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National Bus Travel Concession Schemes (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Order 2025 [Draft]
Agenda item 2 is consideration of a statutory instrument—the draft National Bus Travel Concession Schemes (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Order 2025. The Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee made no comment on the order in its report.
I welcome Jim Fairlie, the Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity, and the Scottish Government officials who are joining us for this item. We have Carole Stewart, head of bus strategy and funding policy; Gary McIntyre, economist for bus, active travel and low-carbon economics; and Bettina Sizeland, director of bus, accessibility and active travel, all from Transport Scotland.
The instrument has been laid under the affirmative procedure, which means that it cannot come into force unless the Parliament approves it. Following the evidence session, the committee will be invited to consider a motion to recommend that the instrument be approved. I remind everyone that the Scottish Government officials may speak under this item, but not under the debate that will follow.
Minister, I think that you are going to make a short opening statement. I say “short” every time in the hope that, one day, it will be. Minister, over to you.
Good morning, convener, and thank you for having me to discuss the draft National Bus Travel Concession Schemes (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Order 2025. The order gives effect to an agreement that has been reached with the Confederation of Passenger Transport, representing Scottish bus operators. It sets out the reimbursement rate and capped level of funding for the national bus travel concession scheme for older and disabled persons and the reimbursement rates for the national bus travel concession scheme for young persons in 2025-26.
The order will enable the reimbursement of bus operators for journeys that are made under both schemes after the expiry of the current reimbursement provisions on 31 March 2025. The order specifies the new reimbursement rates for both schemes as well as the capped level of funding for the older and disabled persons scheme for the next financial year, to 31 March 2026.
To reflect developments in the wider bus operating market, an updated reimbursement model has been agreed and developed with the industry for both schemes. The model uses the latest available data and evidence on industry costs, passenger demand and travel behaviours, and it will be used as the model for future years.
The proposed reimbursement rates for the young persons scheme for 2025-26 are as follows. For five to 15-year-olds, the rate will be 47.9 per cent of the adult single fare, which is an increase of 4.3 percentage points from the current rate of 43.6 per cent. For 16 to 21-year-olds, the rate will be 72.4 per cent, which is a decrease of 8.8 percentage points from the current rate of 81.2 per cent. The new rates reflect three years’ worth of data collection and evaluation of the YPS. The rates provide a more accurate level of reimbursement to operators and replace the rates that have been in place since January 2022. However, journey numbers and patterns are still not stabilised enough to determine an accurate budget cap for the young persons scheme for 2025-26.
The proposed reimbursement rate for the older and disabled persons scheme in 2025-26 has been amended from 55 per cent of the adult single fare to 52.9 per cent, and the capped level of funding will be set at £215 million, which is an increase of £11.6 million from this year.
Free bus travel enables people to access local services and gain from the health benefits of a more active lifestyle. It also helps to strengthen our response to the climate emergency, support a green recovery and embed sustainable travel habits in young people. The order provides for those benefits to continue for a further year on a basis that is fair to our operators and affordable to taxpayers.
I commend the order to the committee and am happy to answer any questions.
Thank you very much. The first question, which is an easy one, comes from me. For those who are over 60—by the way, that includes me, in case anyone thinks that it does not—the rate is 52 per cent of the adult fare, and that scheme is capped. However, for young persons, the bus companies get 72 per cent back, and it is not capped. Surely that is favouring young people against older people. Is that what you are trying to do? If so, why are you doing it?
We are not trying to favour anybody over anybody else; we are trying to get people to use the buses more frequently and more often, and we are trying to change the patterns of behaviour. I do not think that anyone on this committee, across the Parliament or, indeed, in the country thinks that the scheme is not working. It is getting people to use the bus and getting young people into the habit of using the bus.
We do not have sufficient data to be able to set a cap at this stage. We have clear evidence that the scheme is working by getting people to use the bus. The scheme is clearly welcomed by the bus operators and it is helping us to achieve our objectives. All in all, I think that the scheme is working remarkably well.
In effect, you are saying that you have already convinced older people—the over-60s—to use the bus, so you do not need to encourage them to do it and you do not need to get the bus companies to encourage them to do it, but you are working on the younger generation to get them to use the bus more. Is that what you are trying to do with the scheme? I am just trying to work that out. We know that a lot of older people use the bus, and there will be a penalty to the companies for that, whereas young people are being encouraged to use the bus more. Is that the aim, minister?
We clearly want to encourage younger people to use the bus. That is a commitment that we have talked about and it is on-going. There are also the demographics. There are more cardholders in the older and disabled persons scheme than there are in the younger persons scheme, so we are looking to get more and more young people coming into the scheme so that they do not start jumping into cars when they turn 22 or 23. We want it to be habit forming. In essence, I suppose that there is an element of reality in what you are putting to me.
In the region that I come from, we see a concessionary scheme that is giving £400 million or so to encourage people to use buses, but neither young people nor older people can use it on ferries. Is this not the moment to extend concessionary travel to those people who use the islands’ buses, which are ferries? Do you not think that there is some inequality there?
There is a degree of ferry passenger subsidy—I use the word “subsidy”, although it is a word that I hate. If we put more into the ferries, we will be taking it out of bus travel. At the moment, we have a reasonable balance. We would like to do more as we go forward. I am actively looking at all the areas of all the systems that we have. How do we improve them? How do we make them better? How do we get more people to actively engage in bus usage?
Your question is fair, and I take your point on board. There are areas that I am actively looking at across my portfolio, and I will continue to update the committee as and when we make any changes.
I first looked at such statutory instruments when they came to the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee in 2016. It seems to be taking a long time before we get some concessionary travel for people on islands who use buses that happen to have propellers and not wheels, whereas on the mainland they have wheels and they get subsidised.
The next question comes from Bob Doris.
Minister, with the question that I will ask, I do not seek to undermine support for the scheme; I just want to make sure that we are getting the best value for money in relation to it.
My understanding is that the reimbursement rate, which is capped for older persons but not for younger persons, is based on a percentage of the average daily single ticket fare. Over the course of a year, bus companies will increase that fare, so the amount that is reimbursed to them will increase during the year. How is that taken into account—your officials might have the detail on this—in the modelling work to set the reimbursement rate and the cap in the first place? There could be an incentive for bus companies to price gouge—although I am not saying that they are doing that—in order to increase their overall take within the scheme over the course of an individual year.
When it comes to bus companies increasing their prices in order to take advantage of the scheme, the scheme has mechanisms that would bring the reimbursement rate down. The other thing is that, if prices are increased for passengers, people will stop using the bus, so that is a disincentive.
If you want to get into the details of how the formula was designed, I will bring Gary McIntyre in to discuss that. However, the simple answer to your question is that mechanisms are in place to ensure that bus companies get the benefit of the scheme, as do passengers and the public purse. It is a fine balance, which is kept by very clever people working on formulas that make sense and are agreed with the CPT.
I do not want to get bogged down in the mechanisms, but any detail that Gary McIntyre can give on them would be helpful. I am conscious that, although the reimbursement is based on the single fare, most people will use a day ticket or tap on and tap off over the course of a week or a month, so the impact on the individual traveller might not seem that great. However, if the single ticket fare is inflated, the reimbursement kick-in could be significant. I am not saying that there is an issue; I am looking for reassurance that there is not one. Gary, would you like to comment?
Yes. Just to be clear, I note that the rates for the following year take into account the forecast fare rises that we expect to see in 2025-26. We are looking not at fares today, but at what we expect fares to be throughout the course of next year. A fare increase of 5 per cent is built into the model, and that figure is based on feedback from a sample of industry operators. We expect fares to rise, and the rates are adjusted to account for that.
The model also accounts for the fact that many of the passengers who travel on concessionary passes would have used some form of season ticket product in the absence of the scheme, such as day tickets or weekly tickets, which are on average cheaper per journey. We adjust the reimbursement rate to take into account the fact that those journeys would have been made in a different way had the scheme not been there.
The 5 per cent figure is helpful. I have learned from this exchange that there is not an assumption but that it is predicted that fares could go up by as much as 5 per cent and that that modelling work is taken into account for the statutory instrument for which you seek approval today. What would happen if fares went up beyond 5 per cent? How would that impact on the model? I apologise for going into this level of detail, but I am keen to know that.
The rate is fixed for the year ahead. If fares go up, that will not change the reimbursement rate in the coming year, but it could have a knock-on impact on the rate in future years. Fare tests are in place to ensure that any fare rises that operators put in are in line with reasonable expectations about what an appropriate fare rise would be. I do not know whether colleagues want to come in on this point, but we have a series of fare tests for when operators lodge fare increases, which compare fares against competitors, inflation and other services to ensure that they are not inappropriately high.
I do not want to get into the weeds of the detail, but that is positive and reassuring.
My final question is for the minister. Part of the modelling work predicts what price increases could look like in the commercial market in the year ahead. There is a relationship between that and the money—the best part of £450 million a year—that goes to commercial operators through the two concessionary schemes. We are getting quite close to a mechanism whereby we could price cap bus services across the board. Have you considered that, or could it be considered for the future?
When you mention a price cap, what are you talking about? We have the caps on the older and disabled persons scheme and on the quantum.
Forgetting about the concessionary schemes, I am merely pointing out that, if we predict that bus fares could increase by as much as 5 per cent, there is a relationship between that, the reimbursement rate and the capping in the concessionary schemes. What will reimbursement look like if we get into mechanisms to control bus fares in Scotland—for example, if we say that the most that any bus ticket may be increased by is 2 per cent? There would then be a cap in Scotland and a knock-on effect on the concessionary travel schemes. I am not saying that that is the mechanism that you would use to do it. The point that I am making is that there are levers that could be used to bring in price capping in the bus sector. Has the Government looked at anything in relation to that more generally?
What you have just outlined is not part of the thinking for the model that we are considering. We have committed to looking at a price cap pilot scheme that would cap fares at £2, but there are a number of considerations to take into account, including where the pilot will take place, what we will do with it, what we want to achieve through it and what the long-term objective would be. A number of areas would need to be explored for us to be sure that that was the right rate.
You are talking about moving budgets and how those budgets will be used. I note that the committee has raised that issue before—I think that Mr Matheson raised it with the cabinet secretary in the previous budget session.
We are aware that a number of conversations are being had about whether the schemes represent the best use of public funds at the moment. There will always be potential for us to develop ideas and look at different ways of doing things but, at the moment, the concessionary scheme is as it is. It is working. It is clearly hitting the objectives that the Government is trying to achieve and it is working for passengers and operators.
In addition, we are now thinking about other ways to get more people to use the bus. As I have said before, I am clearly committed to trying to increase bus patronage, but there are a number of factors for us to consider.
I have the reassurances that I need. The minister has nudged on to other areas, but I have no further questions.
The deputy convener is next.
I am aware that, this year, you have had negotiations with the CPT on the reimbursement rate and the payment cap. What rates did the CPT ask for those to be set at for 2025-26?
I do not know what rates it asked for those to be set at. Carole Stewart was part of the negotiations, so perhaps she can answer that question.
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The CPT did not seek a specific rate or budget cap for the ODPS. The rates came out of the modelling work and there were discussions about some of the inputs and parameters for the model. The budget cap for the ODPS for next year is based on predicted fare increases and forecasts of journey numbers and is a mutually agreed forecast of a reasonable budget cap for the year ahead, as agreed by Transport Scotland and the CPT.
Did the CPT accept the modelling output?
Yes.
Can you give a breakdown of how much each bus operator in Scotland receives through the schemes?
I do not have that information in front of me.
I am not asking you to give us that information here and now, but do you hold that data?
We do, and it is published quite regularly, so we can send you links to that.
That would be helpful.
When you send that information to us, please make sure that it goes to the clerks so that they can distribute it to committee members.
As Michael Matheson has finished, we move on to questions from Mark Ruskell.
I noticed that the reimbursement rate to bus companies for the young persons scheme has gone down a little. That has obviously come from the model and been accepted by CPT. That suggests to me that the Government will get a slightly better deal out of the reimbursement because we are paying less for the same sort of outcome.
What other outcomes could the Government get from the scheme? There is a question about conditionality. The bus companies get some money back for carrying passengers who are part of a concessionary scheme. What conditions could be put on that for the bus companies? I am thinking about quality and reliability of service, routes and even about investing in the fleet to tackle antisocial behaviour or protect workers. A huge amount of money goes to the bus companies every year through the network support grant and the two concessionary schemes, so how do we develop the public interest when, some public and community companies notwithstanding, those are private companies that are not obliged to deliver on public objectives beyond those that you are paying them for? How can we get a bit more conditionality in there to ensure that we have a public service that delivers what the public want?
Whether we like it or not, we are living with a deregulated bus service. We can argue the rights or wrongs of that, but it is what it is.
You said that the percentage has gone down. It is going down, but the number of young people using buses is going up and there are more bus journeys, which is all positive.
There are on-going conversations about what else we can get out of this. I am meeting CPT—I think, tomorrow—and we are going to start talking about what more we can do to tackle antisocial behaviour. You will be aware that the minister Siobhian Brown—I am so sorry, but I cannot remember her title—will shortly be releasing a report on antisocial behaviour issues across the board, not only in relation to buses.
There are regular, on-going conversations. I met the bus operators last week and am due to meet local authorities and transport authorities in the coming weeks. I am keen to ensure that we have continuous conversations about how to make bus travel better for the public purse and for passengers while, at the same time, allowing companies to continue making a profit in order to be able to invest. We have invested a huge amount of money in electric vehicles in the past and there is a reasonably good working relationship with the sector, given that the industry is, at the moment, deregulated.
This committee was involved in passing the legislation to allow for franchising and other models that offer more involvement in what bus services supply. The conversation is regular and on-going. I will continue having it and will continue being answerable to the committee so that we can see whether we are going far enough and hard enough.
You mentioned a commitment to deliver a pilot for a cap on bus fares. You said that the areas have not yet been chosen, but is that the tone of the conversation with the industry? I know that that will be only a pilot and that it will not be nationwide, but it could be significant if the companies also actually invest in opportunities in those areas.
Yes, that is part of the conversation. I have met the bus companies collectively and a number of them individually. I want to ensure that that dialogue continues. If we have dialogue, we can make progress.
I am trying to make the point that we must have that dialogue through those conversations but that the measure must be mutually beneficial. We accept that, as private companies, the bus companies have a requirement to make profit and to be successful. I will continue to have those conversations with them to ensure that we are getting the best value for public money.
I return to Bob Doris’s questions about full-fare-paying passengers and fare increases over time. As I understand it, between 2012 and 2022, fare prices increased by between 65 and 70 per cent across Scotland. That compares with the cost of motoring, which went up by only 35 per cent during that period. There appears to be a gap.
Drawing on Mr Doris’s comments, I am a little concerned that companies might look at the model and think that they will get a higher reimbursement rate if they keep pushing up the fares. Carole Stewart is shaking her head, so maybe that is not the case. Folks who are getting on a bus every day are seeing those increases and they are making a decision about whether to leave the car at home. If it is becoming cheaper to drive, that is an issue.
Is not the wider fare capping an issue with the model? Effectively, it means that higher fares result in more money for the companies. Carole Stewart is still shaking her head. Does she want to come in?
The head shaking has gone from the minister to Carole Stewart and now to Gary McIntyre. I do not know whether you can get Bettina Sizeland to do it as well, but you can try if you like.
Everything else being equal in the reimbursement model, which is predicated on the objective of operators being no better or no worse off, a higher average single fare will lead to a lower reimbursement rate rather than a higher reimbursement rate. There comes a point at which, if fares increase too much beyond the costs, the reimbursement rate will come down and operators will receive less per journey against a more expensive journey. It balances itself out to an extent in the model.
Can you show with the model how that has played out over the period from 2012 to 2022, when adult bus fares went up by between 65 and 70 per cent? Was there a corresponding reduction in that reimbursement rate over time?
You can see that over time.
It would be good to see how that plays out through the model, rather than it just being—
Yes, we can share those figures. You see that trend—that is, as fares have increased over time, the rate has gradually come down.
It has always been the case that operators have been no better and no worse off.
Yes.
That delved into my question. Since 2016, there has been a 67 per cent increase in the amount of money that is paid in concessionary fares but only a 13.5 per cent increase in the number of concessionary trips. That is a huge increase in money with very little movement at the other end, is it not, minister?
There has been a long-term decline in the use of buses. Whether that is—
Minister, I accept that there has been a long-term decline, but you are throwing more and more money at it and getting a smaller increase in the number of concessionary trips. Throwing money at it does not seem to be the answer.
I would counter that by saying that more and more trips are being made, particularly by those who are using the young persons bus travel scheme. There are more and more cardholders and they are making more and more journeys. That is creating habitual behaviour. I hope that young people will carry that on into their young adult life and that they will continue to use public transport. I would dispute what you say on that, convener.
That might be the case in urban areas. It would be good to see the split between urban and rural areas, because young people cannot get on buses in rural areas as there are not many of them.
Douglas Lumsden has some questions.
First, I want to ask about the bus fare cap pilot that the minister mentioned. How will the cap be chosen, which area will be chosen and when will it be chosen? Will it cover both urban and rural areas? If it is a mix, I suggest that the north-east of Scotland is an ideal place for the pilot.
I cannot tell you, and I am not going to tell you. As I said when I answered previously, there are a number of considerations, but your latter point is very important. How do we structure our thinking into asking, “What is the best use of this fund? What are we trying to achieve? Who are we trying to attract on to the bus? Who will be affected? How will the operators react?”
An awful lot of thinking is going into what the pilot will do. I am not trying to be evasive; I am genuinely putting an awful lot of thinking into how we make the pilot work and how to get the best possible answers so that we can decide whether we want to continue it.
Can you give us any idea when that will be announced and when in the workings of the pilot that will be?
Somebody will have to confirm when the pilot will be up and running.
January 2026.
The pilot will run from January 2026 to January 2027.
If the budget passes and we have £3 million available to us.
If the budget passes, yes.
It will start in January 2026, but when will we have an idea of where it will run?
We will let you know if it is Aberdeen in due course.
Okay. My second question is about the total number of journeys, which has increased over the past couple of years. Has the number of fare-paying passengers increased or is it still decreasing?
I will have to ask Gary McIntyre whether he knows what the actual split is between fare-paying and concessionary passengers.
I do not have it in front of me, but numbers of commercial passengers have bounced back significantly since Covid; passenger numbers had decreased in those couple of years. Passengers in the commercial market are coming back.
The number of fare-paying passengers has gone up over the past two years—is that correct?
Over the past two years, yes.
Could you provide the committee with more details on that? That would be helpful.
Yes.
I will add to that. One of the things that I considered during my discussions with Bettina Sizeland is how we ensure that we are creating behavioural change and habit-forming behaviours. We are actively looking to see whether, when people are no longer eligible for a pass, they continue to use the bus or buy their first car. It is difficult to gauge that, but we are actively trying to understand whether we are genuinely creating the behavioural change that we are looking for. It will take us a bit of time to do that.
That was the next part of my question, because you had mentioned behavioural change. Once somebody gets to 22, do they change from going on the bus to buying a car? I know that it is early days, but do you have the data on whether there has been actual behavioural change?
No, we do not have that data at the moment, but we have spoken about that at length. It is about how we extract the data, because those people then become fare-paying passengers. Are they the fare-paying passengers that Gary McIntyre just said have increased in number? Are those fare-paying passengers young people who are continuing to use the bus after their pass has finished, or are people choosing to go on the bus? We need to understand that. It is difficult data to gather, but we are actively looking at that at the moment.
My next question is about the annual distance travelled by Scottish bus services. It has fallen by more than 25 per cent since 2006. Do you know whether that decrease affects rural areas more than urban areas?
I cannot definitively answer whether it affects rural areas, but my sense is that it definitely does. I say that as an MSP with a rural constituency, knowing that I see rural bus services declining. Again, we are actively looking at how to address that, but it is not easy, because it is a deregulated industry.
To go back to the point that Mark Ruskell made about public funds going into a service, we have very little in the way of levers to determine where services are. Again, that comes back to franchising and the other powers that we are putting into the hands of local authorities.
There is an awful lot of stuff in the mix about how we are going to improve the service, which goes back to my earlier point. We are looking at different areas. We want to get the best value for public money, make sure that people are using the buses and work with private enterprises.
Do you think that the reduction in rural services has anything to do with the network support grant, which has seen a 47.5 per cent real-terms reduction since 2006?
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I cannot answer that, unless Carole Stewart wants to chip in as to whether there has been a reduction in the network support grant usage.
The network support grant is paid on a per kilometre basis, so it mainly gives support to rural routes and longer-distance journeys.
It seems obvious that that reduction is having a direct impact on rural bus services. The Government made a policy decision to move some of that money into concessionary schemes, but I am trying to work out whether that is having a huge impact on rural bus services.
The network support grant is not the only grant that is available to support rural services. Local authorities also receive block grants to support subsidised services, and that seems to make sense as they understand what is going on in the local area and what it is best to support.
As Carole Stewart said, the network support grant is there to make services more available than they would be without it. Because it is paid per kilometre, it favours the longer routes, but it is not the only grant that is available. There is also the support that is provided directly by local authorities through their subsidised services.
I imagine that the number of subsidised bus routes from local authorities has also been reduced quite significantly during the past few years.
There has been a reduction in subsidised bus routes, yes.
Kevin Stewart, you have a question on that before we move to Sarah Boyack.
You can go to Sarah first.
Okay. Kevin has given way, which is interesting.
That is very kind; I will take that.
I will follow up on the link between access to services and funding. The stats on supported bus services and the impact of bus service cuts show that the impact is falling disproportionately on people who are already in deprived groups, and how it affects rural and peripheral urban areas is clearly an issue because people have a bus pass, but they cannot necessarily use it. We had a cross-party group meeting on sustainable transport, and that is what the young people said. They said that they loved the concept of a bus pass, but that it is not much use if they do not have a bus to use it on. What is the joined-up approach to give people access to bus services?
You are right. I am wrestling with that. It is all very well having a bus pass, but if people do not have a bus to go on, they cannot use that pass. I absolutely accept that.
It goes back to the point that I have made to a number of members. The loss of routes is incredibly frustrating. Local authorities and bus operators make those decisions. We are limited in what we can do. We can put funding into various things. The concessionary travel scheme is working, but I absolutely take the point that you made that, if there is no bus available, the scheme is not working for those people who are affected. I am actively looking at the ability to make better provision in areas where the bus services are not as good as they should be.
What research is the Government doing to identify the gaps? It goes back to the point that Douglas Lumsden made about the 47 per cent cut to the network support grant. Do we not need a more joined-up approach?
We have a joined-up approach, but at the moment we are not filling in all the gaps. I assure you that I am actively looking at that.
It is a geographic issue, and it is also about people on low incomes and the combination of people who should be benefiting. We need to think about what that will look like. Have you got feedback from bus companies about more cuts that will be made to services, or do we just have to wait and see what happens?
I do not have any feedback to hand to talk about any cuts to services. I have not been told of any.
From looking at it, it is about having a joined-up approach. If we are here next year having a similar discussion, is it your expectation that we will have the same number of bus services or fewer bus services, and what is the geographic impact of that likely to be?
I am not clairvoyant, so I cannot predetermine what private bus companies are going to decide and which services they will or will not want to keep. I will be back at the committee next year, because there will be an annual requirement to talk about the reimbursement rate. At that point, I will—I hope—be able to tell you that we are increasing the patronage even more because of the actions that we are taking.
I am not disputing the fact that there is a disparity in rural areas with regard to people’s ability to get a bus, and I am actively engaged in that issue.
Okay. I was hoping that you would tell us that, by next year, you would have done research, looking at the areas where more investment is needed and thinking about partnership approaches so that we could see the services delivered.
I said to the committee earlier that I am actively looking at all the things that we are doing and how we make the service better. That would include the particular point that you put to me.
Thank you. I can say that, as a bus user in an area where I get to use my bus pass, it is fantastic, because we have buses in my region. On the edge of the region, however, I can see the difference. Bus services have to be higher up the political agenda.
Thank you, Sarah. Over to Kevin Stewart.
First, I would be failing in my duty, minister, if I was not to advocate for Aberdeen city and Aberdeenshire as the ideal place for the £2 bus fare cap pilot.
Members are all advocating for their different areas, regions and constituencies.
I have written to you about the matter already, and I think that I have set out good reasoning for the pilot to be in Aberdeen city and Aberdeenshire, but let us move on from that.
Anecdote says that the introduction of the young persons free bus travel scheme has led to the survival of some routes, and to the introduction of new routes. Is there any evidence that the scheme has made a difference in that way?
I do not have data to say that, but we have seen an increase in people, in particular young people, using the bus.
Are your officials trying to gather that data as proof to see whether the young persons scheme is making that difference, or whether it is just anecdote?
With regard to your specific question, the answer is no—I have not asked them to do that. However, I have asked them to consider whether young people who have the pass are using the bus. If those young people are transferring to being habitual bus users—and the next generation will also be getting their free bus pass—the scheme will be creating an environment of bus use.
I have not looked at the specific areas that you asked about, but with regard to the overall picture, I am looking at how the young persons pass is delivering behavioural change.
It is important that we collect that data to see whether the young persons scheme is making a difference to the viability of services. Gathering that data is immensely important and would help you and the Government, and others, to justify the spending on the scheme.
Carole Stewart may want to answer that.
We carried out a one-year evaluation of the young persons scheme, which was published in December 2023. It looked at some of the initial outcomes and achievements of the scheme. There is a further planned evaluation of the scheme next year, and there is certainly potential for us to add in those questions as part of our on-going evaluation of the scheme.
Thank you—the addition of those questions would be immensely useful.
I will change tack a little, because—like many others around the table—I have heard from constituents, on occasion, accusations of fraud around the scheme, with tickets being issued that say that folks are going further than their actual journey. That is an area of interest to me.
When I had the transport minister’s job, I asked officials to look at the issue and was told that there was always scrutiny of it, and that there were very few occasions when fraud had happened. Can you assure us, minister, that that scrutiny continues? Can you give us a flavour of how many times there has been fraudulent activity?
I give you an absolute assurance that there is a zero-tolerance approach to fraud. Under no circumstances will we tolerate anyone trying to defraud the scheme. Types of fraud include bus drivers falsely recording journeys made, and cardholders fraudulently allowing others to use their card or fraudulently obtaining a card, but such things are robustly pursued at all levels. I cannot give you a figure for how many times that has happened—officials might have that to hand—but it is not something that the Government will accept, or should be accepting.
I agree. It would be very useful for the committee to get those figures, convener.
I am sure that the minister will make sure that we get those figures, on the basis that they are for a question that I was going to ask. Keep cracking on, Kevin.
My final question is still on that issue. Would you or Transport Scotland consider running a short, sharp social media campaign to give folk details of who they should contact if they think that there has been fraud?
I will take that under advisement.
Thank you.
I think that Douglas Lumsden has a question—
Just a second, convener. My apologies.
I just wanted to come back on that. We already run a free 24-hour hotline, and we have a number for people to make those complaints.
Can you advertise it a little bit more?
Yes.
Douglas, I think that you have a question.
I have a brief question about antisocial behaviour. We have heard in the chamber about the increase in antisocial behaviour on buses since the young persons scheme came in, and I think that the Government has said that it will look at ways of restricting people’s access. Has it done any work on that yet, and has it come to any conclusions?
A lot of work has been done on the overall issue of antisocial behaviour. As I said earlier, the Minister for Victims and Community Safety tasked an independent working group on antisocial behaviour with looking at the issue; it was due to report by the end of 2024, but its report will be published shortly. It has gathered a wide range of evidence from all areas.
However, I make it absolutely clear—and I make this point every time that we talk about this issue—that antisocial behaviour happens not because of bus passes, but because of people behaving antisocially. As for removing cards themselves, we are still exploring the legal means of suspending access to concessionary travel for perpetrators of persistent antisocial behaviour of any age, not just the under-22s. I keep re-emphasising that, because what really bothered me about this debate was that it started to demonise under-22s using the concessionary scheme. It was giving young people a brand that they did not deserve; after all, the vast majority are perfectly well behaved.
We are still looking at removing cards, and at whether that is what we want to do. We need to work out what that would do to the scheme and the impact on other elements of the entitlement card. After all, cards are not just bus passes. This is an on-going issue that we are looking at; indeed, I will be meeting CPT tomorrow to talk about antisocial behaviour. We are actively engaged in that work.
Thanks for that answer, minister. I completely agree that the vast majority of young people are well behaved on our buses.
As there are no more questions, we move on to agenda item 3, which is a debate on motion S6M-16241. I ask the minister to move the motion.
Motion moved,
That the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee recommends that the National Bus Travel Concession Schemes (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Order 2025 be approved.—[Jim Fairlie]
10:15
I now seek contributions from members. I would like to make a contribution, but I see that Bob Doris wants to do so, too, so I will go to him first.
I will be ever so brief. In speaking in support of the affirmative instrument, I must commend Kevin Stewart and Douglas Lumsden for pushing for Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire to be part of the flat fares pilot. Their cases are almost as compelling as that for the north Glasgow and Maryhill Road corridor, where, with the fare capping that will be essential for my constituents, we could have excellent integration between buses and the rail network in that area, and we could work out the relationship between both. Notwithstanding that, though, I completely support the affirmative instrument that we are debating.
I just want to chime in and say that I would support such a pilot in the Highlands, if we had enough buses available, but we do not.
As I said at the beginning, I have been looking at these concessionary fare instruments since 2016, and coming as I do from a region where we rely on ferries as much as we do on buses—or the people on the islands do—I am disappointed every year not to see any concessionary fares for people on islands. It is very difficult for us to vote against this instrument, given that it is, I hope, driving us towards our net zero targets, but why, oh why are we not doing more for the island buses—that is, ferries?
I get that people do not get to use all the ferries all the time, but I would note that in 2021 an island communities impact assessment concluded that ferry travel should not be included in the scheme at that time. We have some ferry concessions for younger people, and, as I have said, I would like to do more. I fully understand, and fully take on board, the connectivity issues faced by island and peninsular communities, and if we had more money to do as you suggest, we would do it. However, we do not, but I will continue to actively look at how we can make connectivity better for the island communities.
Of course, we could do a whole heap of things if we had more money, but sometimes we just need to make sure that the money is equitably split among the people who are using services. Islanders continue to write to me, asking why ferries cannot be viewed as buses are.
As there are no more questions, I ask the minister to sum up and respond to the debate, if he so wishes.
I am quite happy to leave it there.
Motion agreed to,
That the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee recommends that the National Bus Travel Concession Schemes (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Order 2025 be approved.
The committee will report on the outcome of the instrument in due course, and I invite it to delegate authority to me as convener to approve a draft of the report for publication. Are we all agreed?
Members indicated agreement.
I thank the minister and his officials.
I suspend the meeting briefly for a changeover of witnesses, and I must ask members to be back here by 10:23.
10:18 Meeting suspended.
10:24 On resuming—
Air adhart
Environmental Regulation