Seòmar agus comataidhean

I acknowledge up front that bringing ScotRail into public ownership has been a welcome move by the Scottish Government that has put the public interest at the heart of our rail services.

However, the cost of rail travel is now the critical issue for travellers. It is time for the Government to intervene, to use its power and to act in the public interest to deliver a more affordable service. We all see from our inboxes that rail travel is now too expensive for too many people, and that ticketing is complex and confusing. The fact that rail fares are even higher in England is cold comfort to our struggling constituents, who want to see action here in Scotland.

The return of peak fares in September last year has seen day ticket prices more than doubling in some cases. A peak-time return from Perth to Glasgow Queen Street station will set a passenger back £40.10, compared with an off-peak ticket costing £20. Meanwhile, people heading from Stirling to Waverley station will pay £19.90 on a peak journey, compared with £12.10 for an off-peak one.

Those are prices before ScotRail’s above-inflation increase to ticket prices of 3.8 per cent. That increase in ticket prices will outstrip percentage increases in many pay packets next month, including those of staff who work here in the Parliament. Unless the Scottish Government revisits the decision to increase rail fares, passengers between Perth and Glasgow Queen Street, for example, will pay £41.62. Tickets that are already too expensive will become even more costly at a time when household budgets are already stretched. Those are eye-watering amounts of money for commuters to be shelling out. Peak-time ticket costs are an unfair tax on working people, and they must be scrapped.

Although I acknowledge that some better deals are now available, such as flexipasses and season passes, those all require commuters to dig deep into their pockets up front. In a post-Covid world in which patterns of work are no longer fixed, investing in a season pass will not be an attractive, convenient or affordable option for many people. However, for many, it will be the only option that they have, if they want to get the train. Of course, flexipasses are not even available on all routes, which means that some passengers are barred from cheaper fares simply because of where they live and the journeys that they make.

The cost crisis has not happened overnight: the price of public transport has been steadily rising for years and years. Over the past decade, we have seen an increase of nearly 70 per cent in the cost of public transport, compared with an increase in motoring costs of only around a third. There is a widening gap between people who drive and those who do not or cannot drive, which will structurally build in car dependency for people in the working-age population who are ineligible for concessionary fare schemes. Working people on low incomes will continue to find their monthly outgoings being dominated by transport costs as much as, if not more than, they are by energy costs.

Bus services might be a cheaper option, and I welcome the constructive agreement that we have reached with the Scottish Government on a future bus fare cap pilot scheme. However, buses do not always provide the fast connection that is needed to get to a place of work or for longer-distance travel. For people with caring responsibilities, especially women, spending hours on a bus—or, indeed, on multiple buses—at either end of a day does not fit with family life. When that is paired with a complex and unintegrated ticketing system, the cost for women of travelling by public transport adds up. It is unclear what progress has been made towards delivering an integrated ticketing system that would go at least some way towards reducing the complexity and cost of journeys in Scotland.

No—it is not an either/or. The cabinet secretary would do well to reflect on the fact that many people use multiple modes of transport and that integration is therefore critical. It is disappointing that the Government always seems to see rail travel as being second to bus travel, when we need to invest in both. They do very different things.

For many people, the choices are stark. They either get the train and save time, but spend more money, get the bus and spend less money but waste time, or drive, if they are able to, and spend less money but waste more time sitting in traffic jams. Those are the real-world choices that are faced every morning by households, and none of those options properly serves the people or the economy. Public transport should be seamless and accessible, and it should be an affordable choice. I am concerned that rail is increasingly being seen as a premium form of travel for the few, rather than mass transit for the many.

It seems odd that, having successfully opened a new rail route to Levenmouth with the objective of tackling economic disadvantage, the Government is now allowing fare increases that will price many people out of the restored train services that communities fought for.

During our time in Government, the Scottish Greens worked to secure the removal of peak fares through the pilot scheme, which resulted in a shift in ticket prices for peak-time commuters and an average saving across all tickets of 17 per cent. Over the scheme’s duration, passenger numbers increased by nearly 7 per cent, and 4 million extra journeys were switched away from private cars. Awareness of rail as a viable travel option also increased, with 80 per cent of people who participated in the scheme stating that they were now making more trips by rail.

The Scottish Government has scrapped the pilot scheme, having cited a limited increase in passenger numbers and lack of modal shift towards rail travel. However, we all know that modal shifts take longer than a year-long pilot, and that multiple interventions are needed to support it. Few people would be tempted to change their job or sell a car based on a short-term pilot to reduce rail fares, so long-term certainty is important.

The cabinet secretary’s amendment indicates that the Transport for London off-peak trial’s results mirror those of the Scottish scheme, and cites them as proof that our scheme somehow did not work. However, TFL’s pilot ran only on Fridays for 13 weeks: it could hardly be called a trial at all.

The spiralling rail travel costs issue is not going away, and it goes way beyond what can be agreed in budget negotiations in a single parliamentary year. We need a real vision for Scotland’s railways from the Government, but above-inflation increases to complex rail fares that discriminate against workers should have no place in that vision.

I move,

That the Parliament believes that rail fares in Scotland must be cheaper; regrets the decision by the Scottish Government to end the off-peak all-day pilot in September 2024, despite an increase of passenger demand by 6.8% and an average 17% cost saving to passengers; understands that expensive and complex ticketing deters passengers from choosing to travel by train; acknowledges that, in order to fulfil the Scottish Government’s ambition of reducing car kilometres by 20% by 2030, rail services and public transport must be cheaper and more accessible, and calls, therefore, on the Scottish Government to reverse the 3.8% increase to rail fares coming into effect from 1 April 2025, to permanently remove peak-time rail fares, and to simplify public transport fares, through the introduction of integrated ticketing, as soon as possible.

I extend apologies from Gillian Mackay, who was to close for the Greens in the debate but is not able to make it, due to an unforeseen personal reason. So, I will attempt to close the debate.

That was a disappointing contribution from the cabinet secretary. It seems that she is saying that it is actually the fault of the Scottish Greens that rail fares have been increasing for years on years—not ScotRail, nor the Scottish Government and its budget choices, but the Scottish Greens.

To be honest, if we are being egged on to go further by the cabinet secretary, Sue Webber and Beatrice Wishart—not just to deliver a bus fare cap pilot, but to make rail fares substantially cheaper as well—I would welcome support, maybe from Beatrice Wishart in a future budget deal. The Liberal Democrats were unable to get the Newburgh rail station over the line this year, but maybe we can achieve a lot more for communities by working in a more collaborative way.

To take on board the cabinet secretary’s criticism and concern, I note that there is some flexibility within the budget that the Parliament has agreed. The cabinet secretary pointed out that, previously, the off-peak all-day pilot scheme was extended as a result of in-year budget revisions. It is not clear what in-year budget revisions will look like in the coming year. Perhaps development costs for the A96 will be underspent—I hope so. Perhaps other areas of Government funding will be underspent, so that we can redirect that funding to support people who are struggling with the cost of living.

Sarah Boyack pointed out that the cabinet secretary had said that if more money became available, off-peak all-day fares would be a priority for the Government. I am not so sure about that, any more. However, more things can be done to lower the cost of travel.

I believe that the price of the flexipass has been frozen until September 2025. I am not clear whether there has been a decision to extend the price freeze, but limited spending by the Scottish Government in that area could benefit people in terms of their travel choices every day.

A number of members expanded the debate a little to talk about other issues that are important for the travelling public. For example, Claire Baker and Richard Leonard discussed ticket office closures. Ticket office staff play a vital role in helping passengers to access the cheapest fares. Many people who require concessionary tickets or national entitlement card tickets can purchase them only at ticket offices or on the train. There is still concern about the planned reduction in ticketing hours and potential closures, and there is concern about accessibility at unstaffed stations.

Claire Baker described the evaluation report on the off-peak all-day fares pilot as probably “the most inconclusive” that she has ever read. Richard Leonard highlighted the lack of analysis of the impact of increased traffic growth as a result of off-peak all-day fares being removed.

It was slightly disingenuous of the Cabinet Secretary for Transport in her amendment to draw parallels with the Transport for London pilot. London is a very different place from Scotland: it has fully integrated ticketing and an underground rail network that spans the whole city, which is provided at low cost. As I pointed out in my opening comments, that pilot study ran only on Fridays for 13 weeks, so it is just not credible to include it in the amendment as a reason why off-peak all-day fares will not work in Scotland.

There has been discussion about flexipasses, including by Maurice Golden, who raised issues on behalf of his constituents. I point out that someone who is trying to get a flexipass and is commuting between Cumbernauld and Dalmuir or from Larkhall to Dalmuir cannot get a flexipass. There are very limited options for regular commuters. I think that that comes down to the fact that some stations do not have automated gates. There simply is not the infrastructure to deal with cheaper tickets.

I have constituents in Pitlochry who are struggling to understand whether they are eligible for flexipasses. I will have to write to the cabinet secretary on the issue. Most of my constituents who have written to me are just getting in the car and heading down the A9, because they have more or less given up trying to work out how flexipasses work.

We heard contributions about the climate and the critical Audit Scotland report from Ariane Burgess, Richard Leonard and Sarah Boyack. Unfortunately, Audit Scotland has clearly said that we are “unlikely” to meet the target of

“reducing car kilometres driven by 20 per cent by 2030.”

It has attributed that to a “lack of leadership”, where national and local spending on reducing car usage is complex, fragmented and lacking in transparency. I hope that the 20 per cent plan, which has been under discussion for many years with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and councils, can finally be agreed.

I wish the Government well in those negotiations with COSLA, but some key elements of the plan will require in Parliament discussion of subjects that are currently taboo—demand management, automatic road tolls, congestion charges and a wide range of measures that are needed to raise the revenue to invest in public transport in order to make it low cost or free.

In European cities, that is normal. Demand management and investing not just in low-cost public transport but in free public transport is not a Green dream—it is a reality and it is happening in French cities right now. They are making the choice to raise revenue and to invest in making public transport free, and are not just using peak fare reductions or anything else that fiddles round at the edges through use of complex schemes.

If we are serious about reducing emissions, tackling transport inequality and making public transport the best option, action must be taken now, but it has to have a big vision behind it. That is not just about the Scottish budget this year, but is about setting out a vision.

Sorry to interrupt. I know that you have a lot of figures, but I want to consider this from the perspective of my constituents. If they have a concern about a particular factory or polluter, can they go online and track what has happened over time? Can they track whether there has been enforcement action, a penalty notice has been issued, remedial action has been taken or improvements have been made? Is the story of a particular site or operator—when they failed to meet compliance or when there was a rectification of action or a penalty—really clear, for our constituents to understand it? At the moment, I am not really getting that clarity.

I do, but I could move on if you want, convener.

We have other examples. SEPA has come in for considerable criticism in relation to issues surrounding the disposal of salmon morts, in North Uist in particular. The public perception is that not enough is being done and that this happens time after time. I know that the salmon farming sector used up quite a lot of SEPA’s time a few years ago. Can you say anything about the particular case in North Uist—I think that it happened at Whiteshore Cockles processing site? There have been other examples reported in the media, which people are looking at and asking, “How is this allowed to happen?”

So, it has not started yet, but it will start.

My final question on air quality picks up on the ESS improvement report from 2022. That report was critical of SEPA’s lack of use of the powers under section 85 of the Environment Act 1995, particularly in relation to taking action when you think that local authorities are not going far enough in relation to air quality management plans and the monitoring of air quality management areas. Can you provide an update on that? Have you used your section 85 powers and, if not, why not?

You are a science-based organisation. What does the science tell you?

Have you already provided guidance to the Scottish Government about the implications of adopting those 2021 WHO standards?

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?