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The Scottish Government has ensured that there are a range of options available to patients requiring either clinical or financial travel assistance.

This includes the Patient Transport Service provided by the Scottish Ambulance Service for those requiring clinical assistance and, for those requiring financial assistance, the Patient Travelling Expenses Scheme and the specific Highlands and Islands Travel Scheme. In addition, all Health Boards have the discretion to reimburse patient traveling expenses where it is viewed to be an extension of treatment costs and deemed to be clinically necessary.

There are also a number of community based initiatives to provide hospital transport to patients and some Health and Social Care Partnerships link with voluntary organisations or community groups to provide transport.

The information requested is not held by the Scottish Government. Individual Boards are responsible for paying for or reimbursing the cost of patient travel, in accordance with their own patients’ travelling expenses scheme and within their overall baseline budgets, which are increasing by 3.7% in 2018-19 for frontline Boards.

Boards are required to make best use of resources, including setting policies on the most appropriate and cost effective means of patient transport whilst ensuring that patient care and safety is at the centre of all decisions made.

ScotRail is working to address all necessary technical issues to allow the introduction of class 385 Hitachi trains onto Edinburgh - Glasgow services in the coming months. In addition, four fully refurbished and longer High Speed Trains (HSTs) will gradually be introduced on the Aberdeen to Edinburgh inter-city route across the summer. This is part of the plan to expand the ScotRail fleet by more than 200 more carriages over the next 15 months.

Lease end dates of all rolling stock in the ScotRail fleet is contained within the publically available Franchise Agreement, and this is due to be updated through the regular Variation process to reflect revised lease end dates and newly acquired fleets. ScotRail continues to work hard to ensure that adequate capacity is provided between Edinburgh and Glasgow in light of Hitachi delays.

ScotRail is obliged to provide rolling stock to deliver its service provision and has already adjusted leases of existing rolling stock to mitigate against project slippage, it has also agreed leases for more trains during this franchise term and will continue to keep other options for more rolling stock under review. ScotRail also regularly reports on progress with introduction of new fleets. The lease end dates of all rolling stock is contained in the publically available Franchise Agreement, this is due to be updated through the regular Variation process to reflect revised lease end dates. ScotRail continues to work hard to ensure that adequate capacity is provided between Edinburgh and Glasgow in light of Hitachi delays.

The Scottish Energy Strategy, published last December, restated the Scottish Government's continued opposition to new nuclear stations, under current technologies. With the costs of renewable and storage technologies falling, new nuclear capacity is not needed to meet Scotland's long term energy needs, nor, in our view, does it deliver good value for consumers.

This policy does not preclude extensions to the operating life of Scotland's existing nuclear stations.

The Scottish Government are committed to delivering the benefits of a single command structure to provide integrated infrastructure policing in Scotland; our priority is to ensure a safe and seamless transition that delivers continuity of service for rail users and staff and ensures public safety.

On 20 February the Joint Programme Board set up to oversee the integration was advised by Police Scotland and the BTP Authority that the operational aspects of the integration will not be ready for April 2019 as planned; and on the same date the Scottish Government wrote to the Justice Committee Convenor to confirm that we have agreed that a re-planning exercise should take place in the coming months to ensure all aspects have a clear and realistic delivery plan in place. Part of this exercise will involve further joint partnership working by Police Scotland and the BTP Authority on any implications to railway policing in Scotland during this process; this will include consideration of workforce planning for future retirements.

We believe there are significant benefits for BTP officers moving to Police Scotland and the recent survey findings news release said that: “more positively, many respondents thought that the move to Police Scotland could provide greater development opportunities”. There is a need for further engagement with BTP officers and staff on a range of workforce matters and the re-planning exercise provides an opportunity to do so.

The Justice Committee will continue to be updated as the work of the Joint Programme Board progresses.

The principle behind the Scottish Government’s record investment in Scotland’s railways, is to improve the passenger experience on our national ScotRail franchise. Over £475m is being invested in rolling stock, delivering an additional 200 carraiges to provide much needed additional capacity to passengers.

We have also ensured that fares on ScotRail services can be affordable for all, with regulated peak fares capped to the level of the Retail Price Index, and Off-Peak fares, one per cent below RPI. Discounted advance fares enshrined in the contract means passengers can travel between two Scottish cities for £5. And queue-busting smart ticketing is now available across the complete ScotRail network.

Levels of passenger satisfaction are clearly linked to the reliability of ScotRail services, and as my colleague Humza Yousaf has stated in this chamber on an number of occasions, ScotRail’s performance must improve to meet the challenging, but achievable contract targets that the Scottish Government and passengers expect.

The pending introduction of new electric trains and faster Inter-city services will be a game changer in the overarching principle that the ScotRail franchise will improve connections to our communities; enable job opportunities, and spread economic prosperity across the country.

I look forward to the support of this chamber in delivering these aims for Scotland.