Meeting of the Parliament 09 September 2025
Not at the moment.
That fact is one of the reasons why so many people are reluctant to get back to office working, and that decision has a direct correlation with the recovery of town and city centre economies.
The SNP’s decision to reintroduce peak fares across ScotRail trains last year was a disastrous decision, which served to punish hard-working Scots, especially those businesses and employees who were just considering returning to work to kick-start their business performance and increase productivity. We campaigned against that. Despite being defeated on a Scottish Conservative motion on the issue last year—a year ago almost to the day—the SNP refused to budge. Its members claimed at the time that abolishing peak fares permanently was unaffordable.
Perhaps I am far too cynical, but the timing of the U-turn did not really come as a surprise to me. The Government was desperate for a good news story and desperate to take full credit—we have seen that modus operandi before from the SNP. However, I am thrilled with the SNP’s latest U-turn, which is long overdue. The Scottish Conservatives have always said that we would permanently scrap peak rail fares to ease the burden on hard-working Scots.
Today’s debate is also about improving rail connections throughout Scotland. That is not just about the regional benefits—it is a national priority. We need to enhance the infrastructure to not only foster local community cohesion but bolster the entire country’s transport network. Passengers have been let down by SNP mismanagement. It is common sense to link new railway developments to future centres of population growth, and the SNP Government must outline how it plans to link the railway with growing towns and villages across the country.