Meeting of the Parliament 09 November 2017
Throughout the first two stages of the bill, when both officials and the Minister for Transport and the Islands appeared before the committee, I and other members of the committee repeatedly asked how many local authorities already had contracts in place to ensure that our schoolchildren travelled to and from school in buses with seat belts. Throughout stages 1 and 2, the necessary detailed information was not forthcoming, and it has not been forthcoming until now.
Now, we find that five local authorities have contracts with transport providers that have not insisted that seat belts are fitted. Those contracts run, we are told, until 31 August 2021. The lack of that detailed information from the Scottish Government led some of us on the committee to believe that the bill might not actually be necessary at all. I certainly could not understand why the Scottish Government could not provide us with that information before now.
As it turns out, the bill is indeed very necessary, as are the two amendments that Gillian Martin has lodged, because five councils out of the 32 have been far too slow to act. The last thing we want is for those five councils to be held liable for what would be illegal contracts if her two amendments are not passed. For that reason, therefore, I can confirm that the Liberal Democrats support Gillian Martin’s amendments, but it is a poor show that that information was not made known to members considering the bill in committee at stage 2.