representation for passengers and workers in the governance of ferry services. Finally, there should be a full review of our ferry services in Scotland to ensure that the right vessels are on the right routes at the right time.

To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the decision to remove the cohesion target from the national performance framework, how it is monitoring whether the employment gap is narrowing between the best and worst performing areas. (S6O-00247)