Seòmar agus comataidhean

That is fine; I will continue with my questions.

For context, Gabi Hegerl, you are saying that there are only two or three years left of the budget to stay within 1.5°. Where are we with the peaking of global emissions? If we are to have any chance of staying within, say, 2° or 2.5°, when do global emissions need to peak, and what policies and actions need to be taken globally in order to have any chance of achieving that? Do you want to come in before I turn to others?

Just to be clear, this committee, and other committees, may make recommendations about the climate change plan, and the Government’s intention is to reflect on all the recommendations and finalise the plan ahead of the next election, so that there will be a cast-iron, agreed climate change plan. There will be nothing for the new Government to do in reopening that plan, and it will be tasked with delivering the actions that are in it.

Will the exact balance of actions that the Government can take during the next five-year carbon budget be forthcoming in the climate change plan?

You have rejected regulation. There is now a heavy reliance on the UK Government making decisions about the wholesale price of electricity, and other stuff may or may not happen. Will all those policy options be spelled out transparently in the energy strategy and the climate change plan, so that we can see what the impact will be?

The emissions impact of the legislation.

Go ahead.

I am reading the submission from the Institute for Public Policy Research in Scotland. It says that MSPs will have to decide to approve the carbon budgets

“effectively in ignorance of the policies they would then have to support in order to see the budgets delivered.”

The lack of information is concerning, and it perhaps plays to those, such as Mr Lumsden, who want to weaken ambition for the carbon budget, rather than people such as me, who want to strengthen that ambition.

No climate change plan—not even a draft one—has been submitted. We have only an incredibly thin indicative statement. The Government has rejected the advice of the UK Climate Change Committee on livestock and on peatlands, and policies on heat and on traffic reduction have been dropped. There is no energy strategy as yet. When it comes to Peterhead power station, there is uncertainty about the existing power station, let alone the prospect of a second one.

There are a lot of unknowns here and, quite frankly, I do not know whether this carbon budget is ambitious enough, because it lacks the transparency that successive committees of this Parliament have called for in advance of setting targets, objectives and aspirations around climate change. Although I will not vote against the budget, I find it very difficult to vote for it, because, without that detail, I do not know what it is that we are voting on at this point. I will therefore abstain.

Would the member reflect on the fact that that has been a failure of the privatisation of the rolling-stock companies? They have kept trains running for far longer than they should have done—those trains should have been scrapped far earlier and replaced with a modern fleet.

I thank the Scottish Government for giving us the opportunity to acknowledge the progress that has been made in the devolution era to restore our railways and to run them in the public interest. It is a timely debate, coming just one week after peak fares were finally scrapped for good.

The debate is also an opportunity to look forward to the kind of railway that everybody in Scotland wants and can feel proud of: one that is genuinely affordable, safe and accessible, low carbon and pollution free; that provides a reliable service that is welcoming and comfortable; and that reaches many of the communities that were abandoned after the Beeching cuts and need to be connected once again.

There is much to be said about our railways, but I will start where we left off last week. The scrapping of peak fares is what people want. They do not want complex, overpriced ticketing whereby they have to sprint to the ticket barriers to get the last off-peak train.

The days of making rail exclusive and only for the few are coming to an end, but we need to go further. Research from the Scottish Greens shows that the vast majority of ScotRail’s first-class capacity goes unused. Last year, 98 per cent of first-class tickets were unsold.

Our railways should be for all of us. Every journey on a ScotRail service should be a first-class experience. It should not be determined by our ability to pay extra. We have all been in the situation of struggling to find seats or being forced to stand in cramped carriages while the first-class carriage is almost completely empty. Anyone who has got on a busy commuter train from Glasgow to Edinburgh during the festivals in August knows that that can be particularly uncomfortable in the heat and can lead to people feeling unwell. Rail companies across the UK are reducing their first-class services, and it is time for ScotRail to do the same. If we are to have a rail renaissance in Scotland, we need low-cost, reliable and accessible rail.

I am very much aware of that, because I regularly sit in such seats when I travel from Stirling. However, the reality is that, on some of the busiest routes, we still have a nonsensical first class. It is time to look at that again.

An affordable, quality rail service is of use only if people have a station at which to board the train. Many stations that were abandoned in the Beeching era are gone and are not coming back; however, there are still other places within the reach of Scotland’s rail network that would benefit from being reconnected.

For example, in Newburgh, where I was very pleased to join the cabinet secretary on a recent cross-party visit, which I helped the community to host, people have for decades seen train after train go past on the way to Perth and Edinburgh. Children at the local school who dreamed of the railway coming back have now grown up. However, the town is set for major housing growth and the community has its sights set on exciting new opportunities, including the use of the railway and the River Tay together for new ecotourism business. There is a slot in the current railway timetable for a Newburgh rail halt with a low-cost modular station, and that outlay could be recouped easily through increased passenger numbers.

However, Newburgh is not alone, and the demand for more stations is growing. I have been pleased to support four rail campaigns in Fife over the years. One of those—Levenmouth—has now been built; Newburgh is, I hope, on the cusp of a positive decision; and the St Andrews and Dunfermline to Alloa project is waiting for the right moment to progress. Across Scotland, from the north-east to the Borders, communities are developing business cases for new stations. They are building the vision of Scotland’s railways from the bottom up, and they need our support.

Listening to the workers who run our railways is just as important as listening to the communities that they serve. The Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen’s most recent report into the financing of rolling stock reminds us that the job of nationalisation and delivery of a people’s railway is not yet complete. Around a quarter of the cost of every rail ticket goes to servicing rolling stock companies that pay dividends to private shareholders. By issuing Government bonds tied to the investment of proceeds back into rail services, Governments could create a virtuous cycle of investment and reinvestment in a public rail service that we all value and want to grow and develop. ASLEF believes that moving to a public financing model could make 40 per cent savings on rolling stock costs. That is the approach that most of the rest of the world uses to procure new trains.

It is clear that the privatised model has been disastrous. Levels of investment have been far lower than expected, and additional private financial initiatives have been needed to top up investment. Perverse incentives to scrap new electric trains while running older diesel fleets into the ground have been created across the UK. All the while, money is leaking out of the system to foreign owners, while we worry about whether the Scottish Government can justify the relatively small sums to help ScotRail to scrap peak rail fares.

We should be proud of ScotRail, but we should also be listening to passengers, communities and unions about their vision for the next 20 years: a people’s railway for everyone.