Hansard

The national transport strategy is fundamental in setting out the strategic direction of transport policy for the years ahead, shaping the future provision of transport in Scotland around a shared vision that will protect our climate and improve our lives. Since the 2006 strategy, there has been significant change in our society, including in our economy, in our environment and in technology, which the new strategy recognises. The strategy sets out the challenges that are associated with the pace of change and how those challenges will be addressed.

We have followed a collaborative approach throughout the process of developing the strategy. More than 60 transport partners have participated in the development of the strategic framework, helping to shape the vision and consider the challenges and opportunities that relate to the transport system. In parallel, our stakeholder engagement programme saw 6,500 people attending more than 100 events in rural, island and urban communities around Scotland. In summer 2019, we held a consultation on the draft strategy that resulted in more than 1,220 responses. We have updated the draft strategy to take account of the views that were expressed in the consultation and the strategy provisions in the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019.

Through our collaborative approach, we have crafted a compelling vision for the future of transport in Scotland over the next 20 years. It is a vision that will protect our climate and improve our lives. The vision is:

“We will have a sustainable, inclusive, safe and accessible transport system, helping deliver a healthier, fairer and more prosperous Scotland for communities, businesses and visitors.”

The vision is underpinned by four key priority areas for transport, which are that it reduces inequality, takes climate action, helps to deliver inclusive economic growth and improves health and wellbeing. The vision and priorities are at the heart of the strategy and will form the basis on which we take decisions and evaluate Scotland’s transport policies in the future.

Another important element of the strategy is our embedding of the sustainable travel hierarchy in decision making by promoting sustainable and active transport and shared transport options in preference to single-occupancy private cars. At the national level, the sustainable investment hierarchy will be used to inform future investment decisions and ensure transport options that prioritise reducing the need to travel unsustainably and maintaining our existing assets.

These frameworks place sustainability foremost in transport decision making, and their implementation into all areas of transport planning and investment decisions will help to deliver the transport system of the future for Scotland.

For transport to play its important part in delivering the fully inclusive society that we want to live in, we must address the challenges across our transport system. The strategy identifies those challenges as they relate to the four priorities.

The strategy’s first priority—reduces inequalities—is outcome focused and reflects the breadth of our ambition. Although not a right in itself, transport plays a key role in enabling people to realise their human rights by facilitating access to employment and public services such as healthcare and education. The strategy supports a rights-based approach to transport. It also highlights a range of inequalities that transport can help to tackle, including child poverty and gender inequalities, and the need to ensure that there is accessible transport for disabled people, to allow everyone in Scotland to share in the benefits of a modern and accessible transport system.

Regional inequalities and spatial differences are also recognised in the strategy and the transport system must play its part in connecting people and communities to employment, services and social life events.

Under the second priority—takes climate action—the strategy recognises the biggest moral endeavour of our times: addressing the global climate emergency. We all have a responsibility to act, but it is important that the Government leads from the front and by example.

Transport is responsible for 37 per cent of Scotland’s greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, the move to low and zero-carbon transport is essential to our future wellbeing. In response, the Scottish Government has made one of the most ambitious climate commitments in the world: to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045. Over the 20-year period of the strategy, the role of transport in achieving that target will be crucial. It will require not only the use of low-carbon technology but significant societal changes, including encouraging people to move towards space-saving and sustainable travel choices and reducing the demand for unsustainable transport.

The measures in the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 support emissions reduction in transport by encouraging modal shift. As an example of our commitment to this ambition, we are bringing forward significant and transformational long term funding of over half a billion pounds for buses, which will remove congestion impacts from our bus routes, reduce journey times and improve journey-time reliability.

As well as encouraging sustainable travel and reducing emissions, the transport system must also adapt to climate change impacts that are already being experienced.

Under the third priority, the strategy recognises the fundamental role of transport in the delivery of inclusive economic growth. The transport system plays a crucial role in the successful performance of Scotland’s economy and regional cohesion. It enables people to get to work and firms to get their goods and services to markets in Scotland and beyond.

We are witnessing dramatic changes for transport: in how we access information and pay for journeys, and in the switch from internal combustion engines to electric alternatives. If Scotland’s economic potential is to be realised, our transport system must also adapt to those changes by improving our network resilience, integrating with new technologies and preparing our workforce. We have one of the world’s most successful skills systems, which we must build on in order to address the challenges that we face in Scotland, including an ageing workforce, the depopulation of rural areas, digitalisation and the global climate emergency.

We must also support innovation to stimulate markets so that consumers, business, industry and our economy at large can harness the opportunities from zero emission mobility in local and international markets.

The fourth interlinked priority that the strategy addresses is improving our health and wellbeing. Our transport system needs to be safe and secure, giving users confidence that they will reach their destinations without threat, thereby encouraging active travel and sustainable public transport choices while also benefiting public health.

The transport system and the future transport needs of people will be at the heart of decision making as we deliver healthier and more sustainable places. The transport system must reduce its negative impacts on the health and wellbeing of the people of Scotland. Thankfully, we can take actions that can simultaneously tackle multiple challenges.

For example, by taking climate action and reducing inequalities, we can, in parallel, benefit public health by encouraging healthier active travel and reducing the associated harmful emissions. Poor air quality has a negative impact on the health of all of us—particularly the health of the most vulnerable, including the very young, the elderly and people with pre-existing health conditions. In Scotland, particulate air pollution is shortening everyone’s lifespan by approximately three to four months.

The national transport strategy presents the strategic framework for our transport system over the next 20 years. We all have a responsibility for delivering the strategy and making it a success—from local government and central Government implementing policies to businesses and individuals taking account of their actions when making travel choices.

Work has already begun on increasing the accountability of the transport sector and strengthening our evidence base. Working with partners, we will publish a delivery plan that will set out how the strategy will be delivered. That will be regularly updated and will provide detail on how the priorities will be realised through a range of actions, with key interventions flowing from the climate change plan update and the second strategic transport projects review.

The 20-year strategy is for all of Scotland. It is far reaching in its impact and its ambition. I am confident about its vision, and am happy to commit this document to Parliament.