Meeting of the Parliament 26 June 2025
I thank my colleague Patrick Harvie for securing the debate. For many years, he has been a relentless champion for people in Glasgow, including bus users. It is great that the debate has been brought to the chamber at a critical point for bus services. I also thank Get Glasgow Moving, which has been really successful in working across the parties in the Parliament. I have been pleased to support its petition, which calls for a better process for establishing bus franchising in Scotland.
I hope that the minister has been listening to the debate and recognises the cross-party concern about the process involved in making decisions about setting up franchises, the length of time that that will take and issues regarding the panel. I hope that he will also note that, when the Parliament agreed to the regulation last year, it really only happened because the Deputy Presiding Officer rather than the Presiding Officer was in the chair at the time—the vote was absolutely on a knife edge.
My inbox overflows with issues relating to bus travel, and I have to say that they constitute a real mixed bag. I get great feedback on free bus passes for the under-22s, and I get a lot of people calling for that scheme to be extended. However, having such a pass only works for people if they have a reliable bus service to get on in the first place. The majority of constituents’ emails about bus travel that I receive contain concerns about the quality and state of our bus services.
I pay tribute to a constituent of mine, Valerie Brand, who has for years campaigned for better bus services in her community, particularly in relation to the X10 Glasgow-Balfron-Stirling bus service, which was initially run by First Group and in recent years has been run by McGill’s Buses. Valerie has documented all the issues over the years, including holes in the floors of the bus, water gushing in from windows, inaccessible buses and buses going on fire—an issue that led to a public inquiry into McGill’s by the traffic commissioner, which concluded last year. She has documented poor services, cancellations, online apps not being updated, drivers going past stops and passengers having to request stops because of the poor training of the drivers.
In that community, when people want to know what is going on with the buses, they do not get in touch with McGill’s—they just phone up Val and ask her for the latest chat on the buses. To be honest, I would like Val to run the bus services—certainly the X10—rather than private companies that are utterly unresponsive to public need. However, I will settle for public bus services being run in the public interest if Val is not available to run them.
We need to have bus services that listen to people, listen to everyday needs and run responsive services. I absolutely support the public franchising of bus services in Glasgow. I hope that that will have a positive impact on the X10 service, and I hope that SPT is able to make the right decision in September and progress its case for that.
Across Scotland, there are many different types of public control. We have a situation with the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs national park, where a public body has commissioned a new bus service between Callander and Aberfoyle. It is very successful and is going into its second year. The minister will be aware of the Auchterarder town bus service in his constituency, where a community body has commissioned a bus service.
We have the situation in Glenfarg, where Stagecoach walked away from a bus service that was getting only around 10 or 12 passengers a day. Glenfarg Community Transport Group stepped up, and is now running a 55 service that has 1,200 passengers a week—an incredible turnaround—and a 23 service that attracts 600 passengers a week. Stirling Council is taking an initial first step in taking over the C60 bus service and is running a minibus between Killin and Callander. Many different models could apply to Strathclyde and to rural communities across Scotland.
Ultimately, we need to run bus services in the public interest, but that needs political will and vision. We need to use that huge public investment in concessionary travel schemes and the network support grants to support public bus services that are run in the public interest. Let us get the investment right, let us get the model right and let us see public transport run in the public interest—in rural areas, in urban areas and across the whole of Scotland.
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