Meeting of the Parliament 26 June 2025
I thank my colleague Patrick Harvie for lodging the motion, which I was pleased to sign, for this members’ business debate. I recognise the excellent work that Get Glasgow Moving has done over the past decade or so. Along with the associated better buses for Strathclyde campaign, its work has driven the public-spirited effort to improve buses across our city.
The message that goes out loud and clear to the Government from all those who have been elected, across the chamber, to represent the people of greater Glasgow is that we demand speedy and immediate improvement to the regulations on bus franchising so that we can get on with franchising without further delay. The process has been unacceptably slow and inadequate, and I hope that the minister is hearing that there is a consensus across the region that the continued situation is unsustainable and socially unjust. That is ultimately what has come across in the debate.
I enjoyed Mr Doris’s remarks—I wish that he had had another minute to continue. Ultimately, we come back to the point that social justice is at the heart of the issue that we face with our bus system in Glasgow. Glasgow represents 20 per cent of the Scottish economy yet, according to the Centre for Cities, it is underperforming economically compared with similar European cities by about £7 billion a year in gross domestic product. That is the equivalent of the entire oil and gas industry in Scotland. Another 4.5 per cent could be added to Scotland’s GDP if our transport system was optimised and at a level that was competitive with our European city equivalents.
The situation illustrates a truism that goes back to the point that we need to relearn the lessons of 100 years ago. There has been a 40-year failed experiment in the deregulation and privatisation of the public transport system.
It was a century ago last year that Glasgow first introduced motor buses under the corporation of the city. That was at an apex in Glasgow’s municipal socialism, which started with the public transport system. The system was privately run when it began in the 1870s. Under the Glasgow Street Tramways Act 1870, a private operator was to take on a 22-year lease to operate and develop the city’s tramway system.
Ultimately, the corporation of the city took over the system in 1894. It took over the Glasgow subway system in 1923 and, in 1924, it launched a motor bus service across the city. The service provided 30 routes that covered more than 100 miles and served more than 50 million passengers a year. That was an amazing achievement, and Scotland—Glasgow—was a world leader in municipal public transportation. How have we let things get to the point where we are now a laggard in the UK rather than a leader?