Hansard

I warmly congratulate Jackie Baillie on securing the debate. I also congratulate—as she does in her motion—Enable and a consortium of other charities in Scotland, including Down's Syndrome Scotland and Alzheimer Scotland, on the work that has been carried out to introduce the thistle travel card scheme.

That work has been completed in a relatively short time. According to the information that I have, approximately 280,000 thistle travel cards have been distributed. That figure shows how successful the scheme has become, but I cannot help but note that although the figure is substantial, it must represent a fairly small fraction of the total number of people who may wish to have, and would benefit from, a thistle travel card to help them to get about and perhaps to have more confidence about getting on public transport and enjoying the liberties and benefits that access to public transport can bring.

There is not much point in repeating what Jackie Baillie said, although I would underscore the points that she made. I will make some supplementary points. First, there is a lack of awareness in rural communities of schemes such as the thistle travel card scheme. I hope that all reasonable and sensible steps can be taken by the minister to help that scheme to be further promoted in rural areas.

Secondly, there is a lack of access to public transport in rural areas and that is a serious problem. My third and principal point concerns how the thistle travel card scheme will interrelate with the national concessionary travel scheme and, in particular, with the smart-card technology that is intended to be used when the national scheme is introduced on 1 April this year.

Ideally, the scheme should combine the smart card with the thistle card. It seems to be logical that the smart card should have the thistle card logo on it as well as the data capture that is contained in the smart card. Otherwise, people who have disabilities and who will qualify under the national concessionary scheme will have to produce two cards—a smart card and the thistle card.

I know from the material that I obtained from the Scottish Executive under the Freedom of Information Act 2000—I know that the minister will not mind my saying this—that the Executive was a bit slow in getting off the mark to deal with the practical nitty-gritty problems that arise. Although the announcement that there was to be a national concessionary travel scheme was made in December 2004, it was not until 24 March 2005 that Debbie Sheldon, the project manager of the scheme, asked local authorities for details of the up-to-date scheme. It is odd that the Executive did not have, for example, details of the local authorities' current disabled eligibility criteria when the national concessionary travel scheme details were announced.

The task of producing smart cards for 1.2 million pensioners and hundreds of thousands of people who have disabilities—whether it is a learning, mental or physical disability—is massive. There are concerns that that task will not be completed to its optimum level by 1 April.

I hope that the minister agrees that it would be desirable to have one card and I would be grateful if he would address that point in his closing remarks, if possible.

The debate will help to promote awareness of the scheme. Perhaps that, more than anything else, is the important benefit that Jackie Baillie has secured for all those who could benefit from the scheme in the future. I congratulate her on introducing the debate.