Meeting of the Parliament 02 October 2019
I have a number of declarations to make. I am a member of the RMT parliamentary group, a vice-president of the Friends of the Far North Line and a regular rail user; I want Scotland’s railway to be a success; and I do not support the franchising system—as we know from the east coast railway, significant profits of £800 million have gone to the UK Exchequer.
The Scottish Greens will support the Labour motion at decision time, and we support rail unions.
As a regular rail user, I have experienced the frustrations that others have experienced, but I want to introduce some balance to the debate. As elected politicians, our job is to scrutinise, but also to promote, and I would not want any of what is said today to be viewed as discourteous or as not recognising the valuable contribution of rail staff at all levels.
In the past, much of the debate has been fairly ill informed. I was part of the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee delegation that visited the Network Rail and ScotRail control centre in Glasgow recently, where we sat in a room with the rail network displayed on a screen behind us. It was significant to see and have explained to us the implications of three delays and the effects that they had. One was on the east coast—with an impact on the Fife circle line in particular, given its different train speeds; another was a delayed departure from Edinburgh; and another was in the west. The significant factor, which my REC Committee colleagues will confirm, is that each of the trains involved was a cross-border train rather than a ScotRail train. However, ScotRail passengers will have felt the effects regardless.
Things such as the landslide on the west Highland line—great work has gone on there—are about monitoring. If we remove the franchise, those things will not change.
We have a briefing from Abellio—Mr Greene loyally read it out, so I will not repeat it—that talks about meeting the demand for better public transport. I do not know whether Abellio has met that demand, but the public are not interested in performance figures; they want to know that their train will turn up on time and that it will be clean.
Abellio talks about reducing carbon at the same time as passenger numbers have doubled, but 40-year-old diesel trains that deposit human excrement on the track do not set a good example.
Abellio also talks about the biggest investment since the Victorian era, but the journey times between Inverness and the central belt are the same as they were during the Victorian era.
Further, I am told that Abellio has had 42 directors and seven human resources directors and that it requires staff to work on their rest days.
The Scottish Government’s amendment says:
“the Scottish Government has already started the careful and necessary assessment specified in the franchise contract to determine the ScotRail contract end date”.
As a member of the public sector bidder stakeholder reference group—perhaps the cabinet secretary remembers it—I might have known that already. However, I did not know that, because the group has not met this year and we have not had an update. Where are we with CalMac Ferries, for instance?