Meeting of the Parliament 11 September 2025
I am thankful for the opportunity to speak in the debate, and I thank Sarah Boyack for raising the topic.
I, too, am a member of the cross-party group on sustainable transport, which is led by Graham Simpson. We were united in being impressed, as members have heard, by the Youth Parliament’s work on the subject of transport, and we wanted to give it more of an airing in this older people’s Parliament.
In the first place, we should have more interaction and mutual working between the Youth Parliament and this place, whether it be in cross-party groups, committees or elsewhere. Over the years, I have appreciated meeting MSYPs—especially, in the present period, the members for YMCA Scotland, Andrew Will and Jonah Brooks, the latter of whom is active in Tollcross YMCA in my constituency.
I support, as others do, the Youth Parliament’s aims for affordable, accessible and reliable public transport. I appreciated reading its briefing for today’s debate, as well as hearing from David McGill and Islay Jackson at the CPG last October. I fully accept that there is a particular challenge with public transport in rural and island areas, where the more spread-out population almost inevitably makes frequent and affordable public transport more difficult. However, the fact that it is difficult does not mean that we should ignore it. Perhaps we need to use a bit more imagination as to where we go on that.
For example, when I was younger, the post bus was a great asset, carrying both mail and passengers. I think, sadly, that the last one ran in 2017. Hitchhiking, too, used to be a great way of getting around for young people—I did it myself. It was not entirely reliable, nor did it run to a timetable, but at least it was free.