Meeting of the Parliament 04 April 2019
I ask members to imagine a transport system in which our transport agencies have the powers properly to regulate public transport in their areas and to deliver a genuinely integrated system; in which local communities can establish municipal bus companies without restrictions, putting passengers and not profit first, and reinvesting surpluses in better bus services and not shareholders’ dividends; and in which a person can board a bus and use their bank card to buy a ticket for that bus journey and the connecting train journey, through a system that calculates the cheapest fare, however many times they make the journey that week.
Members can imagine all those things, but the bill will not deliver any of them. The bill’s timidness is matched only by the timidness of the Scottish Government’s response to the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee’s stage 1 report. The cabinet secretary made clear in his opening speech that the response represented just the start of the Government’s thinking on changes to the bill, rather than its final word. I welcome that. Our stage 1 report captured a range of views from many stakeholders, which deserve to be properly considered as the bill progresses through the parliamentary process.
There are aspects of the bill that I welcome. I am glad that the Scottish Government has set out a legislative framework for low-emission zones, proposed a ban on pavement and double parking and proposed an increase in the powers of the Scottish road works commissioner. I am glad that, after opposing not one but two Labour members’ bills on the subject, the Government plans to introduce some element of regulation to our bus network.
However, on too many counts, the bill lacks ambition. The mandatory minimum grace period for LEZs—and the length of the maximum period—and the lack of a clear definition of LEZ could slow down the change that is needed if we are to tackle air pollution. The loopholes in the ban on pavement parking, such as allowing 20 minutes for delivery and loading, risk undermining the aims entirely.
On buses, the bill tinkers around the edges of a failed deregulated system while our bus network is being dismantled, route by route, across Scotland. Since the Scottish National Party came to power, the number of bus journeys made in Scotland has fallen by 20 per cent and bus fares have risen by 17 per cent in real terms. There are many reasons for that decline, such as changing work patterns and growing congestion, but decisions that this Government has made have contributed.
The bus service operators grant has been reduced by 28 per cent under the SNP.