Meeting of the Parliament 27 November 2025
I congratulate Jackson Carlaw on lodging the motion and securing a debate in the chamber on this important issue.
I must be honest: I believe that the proposal is 100 per cent daft. An SNP-led Scottish Government abolished the last remaining bridge toll in 2008, yet here we are in 2025 with an SNP-led council trying to introduce tolls on the Clyde tunnel, alongside an at-city-boundary charge, as many members have mentioned. You could not make it up. I have no idea how the Cabinet Secretary for Transport will try to square the circle, because these charges will have a profound impact on constituents across the central region.
South Lanarkshire, North Lanarkshire and even Falkirk are commuter communities, and the thousands of people who choose to live there depend on travelling to Glasgow or Edinburgh for work. If this idea ever becomes a reality, my inbox will be full of motorists angry at being told that they must pay yet another tax just to get to their jobs.
We should step back for a second and remember what motorists already fork out for the privilege of owning a car. They have to pay for road tax; insurance; servicing and MOTs; repairs; parking permits; costly paid parking in certain local authority areas; petrol and diesel; and for many people, monthly payments on the car itself. The local SNP Administration wants to slap an additional charge on to what motorists already fork out simply for crossing from one local authority area into another, but to me, that is just not common sense.
We should also take into account yesterday’s budget, because the chancellor now wants to tax electric vehicles, too. I am under no illusion why motorists are fed up, because it is just tax upon tax upon cost upon tax.
Going back to the at-city-boundary congestion charge, I think that the most ridiculous aspect is that our public transport network is still not good enough to give people a genuine alternative. That point has been mentioned by Jamie Hepburn, Patrick Harvie and others in the chamber—it is not a genuine alternative. The at-boundary charge just prices people out of owning a car, and provides no workable solution for how they are supposed to get around.
Moreover, Jackson Carlaw is 100 per cent right to suggest in his motion that Glasgow City Council’s plans could trigger a domino effect. If one local authority introduces such charges, others might retaliate. It will become a tit-for-tat spiral, and the only losers will be the ordinary, hard-working people who are left to pay the price.
I am beyond fed up with the same people being taxed to the hilt to prop up ageing infrastructure and fill gaps in mismanaged budgets. It is not the taxpayers’ job to cover for political incompetence, but that is exactly the pattern that we keep seeing from left-wing Administrations. I am very interested to hear the cabinet secretary’s views on this: does the Government still believe in the abolition of tolls, or is the expansion of new bridge tolls and infrastructure tolls happening quietly by the back door? Will it meet the Scottish National Party administration at Glasgow City Council and tell it bluntly to think again?
13:17