Meeting of the Parliament 25 March 2014
I agree with James Kelly that, in general, the debate has been constructive and that speeches have been high quality. I will try to refer to those speeches.
Mark Griffin raised a number of education issues. We have a number of education campaigns, one of which is called kids in the car. Whenever we launch public marketing campaigns, we leave ourselves open to a bit of fun being poked at us. The idea behind the campaign was that, as Alex Johnstone said, people start to learn about driving from an early age—from the minute they get into a car at whatever age—and they take on board some of their parents’ habits.
We have a safe road-user award, which is available in the Scottish Qualifications Authority suite of courses and can be accessed by approved centres. We also have young driver initiatives—for example, cut it out in Strathclyde, and driving ambition in Grampian. We also heard about Dave Stewart’s initiative; as Stewart Stevenson did, I acknowledge the work that he has done on the issue over a number of years. We also have a number of other initiatives, such as crash magnets, which is a road safety education resource that is designed for use by 14 to 17-year-olds in secondaries 3 to 6.
Mark Griffin asked about Police Scotland. Whatever has been said about Police Scotland—Alex Johnstone made fairly strong remarks about road policing—I think that the trunk roads policing unit is an extremely good resource. Focus is being brought to bear on the issues, and it is certainly not in any instance left to cameras to do the work for the police, although cameras are a form of policing in their own right.
Campaigns are going on. Mark Griffin made a good and interesting point about rehabilitation, which I will go away and consider, if he does not mind. I do not think that the Scottish Prison Service has an initiative on the offences that were referred to, although some courses can be done after a custodial sentence.
Stewart Stevenson mentioned his Austin 7, which had a top speed of 28mph, and Marilyn Monroe. The only thing that he has in common with her is his alliterative name.
My first car was a Wolseley 16/60. I am not that old, but it might surprise people of Mark Griffin’s age that that car had a starting handle at the front. I did not have to use it, but it could be used if the car did not start with the key. I can honestly say that I never crashed that car, but that is because it took a year and half to get from nought to 60mph. That underlines the point that Stewart Stevenson made about the way in which technology has developed and cars have become much more powerful.
Clare Adamson mentioned—as a number of members did—black-box technology, or telematics, as it is often called. There is a great deal of merit in that idea, but it tends to be more relevant if the young person owns the vehicle. Things are sometimes much more difficult if the vehicle is owned by somebody else, as can be the case.
Members have mentioned that there has been some resistance to GDL scheme proposals, but there is also resistance to the idea of mentoring or monitoring young people. However, we believe that that is an interesting initiative that has been brought up by motoring organisations and insurance providers. We are keeping an eye on it, because we think that it has real potential.
Tavish Scott’s speech was perhaps the most discordant today; in fact, he got increasingly angry as he went on. One point that he made was that the debate has been a device to try to further the constitutional argument and to have a go at Westminster. We did not start from that position; we started in broad agreement with the Westminster Government. We corresponded with it—which we did not make a big issue of—and it eventually agreed to go ahead with its green paper, but then it changed its position. All that we are doing is highlighting that fact and saying that, if it does not want to go ahead with that or to do something itself, we think that the matter is worth considering further, and we want to take it further through the Westminster Government’s passing the powers to us. That is a perfectly reasonable thing to say. Perhaps it was the poverty of Tavish Scott’s other arguments that led him to try to use the constitutional debate to hide that fact. I hope that we will take away the crutch of that constitutional debate on 19 September and thereafter concentrate on the merits of the arguments.
James Kelly dealt very well with another point that was made. Tavish Scott said that we should have proposals that we should then discuss. That is the point of the green paper—to consider, consult and then commit. That is the proper way to do such things.