Hansard

I will not say that I would not have started from here, but I would certainly have started sooner. Somewhere in my archives, I have a document from 1973, when the then Greater Glasgow Passenger Transport Executive examined the crossrail proposal in a wider study called the Clyde rail study. To be fair to Strathclyde Regional Council, which became the passenger transport authority in the west of Scotland soon afterwards, many great strategic rail projects were delivered.

When I became Strathclyde Regional Council's convener of roads and transport in 1994, crossrail was my rail priority, but the railways were in the middle of privatisation and the regional council was abolished within two years. Labour may have won the general election in 1997, but Gordon Brown—perhaps members remember him—froze the financial commitments at the previous Government's level for the initial two years of the Labour Government. That took us to 1999; along came devolution, and some people wanted to consider everything afresh.

For various reasons, there was a loss of momentum. However, as an aside, I will mention that I enjoyed a successful negotiation back in the 1990s with Councillor Pat Lally—perhaps members remember him—who agreed to sell SPT the Mercat building for the sum of £1 for the purposes of the proposed Glasgow Cross railway station.

More recently, I have said in previous railways and aviation debates that it was unfortunate that SPT was pressured to submit the Glasgow Airport Link Rail Bill separately from one on Glasgow crossrail. It was inevitable that the Glasgow Airport Link Rail Bill Committee would try to re-establish that link. It is one thing to have a shuttle train service from Glasgow Central to Glasgow airport. That will certainly help. However, it would be a much more significant step to open up that link to Glasgow airport with crossrail in place, which could bring in train services from anywhere in the country.

We have had enough of studies, as has been said. I am not a big fan of studies and certainly not of having too many of them. They can be a symptom of paralysis by analysis—when people are not quite sure what to do about something, they tend to want to study it a bit further. As a bit of a transport anorak, I have looked at the history of big transport projects in this country and it seems to me that the big decisions have always been taken at opportune moments by politicians. Officials can take things so far and they can present options and carry out studies, but it is more a question of political commitment and will. To be fair, that has begun to make its presence felt in the Parliament in recent months with regard to other projects.

We must make up for the missed opportunity of the past couple of years of devolution with regard to crossrail and build up a head of steam. I am heartened by the strength and breadth of the cross-party group on Glasgow crossrail. In these exciting times for railways, and potentially crossrail, I would like to hear a commitment in the debate from politicians of all parties that, at the very least, they will try to ensure that a commitment to crossrail is included in their manifestos for next May's election. If we can build that sort of consensus and support behind the project—which is justifiable in its own right anyway—we will be doing the right thing for the Scottish people.