Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 17 November 2021
Repairs and other improvements fall in line with the recommendations of the Infrastructure Commission for Scotland, which suggested that greater emphasis be given to maintaining public assets.
Scottish Liberal Democrats understand that there is a balance to be struck between the climate emergency and delivery of road projects, but, as I have said, road building or upgrading should not be done for the sake of it. Additional roads can increase traffic and carbon emissions, and they can impact on our environment and biodiversity, so we need to be decarbonising, protecting our environment and reversing biodiversity decline. All sectors need to reduce carbon emissions if we are to reach our net zero targets, and transport is lagging behind.
As Labour members said, the job of providing core connections must go hand in hand with work to establish a climate-friendly transport system. Scottish Liberal Democrats would give local communities control over bus routes and timetables, to ensure that buses go where people need them to go and not where they make the bus company the most profit. That would ensure that gaps and issues could be addressed, thereby bringing down car miles and addressing the steep decline in bus journeys under the SNP.
We want to establish new rail connections and reopen rail lines, and we want to get more freight on to railways, to reduce congestion and pollution. We want to accelerate journey times to the north and the north-east, which are basic connections.
However, those measures simply cannot take every car off the road. As I illustrated, in some parts of the country car travel is the only viable transport. Scotland needs to go electric, and quickly. The electric A9 website says:
“Scotland’s longest EV-ready route will stand as a beacon to those at home and abroad.”
We need such electric-vehicle-ready routes to pop up across the country. Scottish Liberal Democrats want more electric rapid-charging points to be installed—and to be working and ready to use. That is essential road infrastructure. If we can give people the confidence to buy an electric car, we can move older vehicles off our roads sooner.
We can jump-start that change by requiring new public sector vehicles to be electric, by spreading the costs through longer, Government-backed interest-free loans and by having a Government-funded scheme to enable everyone to try out an electric car for a weekend.