Meeting of the Parliament 27 November 2025
I thank Jackson Carlaw for bringing the debate to the chamber. I chose to speak in the debate because, once upon a time, in the not-too-distant past, I was responsible for the Clyde tunnel and the road network in Glasgow. It is a wee bit dear to my heart and I probably know a wee bit more about it than most of the people in the chamber.
In the 1960s, the Clyde tunnel was state-of-the-art technology. It used to get visited by schools and by dignitaries from all over the world. Inside, it was like a spaceship—it was a tremendous thing to visit. However, it has been a bit neglected over the years; it has had a wee bit of capital investment, but not much. The Clyde tunnel was completed and opened in 1963 by Queen Elizabeth. It was paid for by the former Glasgow Corporation—that was 63 years ago. The citizens of Glasgow—mums, dads, grannies and grandpas—paid for the tunnel. The SNP has an absolute cheek in trying to introduce charging for the use of something that the people of Glasgow have already paid for and own.
The running costs of the Clyde tunnel are roughly £1.5 million a year, which is the best value of any tunnel in the UK. It costs about 7p per car trip and is used by roughly 60,000 vehicles a day. If each vehicle is charged £1, that equates to more than £20 million a year, compared to just over £1 million for running the tunnel. The tunnel belongs to the citizens of Glasgow, and charging for it is a supertax on the citizens of Glasgow. We should stand against that.