Meeting of the Parliament 27 November 2025
Thank you, Presiding Officer. I could see you looking very clearly at me when you reminded members of the four-minute limit.
I thank Jackson Carlaw for lodging his motion. I have some sympathy with it. I double checked just before the debate and found that I had not signed it, which was remiss of me—I have now altered that and added my name.
I have some concerns about the proposals that the motion touches on. It is only fair to recognise that, as I think we would all agree, there are issues of congestion in the city of Glasgow. To be fair, more often than not I notice them when I am contributing to them. There are also issues to do with emissions in Glasgow, although I observe that the LEZ has worked quite well, and we should reflect on that. However, there are other means of trying to tackle some of the issues of congestion, and I will try to return to them within the four minutes that I have been allocated.
We should also recognise that Glasgow is responsible for maintaining many of the crown jewels that we are all proud that we have in this country. Kelvingrove art gallery and museum and the People’s Palace are tremendous assets not just for the city of Glasgow, but for Scotland as a whole. I am very proud to represent Cumbernauld and Kilsyth, but I am also a very proud Glaswegian. I grew up in the city of Glasgow and I certainly recognise the importance of those assets to the city and the country as a whole.
This is probably too big a subject for me to linger on it in this debate, but I happened to notice that Mr Sweeney, whom I look forward to hearing from in a few moments, has lodged a motion on the restoration of a well at Glasgow cathedral, and I was taken by a point that he makes in that motion about the emergence of the metropolitan city of Glasgow. We have the city region and the city region cabinet, but there is a question about whether we really have proper metropolitan governance in the city region. That is a much wider debate and probably not a matter for discussion today, but there is something to be said for us considering what that might look like in the context of properly resourcing assets across the entire city region.
We should remind ourselves that the proposal is being explored and there is no firm commitment to it yet, but I recognise the concerns. I will not repeat what Jackson Carlaw said about Glasgow Chamber of Commerce’s remarks, but its points were well made about public services that people have no choice but to go into Glasgow to access, such as the national health service. My constituents and I live in the NHS Lanarkshire area but, because of the historical relationships between Cumbernauld and Kilsyth and other areas, more often than not, people access services in Glasgow, such as at the Glasgow Royal infirmary and Queen Elizabeth university hospital. Those concerns have to be heard.
I have some suggestions about improvements that could be made to public transport to alleviate some of the congestion. At Croy railway station, which is in my area, we have had a historical problem with congestion—that word again—in the car park. The problem dissipated during Covid-19 but it has re-emerged, and I am engaging with ScotRail to see whether we can improve capacity there.
We need improved bus services. The Transport (Scotland) Act 2019—which I was very proud of and pleased to vote for—gives powers to local authorities to improve bus services in my area. I am pleased that Strathclyde Partnership for Transport is exploring that, and we should welcome that. Stagecoach, which operates in my area, has talked about exploring the use of hard shoulder running on the M80 between my area and Glasgow. We should explore that possibility, too. There are other means by which we can tackle the issue, and those should be considered.
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