Meeting of the Parliament 16 January 2025
As a member of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee, I thank all those who have participated in the inquiry and those who have supported the committee in its work, as well as the petitioner, Laura Hansler. I also recognise and pay tribute to all those who have tragically lost their lives on the A9 during the preceding years and decades.
I drive on the A9, which is north of Perth, maybe a couple of times a year. When driving that road, there is always a slight sense of unease. There is a feeling that is not experienced on other roads. Almost without fail, you will see something; it may be a car pulling across the carriageway with barely enough time or a tight overtaking manoeuvre. There will always be something that makes you take a deep intake of breath.
However, the communities that live nearby and rely on the A9 do not have to deal with driving on that road a couple of times a year; for some, it is a daily experience, and it is taking its toll on those communities—emotionally and economically, and tragically, with far too many people seriously injured or worse as a result of road traffic incidents.
The reality is that the communities have been badly let down by the Scottish Government and Transport Scotland in their handling of the A9 dualling. That is why the findings of the inquiry are important. The communities deserve answers, and we owe it to them and to all future users of the A9 to learn from the failures of the past and to ensure that the project now moves forward. If the Scottish Government can do that, it can begin to rebuild the public’s trust.
I have reviewed the Government’s written response to the committee’s report and, unfortunately, it is far from clear about the degree to which it is willing to accept and learn from the failings of the past. When we look at those failings, we see that the Government’s approach to transparency has been seriously lacking and that it has contributed significantly to the current state of the project. When ex-First Minister Nicola Sturgeon accepted that, she said to the committee:
“I would ask myself whether we were as candid as we should have been with ourselves, as well as with the public, about just how challenging it would always have been to meet the target”—[Official Report, Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee, 29 May 2024; c7-8.]
When we consider transparency, we have to look at the timeline. It was 8 February, 2023—less than two years ago—when the Scottish Government came clean and said that the 2025 completion date was no longer achievable. There is a massive disconnect between saying less than two years ago that it would not be complete by 2025 and now saying that it will not be completed until 2035.
During the past couple of days, Transport Scotland has doubled down on that and has said that the 2035 timeline cannot be accelerated, effectively claiming that any attempts to accelerate the project might slow it down further. That seems like a staggering and bizarre claim, but if it is the case, it points to the degree to which the Scottish Government deceived the public by keeping up the pretence—until two years ago—that the project could be completed this year. Whether the Scottish Government is willing to accept it or not, the reality is that either hanging on to the 2025 timeline for so long was an attempt at deceit or the revised and moveable 2035 timeline is an attempt to deceive. Which is it? Of course, it could be both.
The Government has acted in bad faith for too long, and we can have no more deceit. We need an evidence-based and transparent timeline, and we need parliamentary scrutiny. The committee was clear that the Government had evaded scrutiny in the past. In reading the Government’s response to the committee, it appears that the Government is trying to water down the role of parliamentary scrutiny and has dodged the question of establishing a committee that could oversee the dualling of the A9 and other major projects.