Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 22 September 2021
Of course we are in a pandemic, but we should be making it easier and not harder for people to travel by train. How does cutting train services make it more likely that people will use them? We should stop hiking up fares, provide more trains so that people can travel safely while social distancing, and stop the timetable cuts so that people can safely and conveniently travel and leave the car at home.
After years of prevarication and poor performance, the SNP finally decided to bring ScotRail back into public ownership not because it believes in public ownership as a matter of principle, but because the deal that it did with Abellio was a flop from start to finish. It had to take back the keys.
The Labour Party believes in public ownership of the railways not as a pre-election stunt, but as a way to put the voices of passengers and workers at the heart of the railway. We believe in investing in a growing rail network, not a declining one.
It is time to set out a vision for the future of ScotRail, and it is time for leadership to make that vision real. We need a new people’s ScotRail that is publicly owned and accountable, with representation from Scotland’s passengers and the four joint trade unions on its board. We need a ScotRail that works for passengers, not profit, with affordable travel and improving services. We need a modern ScotRail that is expanding services, decarbonising and driving a modal shift away from Scotland’s roads to Scotland’s railways.
If the minister and his Green colleagues share that vision, they will commit to, first, restoring ScotRail services to pre-pandemic levels from May; secondly, intervening to resolve all current industrial disputes on our railways; and thirdly, withdrawing their feeble amendment and backing Labour’s motion. That is the test for the SNP and the Greens today. Their amendment does not reject overall service reductions; it is a green light for railway cuts. Just as they sold out on a public energy company yesterday, they are set to sell out Scottish passengers today. Their weak amendment proves that the SNP was all talk when it comes to improving our railways and that its deal with the Greens is a sham.
On the day that the SNP and Greens announced their co-operation agreement, ScotRail unveiled proposals to cut 300 services per day. That is thousands every week, and tens of thousands every year. Some 26 million vehicle miles have been stripped from the rail network. Greener government is impossible with a declining network—children who are watching “Thomas & Friends” could tell you that.
The minister says that ScotRail’s proposals mean 100 more services, but that is in comparison to a temporary timetable, and not the pre-pandemic timetable. It is disingenuous to compare the proposals to the current timetable and suggest that service levels are rising. It is time for the SNP to stop the spin, and time for the Greens to stop the cuts.
This summer, an internal ScotRail report by Professor Iain Docherty recommended a 10 per cent reduction to services. Rail unions issued a statement condemning the report, which they said
“seeks to exploit the Covid pandemic and its fallout to attack the jobs of railway workers and cut the services they provide to the public”.
I submitted a motion calling on the Scottish Government to reject the report, and it was signed by three Green MSPs. Nevertheless, ScotRail proposes a 12.5 per cent reduction in services, which exceeds Docherty’s recommendations.
What does that mean in practice? There will be 34 fewer trains, in both directions, between Glasgow Queen Street and Edinburgh Waverley via Falkirk High, between Monday and Friday. That is a 27 per cent reduction in trains available between our two largest cities. Does anyone in the chamber think that that is acceptable?
That silence is very telling.