Meeting of the Parliament 17 June 2026 [Last updated 18:21]
Paul Sweeney is absolutely right. I, too, have been talking about advances in technology, both in public and in private. The Government needs to get on board with that. Why it has not done so is a mystery to me. I cannot answer for the Government, but I wish that it would get on with this.
We have other examples. In Dublin, the fare for Leap card users in zone 1 is capped at €6 a day or €24 a week. Across England, many single bus fares are capped at £3. In North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany, the cap is a monthly spend of €63.
The idea is good, and we want it to work, but making public transport cheaper will work only if it is there for people in the first place and if we make it easy to use. That is where my amendment comes in. Franchising is allowed in Scotland but, so far, only SPT, which covers Strathclyde, is pursuing it. The frustration is that franchising exists in law but, for too long, it has looked easier to legislate for than to deliver. If it takes years of assessments, consultations, audits and approvals before a single new bus appears, passengers will wonder exactly what is going on.
Scotland cannot keep congratulating itself for giving councils powers if using those powers is slow and cumbersome, with the result that communities see no benefit for years. The process here is heavily bureaucratic. A local transport authority has to go through multiple costly hurdles, as SPT is doing.
At the end, if franchising gets that far, there is the added hoop of having to get the whole scheme approved by an independent, unelected panel that is convened by the traffic commissioner for Scotland, who is a United Kingdom Government appointee. After years of effort, the whole thing could fall at that point, which is wrong. Therefore, I support the Get Glasgow Moving campaign’s calls to simplify the existing legislation early in this parliamentary session. The cabinet secretary needs to look at that as a matter of urgency.
The Government needs to commit to funding SPT for that work. We also need multimodal ticketing—the national smart ticketing advisory board is taking far too long in its work. The second part of my amendment calls for that work to be sped up, and I am glad that the Government recognises the need for that. Again, parts of England are way ahead on that model. The West Midlands probably provides the best example, but the broader lesson is that parts of England are moving ahead with integrated planning, ticketing and on-demand travel while Scotland is still talking about it. Last week, I suggested that once the cabinet secretary is back from the States, if he indeed goes—I hope that he does—he should use the summer to get out and about to see what is going on elsewhere.
If ministers are serious about affordable public transport, the test is simple—to make it cheaper, make it easier and make sure that it actually turns up.
I move amendment S7M-00367.1, to insert at end:
“; believes that any such legislation should aim to streamline the process of introducing franchising, and calls on the Scottish Government to speed up its work on introducing multi-modal smart ticketing across Scotland.”
Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.