Hansard

I join others in congratulating Jackie Baillie on securing the debate. I am also very grateful for the briefing from Enable. I found it particularly helpful and informative. It was also quite embarrassing, because it told me that West Lothian was one of the pilot areas for the scheme, and I did not know that. My constituency is part of West Lothian, so I have learnt something from taking part in the debate.

Having heard about the scheme, I decided to investigate whether I was alone in my embarrassment or whether others shared it, so I spoke to a few local people. First, I spoke to a local councillor. As we all know, councillors are very knowledgeable and know a lot about everything. Unfortunately, this councillor—who is in that group—did not know a great deal about the scheme either. However, he was redeemed by his council official who knew the scheme very well and was very supportive of it. He told me that, since the pilot scheme and the 2002 launch, the number of applications has reduced significantly, and he thought that that was quite worrying. That lends support to Jackie Baillie's suggestion that we need to republicise the scheme. He suggested that we should look at relaunching the scheme in some way, perhaps alongside the introduction of free bus passes in April.

Yesterday, I met Gordon Dewar from First Scotrail about a local issue. However, I thought I would take the opportunity to question him about his knowledge of the thistle travel card scheme. He was, to his credit, very aware of it from his time at FirstBus, but he also recognised that people had become less aware of it than they were in the past. He also took the opportunity to remind me that First Scotrail has appointed someone to look at access and disability issues. One of their first roles could be to promote the thistle travel card scheme across the rail network. He welcomed the promotion of the thistle travel card scheme on the railways. That would be a further enhancement if it could be done.

We all recognise how access to public transport can provide access to work or training, to services such as the doctor or the dentist, or to social interaction. If someone has a disability, use of public transport can be particularly challenging. A scheme such as the thistle travel card scheme, which discreetly enables people to alert transport staff to their special needs, is to be welcomed.

I also believe that the scheme benefits transport staff. They work in pressured circumstances. Many customers and passengers ask for assistance, or have to be channelled through buses or trains. Anything that helps the staff to understand an individual's needs will allow them to do their job more effectively, which they will welcome. The scheme is in everybody's interests.

It would be helpful, as Jackie Baillie, Enable and others have suggested, to evaluate the scheme so far. If we find, as I am confident we will, that the scheme is of extremely high value, and if we are able to iron out any glitches that have arisen over the past few years, we should relaunch the scheme and shout to the world that it is available. I agree with Fergus Ewing that there must be many other people who would benefit from taking up the scheme, and I hope that, in his response, the minister will encourage us to promote the scheme in future.