Meeting of the Parliament 26 February 2025
I will start with a bit of consensus. I think that everyone agrees that we want rail travel to be affordable. We want to encourage more people to use public transport, and most of us in the room want public services to be in public hands and for the public good, not for the benefit of private shareholders.
We want those things because they bring tangible benefits to people in our society. We need those things because people have to travel and we face a climate crisis. In order to deliver on those shared objectives, we have to make choices based on the available evidence. The SNP Government moved to nationalise ScotRail. We walked the walk while others just talked about it on a loop. Too many people felt that, in private hands, the service was not delivering for them as described, and that our public transport was lining the pockets of unaccountable shareholders. That was not a just or sustainable situation. The SNP Government therefore began a project to deliver a public transport system that is for the benefit of the public and accountable to the taxpayer.
It is absolutely true that people are struggling with the cost of living. That limits the choices that are available to individuals and families. People who are struggling often do not perceive public transport to be affordable. That is why the Scottish Government has kept the price rise as low as practicable while ensuring that we can maintain services and continue to invest in infrastructure. Through that investment, the Borders railway has come back, the Levenmouth infrastructure has opened up, and the Airdrie and Shotts lines, which run through my constituency, have been electrified.
I sympathise greatly with a number of the points that Green colleagues have made. We want many of the same outcomes, but we have to demonstrate that the policy is financially viable, affordable and deliverable. The SNP’s ambitions—as a party and as the Government—could be fulfilled if we did not have the restrictions of being in the union, but we have to live within the parameters that are set by the UK.
The removal of peak fares pilot was possible only because the Scottish Government took action to nationalise ScotRail. However, it was only a pilot—it was a trial to see how the policy would impact on behaviour. It was successful in that it saved Scots hundreds of pounds during times of economic hardship, but the review showed that the benefits mainly went to existing rail passengers with medium to higher incomes. We did not see the 10 per cent increase in passenger numbers that would be required to ensure that the policy was economically viable and could continue. Without the policy self-financing, subsidies would cost the public as much as £40 million a year.