Seòmar agus comataidhean

Bus services are essential public services that must be run in the public interest. However, the reality is that we have been stuck in a cycle of decline in bus services, which started with Tory deregulation in the 1980s. It is now time to break that cycle, which means reflecting not only on how bad things have got but on the solutions. It is the solutions that are represented in the Government’s amendment.

It is absolutely clear that, following the widening of concessionary travel to under-22s, a new generation of young people are choosing to take the bus. More than two thirds of young people under 22 now hold a national entitlement card, with more than 62 million journeys having been made to date. The card is improving access to education, work and social opportunities, and is saving money for hundreds of thousands of young people and their families during the cost of living crisis. Holding the card has built the confidence and independence of teenagers. It has helped to address transport poverty across Scotland, it has enabled young people who are in desperate need to access food banks and it has helped many young people to access a job for the first time.

The evaluation of the scheme and the fair fares review should point to where we could go next with concessionary travel. I see a pressing need to extend the scheme to people in the asylum system who are, thanks to Tory cruelty, forced to live on £45 a week. I also see the case for an extension to young folk on islands who use ferries as they would buses.

I agree with Monica Lennon that one can get on a bus only if the service actually exists and is reliable. Too often, private operators are removing or scaling back services despite the huge amounts of funding from concessionary fares and subsidies from the Scottish Government, so I was pleased that the previous transport minister announced a

“full review of all funding streams from the Scottish Government to bus operators in Scotland”.

I believe that that review will bring the kind of conditionality for which Neil Bibby was calling.

I am sorry. I do not have time.

It is time to hold private bus companies to account on fares and service cancellations, and for the Government to work more with the traffic commissioner on enforcement. Use of the bus open data system, for example, would help both passengers and the commissioner to sanction the poor delivery that we see from many companies.

The Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 delivered new bus powers for councils. It gave them the ability to serve the needs of local communities by setting up municipally owned bus operators. Those powers have the potential to revolutionise services, so it is disappointing that Alex Rowley said absolutely nothing in his initial comments about municipal ownership of bus companies. He might need to take a leaf out of Andy Burnham’s book; he has focused on the solution, which is public control of a public service.

That is what we need from Labour—solutions. We need Labour to come to the chamber and agree on areas such as municipalisation, and to work with the new minister and councils to deliver it. Let us focus on the solutions and not just on how bad things have gotten—[Interruption.] I want to get on to the solutions, Mr Rowley.

The community bus fund will provide critical start-up funding for interested local authorities to explore the new powers around franchising and municipalisation. We should remember, too, that local authorities have powers on road-user charging and workplace parking levies which could help to build the required funds to sustain municipalised or franchised bus services. Let us get investment into publicly owned and publicly controlled bus companies. I hope that councils are showing the political leadership to use those powers.

We have barely scratched the surface this afternoon on the reforms that are needed to improve our bus services, but I look forward to more constructive opportunities to debate and develop the vision and find the solutions that we need.

I would like to make progress in laying out our concerns, but I will give way to the committee convener.

We believe that those qualities are lacking in the recommendation today.

I thank members of the SPPA Committee and the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland for their consideration of this case.

As a former member of the committee, I recognise its important work in upholding the values and standards of this institution. The Green group therefore respects the decision that has been made by the SPPA Committee and the commissioner that my colleague Maggie Chapman breached the code of conduct, and we do not wish to reopen that decision.

However, we struggle to agree with the decision to impose a sanction, because it goes against the recent precedent set by the Parliament in dealing with omissions to declare a financial interest. Since the start of session 5 in 2016, the SPPA Committee has upheld five complaints against members relating to a failure to declare a registered financial interest, and only one of those resulted in a sanction.

In that case, the member in question had asked parliamentary questions on an issue in which they held a live financial interest and could have potentially benefited financially from the outcome. It was also the second time that a complaint was upheld against them on the same issue, the first time having resulted in no sanction.

In another more recent case, a member failed to make verbal declarations of substantial gifts from a lobbying organisation, but the committee concluded that

“the finding of a breach is sanction enough.”

The case against Maggie Chapman, however, relates to a previous employment that had long since concluded at the time that the item of business took place in Parliament, so there was no way that Ms Chapman could have benefited financially from the subject that was under discussion on that day.

I am concerned, because the decision sets a precedent for declaring past employment, suggesting that every member in the chamber remains financially tied to all our previous employers for an indefinite period. Imposing a sanction today also undermines the previous position that members are able to make their own judgment on these matters.

In another case, again in 2016, the SPPA Committee admonished a member but imposed no further sanction because

“it is a matter of judgment for the member on whether a registered interest is sufficiently relevant to particular proceedings to require a declaration.”

Yet in this case, the committee has decided that it was not sufficient for Maggie Chapman to use her own judgment, despite her clearly making no attempt to conceal her previous employment, which was declared in her written register of interest.

Indeed—but I have laid out the circumstances in which the case emerged and I do not believe that an incorrect judgment was made in that regard. Many members who are looking at that and previous cases that have come to the chamber will now have doubts in their minds about when it is and when it is not appropriate to declare a particular interest.

It is the view of my colleagues in the Green group that our colleague appears to be being held to a different set of standards than previous members who were found wanting in relation to much more substantial breaches, where direct financial interests were actually at stake. She is also not being given the benefit of the doubt, which other members have been afforded. The following quotation is from a decision in 2020: when a member had similarly failed to declare previous employment, the committee concluded that

“the complaint ... was not related to a matter for which”

the member

“could have gained any financial benefit and there was no attempt to conceal the information, which”

was

“made available on the Parliament’s website.”

Those words are equally applicable to Maggie Chapman’s case, yet she is now being sanctioned by the Parliament, and that is a departure.

In closing, if the motion is approved, it potentially has implications for all members. There will be an urgent need for revised and detailed guidance to members on what should reasonably be declared for inclusion in their declaration of members’ interests and clerks and the convener will need to address that in the weeks to come. We recognise how vital honesty and transparency are in the dealings of the chamber, but my colleague has been honest and transparent at every stage of the process. Fairness and consistency are just as crucial—

Yes—and the need for agency.

My last question concerns 20-minute neighbourhoods. That concept was mentioned in a number of the submissions, and it was interesting to hear about some of the work on it in England. In Scotland, it is still very much seen as a planning concept—it is in the national planning framework—but do you have examples of cultural organisations in Scotland that have actively planned around 20-minute neighbourhoods? I am thinking in particular of high streets starting to close down and people starting to rethink spaces. As major retailers shut down post Covid, they left big spaces that people are thinking about how to fill creatively.

I want to come back on a couple of things that have been mentioned. Jemma Neville said that we need to normalise support for cultural organisations, as we have done for sporting organisations. Have I picked that up correctly? Can I get your perspectives on what that means? When I look at how sport is supported in my community, I see arm’s-length external organisations and sport and leisure trusts doing club sport development, and I see engagement in schools to encourage young people to get into sports clubs and try out new sports.

Is there a corollary, or are culture and music different? What is missing? Your organisations are trying to provide some of that support and development on a national basis, and the TSI Scotland Network provides similar support, but what is the missing bit that would give culture and music development and support that are equivalent to what sport has?

Do you want to come in, Sarah?

[Inaudible.]—Deveron Arts previously.