Meeting of the Parliament 12 November 2025
I thank Mark Ruskell for bringing the debate to the chamber. I welcome the opportunity to discuss the importance of local bus services and, in particular, to acknowledge the enormous success of the under-22 free bus travel scheme, which was introduced by the SNP Government, with Graeme Dey delivering it as the minister.
Bus services play a vital role in delivering the First Minister’s four priorities: eradicating child poverty, growing the economy, tackling the climate emergency and improving Scotland’s public services. The Government is investing more than £2.6 billion in 2025-26 to support public transport and to make our transport system available, affordable and accessible for all. We have increased our funding for bus services and concessionary travel from £430 million in 2024-25 to almost £465 million this year. We invest all that money because buses offer a more sustainable way to keep our country moving in a way that is accessible to many.
The Scottish transport statistics that were published earlier this year show that about 334 million passenger journeys were made by bus in Scotland in 2023-24. That represents a 13 per cent increase compared with the number in 2022-23, which shows that good progress has been made.
Across Scotland, more than 2 million children, young people, disabled people and older people now benefit from free bus travel, and they make more than 3 million journeys per week. Since January 2022, more than 250 million bus journeys have been made across Scotland by children and young people using their under-22 free bus travel entitlement card. That has helped them and their families to cut costs for essential and leisure travel. That is an incredible achievement, and the benefits are so important to Scotland’s young people.