Seòmar agus comataidhean

I am sorry; could you repeat that?

Monica, you go first; my apologies.

I will go to Douglas Lumsden first and then come back to Mark Ruskell.

Will the member take an intervention?

I did not say that I am confident about that; I said that it is a possibility. SPT is putting huge amounts of time and resource into the process of looking at its financial model and everything else that it will have to do. The current position means that we are going to stall the progress of the legislation that would allow SPT to set up a franchise. If the regulations do not pass, SPT will have to decide whether it wants to continue putting the time and resource into that effort when it is not sure what the direction of travel will be.

I have not had any discussions with SPT. I am merely making the point that a huge amount of time and resource goes into the work that it is having to do around the process. If the instrument stalls today, I anticipate there being a risk that SPT could say that, until there is clarity on and certainty about what the legislation will do, it will pause spending money and putting resource into the process. I am merely making the point that that is a risk.

There does. It is in primary legislation.

No, I do not think that that is correct: we would have to change the 2019 act. That could not be done in a short timescale. I keep reiterating that we either pass the regulations or we do not, and we have already debated the consequences of that.

The assurance that I can give the committee is that, if we approve the instrument, I will come back to the committee with the guidance as it develops. The committee can then scrutinise that guidance before it goes into the traffic commissioner’s remit. However, once it becomes part of the traffic commissioner’s remit, it is his or hers, because the whole purpose of the regulations is to cut the umbilical cord between the political side of things and deliver a process that the people of Scotland want. I am more than happy to come back to the committee to talk about the guidance and to try to get that agreed as we go forward. I can give that commitment.

There were other interventions. Was it Douglas Lumsden?

We have not spoken specifically about the SSI.