Hansard

I welcome this evening's debate and thank Mike Pringle for raising the name of David Begg. David Begg taught me economics some years ago—and I will not take any intervention from Mr McLetchie on that. David Begg was always entertaining as a lecturer and I still find his contributions on transport informative. I do not always agree with him, but he certainly always has a view.

I appreciated Kenny MacAskill's return to transport issues. I was thinking, Mr Tosh, that you, I, Mr MacAskill and Sarah Boyack used to discuss transport issues right back at the start of the merry debate. I suspect that the Scottish National Party regrets the day that Kenny MacAskill gave up that portfolio. I do not necessarily agree with him, but he certainly speaks more coherent sense than his successor with the transport portfolio.

I say in passing that Mr MacAskill has a problem to do with new buses. He might not have heard the SNP's transport spokesman explain during last week's debate on the Edinburgh Airport Rail Link Bill that the SNP would cancel EARL, trams and lots of other things, all to pay for buses in Edinburgh. The SNP would also use that money to pay for the replacement of the Forth crossing and the upgrading of the A9, the A82, the A96 and any other road around Scotland that it could think of. When Mr MacAskill was the SNP's transport spokesman, the party at least had a policy. Its policy is now whatever Mr Ewing thinks of on the day that he is standing up in Parliament.

I appreciate Mr MacAskill's point about problems with a particular rail service into Edinburgh and I will read what he said in the Official Report. If there are significant delays and disruptions and people are not getting seats on that service, I will look into the matter. However, although I do not discount the problems that might need to be addressed, I remind the member that rail passenger numbers have grown by 28 per cent in the past two years and that we are moving forward strongly, by investing in delivery and ensuring that people benefit from alternative transport options.

I take Colin Fox's point about the need for choice, so that people can leave their cars at home. In fairness, I suspect that members of all parties will agree on that point, even in the run-up to an exciting election. There should be investment in transport infrastructure, whether it is in bus priority measures, the Borders railway, which Jeremy Purvis mentioned, or park-and-ride facilities such as those that Mr MacAskill and Mike Pringle mentioned. Such investment aims to enable people in urban areas—where most people in Scotland live—to leave their cars at a particular point and use public transport. We seek to progress such an approach through our national transport strategy.

In that context, we expect regional transport partnerships to put sustainable development principles at the core of their strategies, which are being concluded and will be put to us in the coming weeks. Economic growth must remain our overarching objective, but it is right that environmental considerations should be at the heart of transport strategy. We might disagree about the pace and importance of the approach to environmental criteria, but I assure our friends the Greens that environmental considerations are very much at the core of the approach and will continue to be so. The regional transport strategies will rightly be assessed on environmental and other criteria.

Substantial transport investment, led by the Scottish Executive or by local and regional organisations, is being pursued in the SESTRAN area. Waverley station is being upgraded to help service the growth of employment in central Edinburgh. The Borders railway will also support employment in central Edinburgh and help to address the development needs of the Borders. The Edinburgh airport rail link will provide connections not just between Edinburgh and the airport, but to the whole of Scotland. The project is intensely important and ambitious for the country and I am pleased that most members support it. Trams will usher in a new era for local public transport in Edinburgh.