Meeting of the Parliament 08 January 2019
I commend what the Government motion says about “an unprecedented period”. It most certainly is unprecedented, but I suspect that we are talking about slightly different things. We need to consider climate change and the global challenge that it presents to us, as well as the many commendable things that are mentioned in the motion.
The Climate Change (Emissions Reduction Targets) (Scotland) Bill is insufficient as far as the Scottish Green Party is concerned. We need a climate emergency bill, net zero emissions by 2040, boosted 2030 targets and the introduction of a range of policies to make sure that changes are not put off until the next decade.
We also need radical policies, some of which have been alluded to by Colin Smyth. The issue is about attitude. Transport policy seems fixated on road building; yesterday, there was another announcement by the Scottish Government, proudly trumpeting £40 million on another new road. It builds roads and people drive on them. We spent £750 million completing the M8, but every morning when we switch on our radios, we hear that it is congested. We need a different approach. A lot of what has been said presupposes more of the same with just a different mode of propulsion, but that is not going to work.
It is true that the Scottish Government enjoys the support of all the Opposition parties for the main road building programme—actually, no, the Government does not enjoy our support, as we consider many of the roads to be vanity projects. There is expenditure in my area of up to £60 million for a trunk link road that, according to Transport Scotland’s figures, takes people between two points 12 seconds quicker. That fact is an obscenity that we ought to look at.
We should also look at the whole system of inspection, repair and replacement, because the Scottish Government is committed to massive funding of the trunk road network, while the fabric of the road network for which local authorities are responsible is decaying—we had a report about that yesterday. That is where inspect, repair and replace comes in. The Scottish Green Party is not against expenditure on roads, but we want to maintain our existing infrastructure before we consider anything else.
A number of members have alluded to health. Air quality is very important, and its significance is shown by the fact that thousands of people die every year as a result of poor air quality. I want to mention a couple of locations in relation to that issue.
In Inverness, the town where I stay, the local authority, instead of discouraging private motor vehicles from entering the Academy Street area, was recently trying to encourage them, in its mistaken bid to increase the shopping footfall in the town centre. In Scotland, there is a crying need for us to reduce the number of areas in which air quality damages the health of, in particular, older people, the infirm and young people.
I also want to mention air quality in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As some members will be aware, its air quality is affected by cobalt mining. That issue was covered in an article in today’s Daily Record, which states:
“In hellish, dusty mines, children as young as 10 scrape fragments of cobalt from the dirt and into a sack with their bare hands, inhaling poisonous metallic particles.”
We need to change the system; we do not just need to replace one system with another. I listened carefully to what the cabinet secretary said about buses. He made a number of important points, and I have the details here of the money that has been expended on buses. However, he did not mention bus patronage. If we are going to change, we need to get people on to buses. I know that there is the Transport (Scotland) Bill, but it is not ambitious, so some of us want to make it more ambitious.
As we heard repeatedly from witnesses who appeared before the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee, the challenge with bus travel is congestion, which holds up buses. Mechanisms are in place in the form of bus lanes, gates and priority light systems, but that problem affects people. People will not get a bus between places if it is quicker for them to walk between them. The mode of propulsion is a factor, so we need to find a different way ahead.
Without being too parochial, we have talked about the electric A9, but what about the Highland main line—the railway line that runs right beside the A9? We can compare the £3 billion that is expected to be spent on the A9, and the other £3 billion for the A96, with the fact that we will have diesel locomotives with a 30 to 40-year lifespan. I am all in favour of reusing and repairing, but we are not comparing like with like. The cabinet secretary will be sick of me talking about rail, but the reality is that 25.3 per cent of the rail network in Scotland is electrified, which is really good, but 0 per cent of the Highland main line is electrified, with no plans to change that. The benefits of electrification that apply to road travel apply equally to rail travel.
I want to touch briefly on the automotive industry, because it is clearly a very powerful lobby. I am one of the many people who feel quite let down, because we thought that we were doing the right thing a number of years ago by buying a diesel vehicle—in fact, we were positively encouraged to buy a diesel vehicle—only to be told that such vehicles are dirty polluters. There is an issue about confidence in what we are being told, and that will apply to some of the new technologies, too. Although I am not in any way technical, and I hear what people say about hydrogen, we need to have a clear evidence base for all future decisions.
I move amendment SM5-15243.1, to insert after “registrations in Scotland”:
“; welcomes the important role that ULEVs can play in decarbonising the transport sector, but recognises that this technology does not address the need to cut congestion and to improve road safety”.
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