Meeting of the Parliament 27 November 2024
We all would, and it is helpful that it appears to be the case that, in the debate this afternoon, we are all in the same place. That acceptance will go a long way, but we cannot let anyone rest on their laurels. I hope that we will manage to keep feet to the fire on this one.
The majority of young people use their concessionary cards responsibly. We know how valuable young people find those cards in getting to school, college, work and their leisure activities. It is a real pity that the minority of young people are spoiling it for everyone. The curfews that we are calling for would impact only the young people who have abused their privilege and would limit the hours in which they can use their travel pass. It is still imperative that those youths are able to access their education, after all. However, in extreme cases, there should be scope to remove the privilege permanently. My colleague will go into some of the breadth and depth of what that might look like.
The Green amendment that Mr Ruskell lodged is not one that we can support. It would remove all reference to the under-22 concessionary bus pass. We know from recent Scottish transport statistics that 95 per cent of buses have CCTV, so it should not be an impossible task to catch the perpetrators. However, there is direct evidence that the number of assaults on bus drivers has surged since under-22s were given the free bus pass and travel back in January 2022.
Here in the Lothian region, we are fortunate to have an award-winning bus service, but drivers and passengers are increasingly facing soaring numbers of incidents of antisocial behaviour. Since the introduction of the free bus travel scheme in January 2022, ASB has increased by almost 170 per cent on Lothian buses. From January 2022, when the scheme was introduced, to October 2024, 5,817 incidents were recorded on Lothian buses, which is an increase of 168 from the period between 2019 and 2021. To put that in context, in 2019 there were 473 incidents on Lothian buses. In 2023, that jumped to 2,581, which is an increase of 446 per cent.
As we know, it is not a Lothian-specific issue. There have been serious and tragic incidents, such as that involving Keith Rollinson, who lost his life in February 2024. The time to take action is now. We can no longer find reasons not to tackle the issue head on.
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