Meeting of the Parliament 24 January 2017
I am afraid that being lectured on national railways by the Conservative Party—which of course is overseeing a 10-month dispute with Southern Railway—is a bit hard for me to stomach. However, I will say that I do not recognise at all the picture that the member paints of Scotland’s railways. I have just said in my 10-minute statement that we have seen improvement since we received the improvement plan.
When we received the plan in period 6, the moving annual average was 89.6 per cent; it is now at 90 per cent. It does not matter which political party members belong to—that is an improvement. When the practice known as skipping stops is reduced so that it takes place on only 0.59 per cent of services that are booked, that is an improvement. When we back investment in rail with £5 billion of Scottish Government funding, that shows our confidence in our railways.
I give the member an absolute assurance that when Alex Hynes takes up post, he will have the full support of this Government—in fact, I hope that I get the chance to speak to him before he takes up post. I imagine and I hope that he will also have the full support of everybody across the chamber.
All of us, whether it is the management of ScotRail and the ScotRail Alliance or Scottish Government ministers are working hard but, crucially, the 7,500 people who work in the alliance are working day in and day out, tirelessly, to ensure that passengers get the best experience possible. It would be nice if those people also received the support of members across the chamber.