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As you will know, we have already announced our plans for electrification of the Glasgow to Barrhead line by December 2023, and the new Levenmouth line by spring 2024. We are also making good progress on finalising our proposals for electrification of the East Kilbride, Fife and Borders lines, and we continue to develop our decarbonisation plans across the entire Scottish rail network.

More broadly, decarbonising transport is one of the six themes that have been set out in the draft “Strategic Transport Projects Review 2: Summary Report”, which was, I think, published in February. I know that STPR2 was mentioned at the committee’s evidence session last week.

Procurement of new rolling stock forms an integral part of the decarbonisation action plan that Ms Hyslop mentioned, and we are building on the track record of electrification of Scotland’s rail network. Pre-pandemic, 75 per cent of passenger journeys and 45 per cent of freight services in Scotland were made on electric services. That is good work, but there is clearly more to do. To some extent, the pandemic has given us impetus to focus on driving that improvement further. Transport Scotland, Network Rail and ScotRail are working in partnership with officials to ensure that the programme moves forward.

That speaks to the wider opportunities, which Ms Hyslop touched on, to support passengers who might not have considered using rail in the past to travel on our networks, knowing that they are clean and decarbonised. Given its carbon footprint, people might be more inclined to choose rail now than they were in the past.

Bill Reeve will say more about the decarbonisation action plan specifically.

I am not sighted on the detail of the specific example that Mr Kerr has highlighted, and I do not know whether officials know any more about it. However, we are happy to come back to him on the specifics. As Mr Kerr will be aware, this is a national scheme, but I do not want to say too much, as I am not aware of the news article or the debate that he cited with regard to Aberdeen City Council. As I have said, I am more than happy to write to him about the specific details of the scheme.

Do you want to come in on that, Tom?

Good morning, and thank you for inviting me to discuss the draft order. The order sets the reimbursement rate and capped level of funding for the national bus travel concession scheme for older and disabled persons in 2022-23 as well as the reimbursement rate for the national bus travel concession scheme for young persons in the coming financial year. In doing so, it gives effect to an agreement that we reached back in December with the Confederation of Passenger Transport, which represents Scottish bus operators.

The order’s objective is to enable operators to continue to be reimbursed for journeys that are made under both schemes after the expiry of the current reimbursement provisions on 31 March 2022. It specifies their reimbursement rates and the capped level of funding for the older and disabled persons scheme for the next financial year from 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023. The order is therefore limited to the coming year.

Due to the on-going impact of Covid-19 on bus passenger numbers and the continuing uncertainty about the coming year, it has not been possible to undertake the usual analysis and forecasting that underpin the annual revision of the reimbursement rates and the cap for the older and disabled persons scheme. As a result, the funding cap and reimbursement rate for the scheme have been retained from the previous financial year, with the reimbursement rate in 2022-23 set at 55.9 per cent of the adult single fare and the funding capped at £226.1 million. Those figures are the same as the corresponding figures for 2021-22. We think that, in practice, claims will be substantially less than the capped level, because of the continuing impact of the pandemic on patronage.

For the young persons scheme, the reimbursement rates have also been retained from 2021-22, at 43.6 per cent of the adult single fare for journeys made by passengers aged five to 15 and 81.2 per cent for journeys made by 16 to 21-year-olds. As in 2021-22, a budget cap is not being set for the young persons scheme in 2022-23. We believe that the rates are consistent with the aim set out in the legislation establishing both schemes that bus operators should be no better and no worse off as a result of participating in them. The rates will also provide a welcome degree of stability for bus operators.

As we know, free bus travel enables people to access local services and gain from the health benefits of a more active lifestyle, and it will also help strengthen our response to the climate emergency and support our green recovery by embedding sustainable travel habits in young people. The order provides for those benefits to continue for another year on a basis that is fair to operators and affordable to taxpayers.

I commend the order to the committee, and I am happy to answer any questions that members might have.

I am happy to do so.

I will defer to officials on that. If the motion to annul was agreed to and the instrument was looked at again, the primary legislation would still be on the statute books, and it could be overridden only by another form of primary legislation. I will pass to officials to clarify that technical point.

Absolutely.

I think that I answered that question in my letter to the committee—to which I direct Mr Kerr. We say that,

“On the issue of behaviour change based on whether employers choose to pass on the charge to employees”,

we looked at Nottingham City Council with regard to modelling. That council also made a submission to the previous session’s Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee as part of that committee’s evidence gathering for stage 2 of the Transport (Scotland) Bill. As I said in my letter,

“In its evidence, Nottingham City Council showed that the supply of Liable Workplace Parking Places decreased by 17.5% prior to licensing being introduced as employers sought to limit their liability, with a more gradual reduction in the number of workplace parking places provided by employers since introduction. Nottingham City Council also provided evidence showing a number of major employers moved into, or consolidated to, city centre locations with good public transport accessibility”.

I appreciate that Mr Kerr asked the same question two weeks ago, but on the broader point, I say that it is quite difficult to model a scheme that has not yet existed in Scotland. I therefore think that the best way that local authorities can learn is by modelling with regard to what happened in Nottingham City Council.

My letter covers some of the specifics in relation to Mr Kerr’s question, but I note that one of the submissions that the committee received ahead of today’s meeting—I think that it was from Transform Scotland—contains statistics on the need for traffic demand management. I do not know whether that goes some of the way towards explaining, or giving more context to, the rationale behind the policy, the increase in costs associated with public transport compared with driving and the need, therefore, to encourage that behaviour change.

Mr Kerr will appreciate that I was not in post when the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 was being debated. My officials might want to say more about the specifics of the modelling, but it was addressed in my letter to the committee just two weeks ago.

I think that Mr Kerr’s question refers not to the regulations but to the legislation itself. I wonder whether one of the officials can pick up his specific question about perceived double taxing of businesses.

I am prepared to be corrected by officials, but I think that I have those powers.

Having listened to the debate, I come back to the point that most of the issues that have been raised were decided by the Parliament during the passage of the 2019 act some three years ago or relate to the details of specific schemes that are subject to local authorities’ discretion, empowerment and local accountability as part of the requirement in the act to set out schemes—[Inaudible.]—and carry out impact assessments.

There has been discussion about the regulations introducing a cap on charges but, if the motion to annul is agreed to, I cannot make such a change; it has to be done through primary legislation. Members need to understand that. We need to be very clear that we are voting on the regulations, and I cannot unpick them to introduce a cap. As I have said, that would have to be done via primary legislation.

The regulations give local authorities the powers that they have already been provided with under the 2019 act. That is hugely important. As we have heard in members’ speeches and in the question-and-answer session, that power already exists in England and Wales. The Labour administration in Nottingham and the Conservative Government have been perfectly happy for the power to exist and operate. Likewise, we have heard that certain local authorities in England and Wales have not chosen to use it.

However, that is in the gift of local authorities; it is not for politicians or ministers like me to direct these things. The power was given by the Parliament on the basis that local authorities would be able to design schemes to reflect local circumstances. There are robust requirements on local authorities to consult the people who are likely to be impacted by local schemes as well as requirements on those authorities to undertake impact assessments. Fundamentally, however, this is about trusting our local authorities—