 Rhyw i'n gwybod y buslaynau, rhaid i'r cyflogol yma yw alwch, a oes i'r busmerau? Diolch i'r cyflogol sydd wedi'i gilydd arweithio, a ydych chi'n mynd i'r cyflogol, ac rwy'w ddod yn gwybod, a'i gwybod i'r busmerau i'r byd mwy fwy o'r busmerau, Mr Rowley. Diolch i'r busmerau i'r busmerau i'r byd mwyoedd. I move the motion in my name. On the face of it my motion for debate today is a motion about bus services, about route cancellations, about inflation, bus and fare increases, about a lack of investment, about a failure of leadership. At its heart it is a motion about people, people who rely on public transport system to get them to where they need to go. People stranded on routes cancelled in the interest of shareholders. People being failed by flawed approaches to bus services that hands public money and control to private interests. In writing this motion my intention was to instigate a balanced debate, something that I hoped members across this chamber could get behind regardless of their party affiliation, which is why I am so disappointed by the amendment put forward by the Government. An amendment that serves only as an example of the blinkered approach that has led to the sorry state of bus services across this country. Let us have a look at the motion and what the Government has removed in its amendment. The amendment will get passed today with the Greens. Let us have the discussion about who is interested in the environment, who is interested in getting people out of cars on to the buses, because it is certainly not the Green Party in this place. The motion in my name basically says that there are not recent bus fares increases across the country that are hitting during the cost of loving crisis. You would have to say to the Government the fact that they want that removed are they in denial or do they acknowledge that there has been a major increase in bus fares across the country and do they accept that that is a barrier for many people who are on low incomes trying to use buses. Further notes that on the back of route cancellations we are seeing across much of Scotland that are isolating communities. Is the Government seriously saying that there has not been route cancellations? In every community across Scotland, I am sure on the SNP and Green benches in your communities, just as much in our communities, we have seen bus cancellation after bus cancellation putting people off. Indeed, last week in West Lothian we saw two young people explaining how they would have to both spend £40 on a Sunday to get a taxi because of the bus route cancellations that are taking place. We saw young people telling us about taxis at £20 because the first bus in the morning had been put off and they would not get to their work. Is the Government denying that there has been routes that have been cut? They certainly seem to be doing so. Let us look at the amendment and what the amendment says. Notes recent to the end supports the vision outlined in a policy prospectus equality, opportunity, community for public transport system that is more accessible. It is not more accessible. The people who are suffering the most are the poorest because the amendment goes on to talk about the under-22s and talks about the free travel for the over-60s. However, there is a group in the middle, people who are generally on much lower incomes—that is why they are not in their cars—and those are the people who are being denied access to those buses because of the costs. You really could not make this up, Presiding Officer, in terms of the Government being in denial. It is not just that the SNP Government is in denial. It is that they have no idea what to do to build a transport system that will deliver for all the people of Scotland. One of their members said at the weekend that the SNP is in office but not in power. I would go further and say that they have no vision, a clueless Government, high on rhetoric with no idea how to meet the big challenges facing Scotland at this time, with record numbers of buses arched during their time in office, a number of routes being arched on their eyes. It is clear that the SNP's broken system is failing thousands upon thousands of public transport users in Scotland, and they have no plan to fix it. Indeed, Presiding Officer, I repeat that they do not have a clue how to even begin to fix the problems that we have in Scotland. Scottish Labour will launch the biggest reform of buses in a generation in the SNP's broken system, in hand power and control of routes, fares and services, back to the local communities and back to people who depend on those services. That is the direction of travel in which we need to go. The member is just winding up. Mr Rowley, you do need to conclude at six minutes. You can take the intervention but you then will need to conclude. I apologise to the green member for not being able to take the intervention, but maybe he and others can start to examine their conscience and ask themselves, why would you deny that people are being excluded from buses because it is too expensive to use the buses? Why would you deny that many people are being excluded from buses because there are no buses running in their area? What is the point of a free bus pass if there are no buses to actually get on so that the Greens and the SNP Government have no vision, no clue and will fail the people of Scotland when it comes to transport time and time again? I move the motion. Thank you Mr Rowley. Just to advise the chamber, as I am sure you will have already gathered, there is no time in hand therefore speeches will have to stick to the time limit with that. I invite the minister to speak to and move amendment 8954.3, up to five minutes. Thank you very much, and I welcome debating this motion today. Mr Rowley said that he wanted a consensual debate, but his opening remarks did not sound very consensual at all, I have to say. Where I agree with Mr Rowley is that reliable, accessible and affordable public transport is a lifeline service for many across Scotland. That is the vision that is set out in the new equality, opportunity and community policy prospectus that was set out by the First Minister last month. Bus services play a vital role in supporting the delivery of the three missions set out in the prospectus. The Scottish Government took significant action to ensure that bus services were protected during the pandemic, providing £223 million between June 2020 and March 2022. We continued the network support grant plus until March 2023 to freeze fares and help people with the cost of travel over the winter. Our support continues in 2023-24, with a broad package of investment in bus with £421.8 million allocated, including the network support grant and concessionary schemes. I was also pleased to launch the second phase of our co-funded marketing campaign with the confederation of passenger transport and bus operators in Galashios last week to encourage people to choose the bus. Our support for bus services takes a number of different forms. In particular, our national free bus travel schemes for young people and for older and disabled people are the most generous in the UK. Those schemes cover a larger percentage of the population than anywhere else in the UK, with up to 2.6 million people eligible for free bus travel in Scotland. That is encouraging more people to choose the bus and is helping us to meet our net zero targets by encouraging a shift away from cars. That is a transformational policy. We now have more than two thirds of young people enjoying free bus travel, representing a new card holder every minute since the scheme launched in January 2022. While I recognise members' arguments to cap fares, I hope that, in turn, they will acknowledge just how widespread and significant our free fares support has become. I will give way to Mr Kerr, because he came first. Just on the under-22s bus scheme, does the minister know exactly where the concentration of people taking up that scheme is located? I will provide members with the details of where uptake has occurred. I do not have off the top of my head the numbers for each local authority area, but we will provide that information as I did to Ms Dowie in a question earlier on this week. The pandemic was not only a period of huge challenge for public transport, its impact continues to be felt in patterns of demand. Although the Scottish Government continues to provide significant financial support for bus services, it needs to evolve to make sure that it remains fit for purpose and is sustainable long-term. I have committed to a review of bus subsidy this year to ensure that funding can best contribute to meeting the needs of local communities. We are also progressing with the fairs fares review, which will develop and assess options to make our public transport system more accessible, available and affordable, with the cost of transport more fairly shared across government, business and society. I have a lot to go through, so I will not take the intervention. Improving bus journey times and reliability will contribute to high-quality bus services and shorter journey times, encouraging motorists out of their cars and onto buses. That is why we are investing in bus priority infrastructure through our bus partnership fund. £26 million of bus priority funding has already been awarded to 11 partnerships covering 28 local authorities. It is not just the way that buses run that are changing with the powers that local authorities now have under the Transport Act, with further secondary legislation to enable bus franchising and partnership working, which will be introduced later this year. It is not just about how they are run, but about what is changing to the buses themselves. Removing carbon emissions from our transport sector is critical to meeting Scotland's ambitious climate targets. Since December 2020, we have directly supported the acquisition of 548 new zero-emission buses and supporting charging infrastructure across Scotland. I launched phase 2 of the Scottish Zero-Emission Bus Challenge this week, which will transform the market to deliver a zero-emission future for buses. I recognise just how important a modern, affordable and accessible bus system is for all of Scotland, and I am impressed by the appetite that is shown by everyone involved in bus services to innovate and respond to changing needs. You need to conclude, Minister, in which case I will move the amendment in my name. I have asked members who are intending to speak in the debate who have not already done so to press the request-to-speak buttons. I invite Graham Simpson to speak to amendment 8954.2. I thank the Labour Party for bringing this debate to the chamber, and I move the amendment in my name. I am a fan of buses. I have been, ever since my dad, worked for a bus company in the 1970s. I would be even more of a fan if I had a decent bus service where I live that I could use, but, like many people, I do not. I tend out necessity to take the car, most places, all walk or cycle. I do not want it to be that way. Too many people live in public transport deserts or places like shops where the bus service is patchy and, on a Sunday, virtually non-existent. I will not. Pre-pandemic, £373 million, journeys a year were made by bus in Scotland, the most of any form of public transport. Journey figures have rebounded, but not to pre-pandemic levels. Buses can hold the key if the Government is serious about hitting their own target of reducing car miles by 20 per cent by 2030, but they have presented no ideas on how to achieve that. Buses need to be there for people, and they need to offer something better than the car. The Scottish Government's decision to cut the network support grant plus in March was baffling. That did not happen anywhere else in Britain. Operator warnings that that could lead to a rise in fares and a reduction in services fell on deaf ears. Last year's savage cuts to local government spending were met with similar disdain, with COSLA's Councillor Gail MacGregor warning in January that councils would struggle to fund services. However, it is not just on funding where the SNP is failing. The Government's goal to remove the majority of the country's diesel bus fleet in favour of zero-emission models by the end of 2023 lies in tatters. Transform Scotland estimates that just 16 per cent will be converted by that time. The Scottish Government's £500 million fund will give way briefly. We are now at a stage where 15 per cent of our bus fleet are using decarbonised buses, which is much higher than south of the border, where Mr Simpson's party is in power. In fact, within the next three years, they hope to reach 12 per cent, is my understanding. We are going further and faster than the 12 per cent of the border. Thank you. The figure mentioned by the minister was 15 per cent. Transport Scotland said that it was 16 per cent, nowhere near the target. The £500 million bus partnership fund launched in 2019 to deliver bus priority measures on our roads has paid out just £25 million in that time. Little wonder that this Parliament's net zero committee recommended that the Government review the scheme to see why there has been such a poor take-up. Of course, fares can play a big part in getting people on to public transport. We await the introduction of a cross-modal travel card of the type given to delegates across COP26. We can only look south with envy at their £2 fare cap, which has just been extended until October, when it will go up for a year to £2.50. With a bit of promotion, this will be a massive success. Our failing bus service is having a detrimental impact on people's everyday lives. The Scottish Government cannot wait about any more. If we want to get people on to buses, we need comprehensive routes that need to be easy to use and fares need to be simple and cheap, and I have heard nothing of that from the minister. Thank you, Mr Simpson. I call Beatrice Wishart for up to four minutes. Had my amendment been chosen this afternoon, it would have called on the Scottish Government to extend the under-22s free bus entitlement to ferries, which in many island communities are used the same way as bus services. That would help in the aims of the policy to encourage more people to use public transport, creating a habit for the future. To reach our ambitious net zero targets, buses will need to play a significant role. Scrapping diesel fleets are a priority. More people on buses will help to lower emissions, reduce traffic and lower the need for road building. One double-decker can take 75 cars off our roads. However, bus services are failing communities across Scotland. Transport Scotland's 2021 household survey on transport and travel in Scotland admittedly a difficult year for public transport figures, which found that while 42 per cent of adults responding used a bus at least once a month in large urban areas, it was only 12 per cent in remote rural areas. Meanwhile, car access in our remote rural, accessible rural and small remote towns from findings in the same survey were among the highest likelihood to have access to a car. The Age of Scotland briefing highlights that two thirds of over 60s in remote and rural areas either do not have a bus pass or don't use it, while almost 60 per cent of single pensioner households don't have access to a car. So buses need to be as convenient as cars if it's to be successful in increasing usage. However, cars in rural and island locations are often a necessity because of geography and sparse populations. Scottish Liberal Democrats have been calling for a model similar to that of transport for London, re-regulating buses using local transport boards who would choose the routes and timings and bus companies can bid for them, allowing communities to decide where buses can go. Changes by a previous transport minister giving powers back to local authorities to run their own bus services were a move in the right direction, but a lack of funding for local authorities inhibits the full potential of this option. True reform needs appropriate funding to make it happen. When it comes to time to review services, so much changes in the interim years of a contract that once popular routes may have declined, while the need for a new route hasn't been detected, as potential users find other means to travel, confidence in the service subsequently goes down and the spiral continues. As the motion states, bus ticket rises in the middle of a cost of living crisis have hit commuters hard, route cancellations make it difficult for many shift workers, finding themselves hard pressed to find bus services that tie in with their work patterns. We need to look at how we can improve the provision of services outside of rush hours without running empty services. Before I conclude, with a general move to more people working from home, commuting is not the only infrastructure for us to consider. In rural and island areas, superfast broadband roll-out is still not complete despite the SNP commitment to do so by 2021, while mobile connectivity remains patchy. Digital exclusion prevents people from accessing everyday services, including travel apps or finding bus information. Finally, national infrastructure such as tunnels for island communities would help to reduce some of the greatest contributions to carbon emissions in the isles, ferry journeys. We now move to the open debate, a reminder that we are tight for time. The words in conclusion should be uttered before the four-minute mark, not on the four-minute mark. I call Monica Lennon to be followed by Fiona Heslop, up to four minutes. I am pleased to speak in today's debate in support of the Scottish Labour motion. I thank my colleague Alec Rowley for bringing in his passion to the chamber today. I think that public transport and buses are subjects close to all of our hearts. Alec Rowley is absolutely right. The debate is about people, first and foremost. It is about the future of our communities and young people and the very future of our planet. Buses are essential lifelines for our communities. They enable younger and older people the freedom to travel around our communities and beyond. They should be an affordable and reliable alternative to cars run in the interests of people and not private shareholders. Buses are also an essential part of Scotland's journey to net zero. The Scottish Government has rightly recognised the importance of buses in its national transport strategy and the programme for government where it pledges to support Scotland's bus networks. Unfortunately, despite the importance of buses to net zero and the pledges from the ministers, many of our communities face bus deserts, a point made by Graham Simpson. Those are areas where there are little or no reliable regular bus services available. Scottish Labour, of course, supports the expansion of the national travel concessionary scheme that we introduced in Government, but the point has been made what uses the free bus pass if there is no bus that turns up at the bus stop. People are frustrated. The minister wants us all to be very calm today, but the reality is that we cannot solve a problem if we do not admit it in the first place. I think that it is unfortunate that the very fair and factual points made in Labour's motion today have been deleted by the Government. Where bus services do continue to exist, many people simply cannot afford to use the bus. We know that buses are predominantly relied upon by people on lower incomes who cannot afford to buy a car. Around a third of people in Scotland are without access to a car, and Beesha's wishes talked about some of the challenges in our more rural areas. Colleys have heard me many times before raise the withdrawal of the X1 bus in the Hamilton area. That was our express service from Hamilton into Glasgow. The bus was withdrawn by first bus back in July 2020. A lifeline service for people in Hamilton enabled residents to get into the town centre and beyond to the city centre. People who were relying on that route for work, for education, for social leisure and also for healthcare for hospital appointments in Glasgow. In that time that people have come out of lockdown and want to get back out again, people have told me that it now costs them £15 return journey from one end of Hamilton to the other just to get to see a doctor. It is completely unaffordable. I have raised it many, many times. The minister is new in his pose and I hope that we will meet soon with local people from Hamilton to find some solutions. I have told the minister before, but I will repeat again. Over 100 people recently turned up at a bus stop to get a photo taken to send a message that they want their bus back. That is how serious that is, but people are not getting any answers. The cancellation of the X1 bus and the campaign led by the community highlights how much people care about bus services. Monday is the start of Love My bus week. The people of Hamilton loved their X1 bus. Communities around Scotland love their buses too. It is time that the Scottish Government showed that they also love buses and will provide not just the vision but the investment that we need for people and the planet. Thank you. Thank you, Ms Lennon. I now call Fiona Hyslop to be followed by Maurice Golden up to four minutes. Buses connect us to our communities and to each other. They give us freedom and choice. A good bus network should give us an environmentally friendly, accessible, cheap alternative to cars. My constituency in West Lothian is a semi-rural area with many towns and villages with a higher than average reliance on cars. Bus services in West Lothian are currently woefully unreliable and have been for some time. Changes to commercial bus operator services have meant that many services no longer run with some villages effectively cut off at certain times and on a Sunday. Of course, commercial operators' decisions to cancel or withdraw services are not the original source of current bus service provision issues. When I have raised concerns with our two major bus operators, McGill's and Lothian Buses, they cite driver shortages as one of the major reasons for the declining service provision. We know that driver shortages are a direct result of the impact of Brexit, which the people of Scotland did not vote for, and that the UK Government's current immigration system further limits potential recruitment of EU drivers. However, I suspect that I do not need to reiterate to members the extreme adverse and continuing economic impact of Brexit on Scotland's economy. At the very least, the UK Government must agree to put bus drivers on the shortage occupation list. The Scottish Government using its devolved powers provided local authorities with the powers to bring forward improvements to bus services in their local areas via section 34 of the Transport of Scotland Act 2019. £500 million via the bus partnership fund will be distributed through 14 bus partnerships across Scotland, one of which is West Lothian's bus alliance, in my constituency. Initial funding of £25.8 million was allocated to those partnerships so that they could undertake appraisal work. However, a pressing issue remains. We have yet to find out what action will be taken by the local authority with those new powers. West Lothian Council is already working on a long-term review of public transport options for subsidised support, which they can then apply to the £500 million bus partnership fund to support. However, in the meantime, now, buses are being cancelled. My constituents cannot get to their work or hospital. We need bus services support in the interim before people lose their jobs or just rear back to car usage. Under pressure from the public and the SNP opposition, the Labour-led Tory-supported West Lothian Council finally recently agreed for emergency support for one of the cancelled routes. West Lothian may be semi-rural, but it is a major source of commuting by cars along the M8 and M9 corridors to both Glasgow and Edinburgh. With far more people living in West Lothian than the city of Dundee, if Scotland is to reach net zero, we need viable alternatives to car use. Park and bus ride opportunities on the M8 from the Hartlands junction and the New Winchburg junction on the M9 are needed, but it needs transport co-ordination. I am told and to date this is singly absent with little movement on this. Circular, reliable bus links to the two railway lines going through West Lothian is also a sensible and realisable goal to achieve sustainable travel. We need to encourage people back on to buses and out of cars post Covid, but people cannot use public transport if the area is not served. Despite the takeover of the previously poor first bus service by McGill's and McGill's determination to drive up standards of reliability and confidence, the current limbo stasis while they get there is not helping anyone. In conclusion, lack of reliable bus services are having a huge impact on my constituents. People are worried about losing their jobs, they are missing health appointments, losing access to basic amenities and endlessly waiting for buses that simply don't turn up. Buses can bring freedom, choice and connection. We cannot afford to miss the bus on this one. I am going to focus my comments today on local bus services, the sort of services that act as a lifeline for our communities, providing the most vulnerable with everyday access to shopping, services and socialising. Despite the importance of these bus routes, it can be the case that they are economically challenging to operate, which is where local authorities step in, providing subsidies to ensure that these routes are accessible to those with few, if any, other transport options. It is of course great concern to see local authorities losing their ability to offer that support. With their budgets hollowed out by years of cuts from the Scottish Government, local authorities are inevitably making cuts of their own to balance their books. Sadly, local bus services are amongst those cuts. I have seen it in my own community, where Dundee's SNP-led council has voted to end support for five local bus routes. In an effort to plug an £18 million hole in the council budget, more than £122,000 worth of support is being cut from the 51, the 202, the 204, the 206 and the 236 services. Those bus routes connect communities across the city from the ferry, the west end, Loughy, Curtin, Lawside and more besides. Their loss will be felt in each of those communities, and especially so by many elderly passengers who rely on them. As my constituents would expect me to do, I have taken the matter up with the leader of the council and, along with local councillor Derek Scott, I will continue to push for those services to be reinstated. Deputy Presiding Officer, this is not just a problem for Dundee, though. COSLA's Environment and Economy spokesperson, councillor Gail MacGregor, wrote to the Net Zero Energy and Transport Committee warning of that risk. She said, and I quote, There is concern that incredibly stretched levels of funding in financial year 23-24 will prevent councils from providing the bus services that they are currently providing either directly or by subsidising. With more than one in five Scots using a bus on a weekly basis, according to one survey, the loss of any service is a serious matter. But that is what is going to keep happening if the Scottish Government keeps gutting council budgets. It also completely undermines the decision to give councils the ability to run their own bus service. What good is giving councils that power if they have no money to actually use it? Deputy Presiding Officer, it is another example of this SNP-Green Government talking a good game, but failing to deliver results. Look at their target to convert the majority of Scotland's bus fleet to zero-emissions vehicles by 2023, another promise that looks set for failure. With the Transformed Scotland report estimating that just 16 per cent of the fleet will have been converted by the deadline. We have a Scottish Government that is off target that is not investing in our communities and that has seen passenger numbers decline by 40 per cent over the past few years. It all adds up to a Government that does not know how to deliver high-quality public transport. I invite them to listen to my constituents. They do not want gimmicks from this Government. They want their local bus services back. I now call Neil Bibby to be followed by Fulton MacGregor up to four minutes, Mr Bibby. Monica Lennon mentioned next week is Love My Bus week. I have to say that the event will seem rather ironic for many of my constituents who will be feeling unrequited love after their local buses have been removed. Many of my constituents do love taking the bus, but private bus companies do not appear to love them back. Thousands of my constituents in Renfisher are angry, are frustrated and are in despair after McGill's buses cut a huge 13 per cent of services at the start of this month. The company claims that the primary reason for this is the Government's withdrawal of Covid recovery support funding. Those are the latest cutbacks in the bus market that has been decimated over the past 16 years. For example, in 2007 there were 5,400 buses in operation under the last Labour Government, but that is plumeted to 3,700 in 2022. As Alex Rowley rightly said, young people and older people alike are asking now the question, what is the point in a free bus pass if there is no bus to get on? What we are seeing in Renfisher is the dilution of some services and the withdrawal of some services all together. In Cobarken, buses have been cut from every 20 minutes to one an hour. In Erskine, young people were without the 22 service to get them to college in Paisley. In Galahill and Whitehall, disabled residents are looking for losing the service from inside their scheme. In Neilston and Barhead, cuts affecting NHS workers are trying to make shifts at the REH hospital. In Foxbar, my constituent is a dialysis patient who is having to take a daily taxi journey because of early morning bus cuts. Working mothers in Johnston are also facing early morning bus cuts. It is now finding it impossible to get to work on time after dropping the kids at school. Services affecting Spatesden, Llynwyd, Fergusley, Hawkehead, Kirkland, Bishopton and more. The list goes on and on, Presiding Officer. Frankly, people have had enough. Those bus cuts are unacceptable to them, so they should be unacceptable to the Scottish Government, too. People do not want one word, but they want action. They want us to reverse those cuts and urgently deliver a plan to improve our bus services. SPT, who have little resources, has stepped in to support some services, but whilst welcome, temporary and very limited stopgap measures simply will not cut it. It is frankly astonishing that the Scottish Government has done nothing—precisely nothing—to stop bus services in Renfrewshire from being cut. It is also extremely disappointing that the new transport minister is denying the problem with his amendment today and has so far ignored my invitation to visit Renfrewshire and hear directly from the passengers affected. People in my area are rightly asking, what is this Government here for? For all the talk from the minister today, not a single bus service cut at the start of this month in Renfrewshire has or is set to be reinstated. The Scottish Government is not a bystander here, so it should stop acting like one and govern, because that is not inevitable. We can and should do things differently. There are solutions that should be implemented. Firstly, instead of happily handing over hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money every year in subsidies to private bus companies, it is long past time to impose stricter conditions on support. Secondly, as Alex Rowley rightly said, we also need a cap on bus fares. Labour mayors across England have capped single fares at £2, while my constituents pay amongst the highest bus fares anywhere in the UK at £2.85 for a two-mile journey. Finally, we need to make sure that the fundamental reform of the broken bus market, local buses, should be under local control. Improved bus connectivity is critical to linking communities, travelling cheaply and safely, and indeed our commitments to tackling emissions. Bus connectivity can ensure families and friends of all ages living in different areas across Scotland have a reliable way of keeping in contact with each other, something that we all missed so dearly during the pandemic. The Scottish Government's plan for a 20 per cent reduction in car kilometres by 2030 is dependent on improving and increasing the reliability of public transport options such as buses and trains, and the national transport strategy has specifically cited improved bus routes as a way to reach net zero. I am pleased to hear that the Scottish Government is absolutely committed to making sustainable travel modes more attractive, and that is demonstrated, I think, through the 23-24 budget that the Scottish Government allocated a record £425.7 million to support bus services and concessionary travel across Scotland. You may think that, because I represent a constituency in the central belt, that there is a wealth of bus routes across my constituency. However, that is not necessarily the case. In 2019, Cote Bridge, in my constituency, lost its only bus route connecting the town with the city of Glasgow, similar to the situation in Hamilton. The loss of that route left many in my constituency feeling isolated, disconnected and separated from the surrounding urban areas. Since that time, I along with my colleague Neil Gray in Neighbouring Eardream Shots campaigned with the community heavily for a return of a bus connection to a larger city. I am happy to say that, in March this year, the city-link 902 service was announced, which finally connected Cote Bridge to Glasgow again, as well as to Edinburgh Airport for the first time. It was great to meet up with the operations director to hear more about this excellent service, which I would encourage my constituents to continue to use. I have also been working with First Bus, who have found very collaborative and open to new ideas, and I am hopeful that a further service has been trialled this summer by connecting Cote Bridge and Coden specific areas in the town to the city centre. I have to say that there is no doubt that those services that I mentioned in the work that I have done in others with the community to make it possible would not even be off the ground if it was not for the introduction of the free bus pass for young people. Although those developments are welcome, there are still areas across the northern corridor area of my constituency that still feel disconnected. I am engaging with bus companies and in talks to try to find a solution to the more complex issue of connecting small villages that make up the northern corridor. There are others who have said that Scotland's concessory travel schemes have been trailblazing and encouraging both young and old to travel by bus, but until very recently, residents of my constituency would have found very little use for it, and that is something that I am hopeful will change across my whole constituency. From speaking with relevant stakeholders, I have been told that a backlog of staffing issues, including hiring and training new drivers, resulted in numerous delays in route cancellations, and I think that that is a really good point that Fiona Hyslop raised about the Brexit situation. Now that the backlog is drawing to a close, it is critical that routes that were cancelled are now revived and that new routes should be established where necessary. Indeed, as I said earlier, residents across the northern corridor and of my constituency feel that current bus services are inadequate. The community there is ever-growing, and I urge bus companies to examine the viability of increased services in this area. I want to take this opportunity to say that here in the chamber. I would also ask if there is anything that the minister can do to give consideration to this area of the country, I would be very grateful and I would be happy to speak with them about the issues here. In conclusion, I am confident that the Scottish Government recognises the importance of increased bus connectivity and access to bus services. I have seen in my constituency the sense of isolation that it comes when a route is discontinued, but I have also seen the benefits and the light that have come when reintroducing one different route. While increasing funding and new route announcements are welcome news, we must keep this momentum and continue to invest in our public transport services to the good of our communities, our economy and our environment. Bus services are essential public services that must be run in the public interests, but the reality is that we have been stuck in a cycle of decline in bus services that started with Tory deregulation in the 1980s. It is now time to break that cycle, and that means not just reflecting on how bad things have got, but also what the solutions are, and it is the solutions that are represented in the Government amendment to this debate. It is absolutely clear that with the widening of the concessionary travel to under 22s, we are seeing a new generation of young people choosing bus. Over two-thirds of young people, two-thirds under 22, now hold the national entitlement card, with over 62 million journeys taken to date. The card is improving access to education work, social opportunities and saving hundreds of thousands of young people and their families money during a cost of living crisis. Holding the card has built a confidence and independence of teenagers. It has helped to address transport poverty across Scotland. It has enabled young people in desperate need to access food banks and helped many access a job for the first time. The evaluation of the scheme and the fair fairs review should point to where we could go next with concessionary travel. I see a pressing need to extend the scheme to those in the asylum system, who, thanks to Tory cruelty, are forced to live on £45 a week. I also see the case for an extension to young folk on islands who use ferries like buses. I agree with Monica Lennon that you can only get on a bus if the service 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. 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 will bring the kind of conditions and the conditionality that Neil Bibby was calling for. I am sorry that 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 with the traffic commissioner further on enforcement, such as using the bus open data system in Scotland that would help passengers and the commissioner to sanction poor delivery that we are seeing from many of the companies. The 2019 Transport Act delivered new bus powers for councils, which gives them the ability to serve the needs of local communities by setting up municipally-owned bus operators. Those are powers that have the potential to revolutionise services. It is disappointing that Alex Rowley's initial comment said absolutely nothing about municipal ownership of bus companies. Maybe he needs to take a leaf out of Andy Burnham's book, which has focused on the solutions and the solutions of public control of a public service. That is what we need from Labour. We need solutions, we need them coming to the Chamber, agreeing on areas such as municipalisation and working with the new minister with councils to deliver that. Let us focus on the solutions, not just how bad things have got. I want to get on to the solutions, Mr Rowley, because the community bus fund will provide critical start-up funding for those interested local authorities to explore those new powers around franchising and meaner supply. We should also remember that local authorities have powers over road user charging, workplace parking levies, to help to build the funds that are required to sustain municipalised or franchise bus services. Let us get investment into publicly-owned, publicly-controlled bus companies. I hope that councils are showing the political leadership to use those powers going forward. We have barely scratched the surface this afternoon and the reforms that are needed to improve our bus services. I look forward to more constructive opportunities to debate and develop the vision and the solutions for what we need. The bus industry is changing. I think that the last few years have seen major changes in areas from passenger numbers to journey types and frequency of services, but nowhere is the change greater than in the buses themselves. Electric buses are now being introduced, even if it is a pest that suggests that the Scottish Government's targets to remove the majority of diesel buses by the end of the year will be another example of big on talk, short on action. Listening to the minister's reply to intervention by my colleague, it seems that he is content to mask this failure in not achieving his target by pointing elsewhere. I suggest to the minister not to set targets that you have no hope of reaching. Recently, I met representatives of stagecoach West of Scotland and saw some of the newest electric buses. They have been used to run the first fully electric semi-rural service in Scotland through the Irvine Valley. Those electric buses, while a significant step forward, do still have their limitations. Despite considerable advances in battery technology, increasing range and optimising lifespan, charging throughout the day remains vital. That requires investment in chargers at bus stations, depots and potentially elsewhere on the route to keep the battery topped up. All of that infrastructure, together with the buses themselves, come at a substantial cost. An electric bus can be at least twice as expensive as its diesel equivalent. While those costs can be offset over the lifetime of the vehicle, the upfront cost is substantial. Similarly, the charging infrastructure comes with a large upfront cost, particularly if it needs to be installed in more rural areas or areas that need wider grid upgrades to accommodate it. The chamber will now be familiar with my view that hydrogen can be the missing piece in the puzzle to achieve net zero. Here, too, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles may be the key to unlocking longer-range zero-emission buses. While some early trials with this technology have had mixed results, I urge the Scottish Government to continue supporting research of this emerging technology. Of course, the biggest challenge for bus providers remains how to meet the costs of running these services and the significant losses during the Covid-19 pandemic exacerbated existing financial pressures to agree that could never have been predicted. In this chamber, we routinely call for bus companies to continue to run services on routes that can never credibly be profitable. Those services often lifelines for smaller rural communities should be protected, even if there is a cost to government attached. Granted, there are many demands on government's finances—very overspends, ministers for independence, cleaning up after whatever mess the Scottish Greens have made of a policy this week. However, there is a strong argument that improved targeted financial support for bus services would have significant benefits, particularly in rural areas such as my own south of Scotland region. I would love to, but I do not have time. Before closing, it is important to stress just how important a role Scotland's bus networks have to play in reaching our net zero targets. One of the first things that any of us learn as a child is that the wheels on the bus go round and round all day long. If that is to remain the case, we must ensure that bus providers are given the right long-term financial support, which gives them the confidence to invest in new technologies, keep fares low, and protect those lifeline routes that offer the only real public transport option for so many people in rural areas. Thank you, Mr Whittle, for that trip down memory lane. I call the final speaker in the open debate, Keith Brown, after which we will move to closing speeches. All those who participated in the debate will need to be in the chamber. Mr Brown, up to four minutes, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am pleased to be able to take part in the debate, although it has been quite a dispiriting one, especially, I think, from the Labour benches. After 16 years of failure in this Parliament, you would think to be some analysis, some understanding of the problem, some possible solutions that we heard nothing about that from Alec Rowley. All we heard were the usual soundbikes and attack lines. Everyone that is involved in bus travel that, as a constituent that has come to him about an issue, knows that two of the main issues are in relation to climate change, in relation to social exclusion, but the causes of some of the problems that we have talked about have been the pandemic and have been Brexit, in particular the point raised by Fiona Hyslop in relation to the recruitment of drivers. Every time, for example, Lothian region gone on a recruitment spree, every other part of the country loses out in terms of the pool of drivers. Of course, we had many people, not least on the east of Eastern Europe, that were previously happy to be drivers who have now been prevented from doing that because of Brexit, not a word about Brexit, nor a word of Brexit or the pandemic. Everybody knows that the pandemic has altered people's work patterns and commuting practices. During lockdown, many drivers sought other jobs and then did not return. Brexit cut off access, as I have said, to another source of drivers. I have seen the shortage of drivers in my constituency, leading to reductions in services and a couple of routes. I have said that I am not taking any interventions, I have only got four minutes. Is it a uniquely Scottish problem? Of course it is not, no more than it is a uniquely Kilmarnish and Umblayne problem. Neil Bibby invited us to look at the record of the Labour Party elsewhere in the UK government, so let us do that. Let us look, for example, at Wales, where the Labour Party are actually in power. The number of passenger journeys prepared—I know that it gets them very uncomfortable, but it will not last very long—has been decreasing across Great Britain since 2008 and 2009. In Wales, the number of journeys per person is less than half the rate in both Scotland and England, while the total distance travelled on buses in Wales increased by almost a third compared to the previous year. The total distance travelled decreased the most in Wales compared to pre-pandemic levels, and it has recovered the least compared to England and Scotland. I do not quote those figures to try and make the Welsh Government look bad, merely to point out that the Labour Party does not have a magic wand to fix bus services in Wales patently, and it does not have one—the suggested one—for Scotland either. Of course, it is the job of oppositions to oppose to highlight where the Government may be going wrong, but there is a duty to be honest with the public if they think things should be done differently to make suggestions. Let us look at the motion. Yes, they tell us that the improvement of bus services should happen more quickly, that local authorities should have more resources, although the Tory is going to do that by cutting £500 million from the Scottish budget through the tax cuts. I do not know how they are going to manage that. There is simply no indication from either side of where the money will come from, and when you are dealing with that, it is virtually a fixed—what we are dealing with is virtually a fixed-size budget. That is just irresponsible, but surely the motion was brought for because it wanted to do more than simply gripe. There must be a big idea, a cunning plan to transform bus transport in Scotland, so it is cap fares. That is the solution put forward by the Labour Party. No reference, no understanding of the impact of Brexit the pandemic, what a positiate of vision that represents. One idea on its own is highly unlikely to lead to the increased passenger numbers, which help to make bus routes more sustainable. A broad package of measures is what is needed, and that is what the Scottish Government is addressing. Just this month, the transport minister launched a £300,000 campaign co-funded by the Scottish Government and the confederation of passenger transport, encouraging people to choose the bus. Meanwhile, the various concessionary bus travel schemes, brought in by the Scottish Government, have now reached the significant stage in which 100 million bus journeys are being taken each year by holders of one or other of the concessionary travel schemes. I am absolutely delighted that the people of Cluckman, Shernan and Blane and right across Scotland are taking advantage of the concessionary travel cards available, and those figures underline the SNP's commitment to widening access to free bus travel. For that reason, I support the amendment in Kevin Stewart's name. Aspects of this debate have been really good to hear. It is clear that there is cross-party consensus on the benefits of buses. Alex Rowley described them as a key lifeline service. Maurice Golden developed that to describe them as lifelines in our communities providing the most vulnerable with everyday access to shopping, services and socialising. Brian Whittle stressed just how important a role Scotland's bus networks have to play in reaching our net zero targets. It was really important to hear about the challenges faced by our bus operators. For example, the cuts to local authorities that left the COSLA warning incredibly stretched levels of funding will prevent councils from providing the bus services that they are currently providing. Maurice Golden told us that it is happening in Dundee right now. Just today, the P&J reports that stagecoach has slashed bus services across Aberdeen and the Shire following council cuts. We heard from Brian Whittle about the lack of investment in renewables charging infrastructure, and we heard about the Scottish Government's decision to cut the network support grant in March, which has led to operators' warning of rises in fares and a reduction in services. That lack of support is stark. The Confederation of Passenger Transport tells us that even though the bus sector accounts for 75 per cent of all public transport trips, First Bus pointed out that each bus journey is supported by 27p from the Scottish Government. In contrast, the train gets £3.27 per trip. That cross-modal piece is important, which is why the failures to introduce a cross-modal travel card and to conduct a fair fairs review is so concerning. However, what has been so thoroughly depressing, Presiding Officer, and this is a point that was well made by Alex Rowley at the head of the debate. Whilst we have heard from Graham Simpson that the Government's goal is to remove the majority of the country's diesel bus fleet in favour of zero-emission models by the end of 2023, but has achieved a mere 16 per cent, whilst we have heard from Brian Whittle that the target to reduce car kilometres by 20 per cent by 2030 lacks detail and credibility. Whilst we have heard that the Scottish Government's £500 million bus partnership fund to deliver bus priority measures has paid out just 5 per cent since 2019, the Scottish Government nevertheless comes to this chamber with an amendment that utterly fails to acknowledge the issues and instead tries to present a picture in which all in the garden is rosy. On the rare occasions where issues were acknowledged by speakers like Fiona Hyslop and Keith Brown, they then come back and blame the operators, the councils, the pandemic, and try to distract from their failings in this chamber by talking about Wales. That is what I find the most galling, Presiding Officer. As Monica Lennon put it, we cannot solve a problem if we do not admit it in the first place. If this Government will not acknowledge the problems and challenges, it cannot meaningfully implement the solutions, and we have all been sent those solutions. We have been sent really exciting, data-driven, evidence-based, detailed solutions by Transport Scotland, the Confederation of Passenger Transport, First Bus, the Poverty Alliance, Friends of the Earth Scotland and more. In contrast, as Alex Rowley said, we have heard no vision, no clue, and this Government will continue to fail the people of Scotland. All those organisations are watching to see if this Government will acknowledge the problems, listen to the opposition benches today and learn from those submissions, or will the SNP and Green MSPs vote at decision time for a weak amendment and more decline under this failing Government? I welcome the opportunity to highlight the importance of bus services in Scotland today. I wish that the debate had been a little bit more consensual, as Alex Rowley claimed that he wanted to see, but that has not been the case. It is very interesting that there is always in this chamber a real kickback from the opposition when it is pointed out to them the differences that are here, compared to the other parts of the UK, where Labour or the Tories are in power, because not everything in the garden is rosy there either. A number of members were quite realistic in terms of their contributions. Ms Hyslop and Mr Brown pointed out the difficulties that there are with Brexit. If Opposition members were to go out and speak to bus operators, they will find that they have a real difficulty in driving shortages in many parts of the country, which is having an impact on services. Let us look at some of the support that we are giving. I have already highlighted in terms of the financial support that we are giving to ensure that our bus services are the best that they can be. Over £420 million is being allocated in 2324. Another interesting aspect of the debate has been that there have been calls for more subsidy from the Labour benches, and at the same time, Mr Riley says that we do not want to see money going into the pockets of shareholders, which I would agree with. I think that our concessionary fare schemes provide the best possible way of ensuring that we get patronage on our buses. We have seen with that concessionary fare scheme that the under-22s extension has led to more bus services in certain areas. West Coast motors have doubled the frequency on one of their main routes earlier this year because of the patronage from under-22s going up. That is a good thing. Over 62 million free bus journeys have been made because of that under-22s scheme, as Mr Ruskell pointed out. That shows that there is an appetite for sustainable travel in Scotland, and we are aiming to build lifetime habits here. I will give way very briefly to Mr Riley. I appreciate that. I use the buses, and I have to say that I was quite shocked at the massive increase in bus fares a few weeks ago. Do you accept that a 15 per cent increase in bus fares is a barrier to poorer people being able to access public transport? Yes, I do accept that. That is why we are undertaking the fair fares review. In order to get that right, it is not good that folk are facing those increases, and we are doing something about it in terms of that review. I hope that Mr Riley will support it and encourage folk to get involved in that review. The Scottish Government has supported the decarbonisation of approximately 15 per cent of the public service bus fleet, and we added another £58 million in terms of the ScotZeib fund this week, increasing environmental benefits. I hear from the Tory bedsters that that is terrible. It is a hell of a lot better than it is south of the border. We have ensured that local transport authorities now have the power to run their own bus services, and further secondary legislation to allow bus franchising and partnership will be introduced later on this year. I hope that local authorities will be ambitious and will have vision and set up those municipal services across the board. We may have different views. I am willing to listen to those views as we move forward consensually. It would have been a more constructive debate if the minister had not started by deleting most of our motion today. We have got agreement right across this chamber of the importance of bus services to our constituents. In the early days of the Parliament, I introduced free bus passes for the over-60s. We made sure that in the 2019 Transport Act Labour amendment that we got the support for municipal ownership of bus services, because we know the benefits of low-day buses. We know the benefits in Manchester and London of making sure that you use municipal ownership to deliver services, and we welcomed the introduction of free bus passes for the under-22s. Our choice would have been 26, but it gives young people the opportunity to use buses as a matter of course. However, as Monica Lennon said, that only works if they have bus services to use. As Neil Bibby said, we need conditionality. We need to make sure that we get the maximum benefit from the huge amount of money that is going into bus services, and we need to make sure that we get the right response from the private companies that are taking that money. In the last few years, we have seen a loss of 25 per cent of our bus services compared with more than a decade ago, and the excellent briefings that we have had across party from lots of organisations have highlighted the need for us to act now. Buses are vital to give people low-carbon choices, if it is very brief. Does Sarah Boyack think that Love My Bus Week should be renamed Where's My Bus Week? Having met them this morning, we need actual buses, so it is Where is My Bus, and that takes me on to digital connectivity. If you look at the points that Beatrice Wishart made, there are massive areas of Scotland where there are no buses at all. There is also a digital disconnect, which is particularly an issue for older people and for people on lower incomes. They need to know about availability of those buses that are there, and they need to know when they are going to be there. We need to make sure that that is accessible for older people. Real-time information at bus stops, we need more, not less of that. We need to make sure that people are able to use buses. A key issue that was given in the research that we got sent was that reliability for 83 per cent of those surveyed said that it was their top issue. They are not being stuck at a bus stop if they are elderly with kids or trying to get to work on time. We are not only losing bus services, but we are also seeing the costs of fare rising. That is at a point when we are seeing major amount of money spent, so we need to get value for money. That means political leadership from the SNP Green Government. We are not seeing that. We need more promotion of bus services that are available. We need to see investment to enable communities to be served so that we make that shift to low-carbon buses. That is not just about having low-carbon buses, it is about having the services. It is about empowering and funding our local authorities to invest in bus priority schemes, to enable buses to be more reliable, and to make them more attractive to people who are currently having to rely on cars. As we move forward, as people are going to move to electric vehicles, that is going to rule out huge numbers of our constituents who will not afford those cars. It is going to make buses more important than ever, so we need to make sure that we reverse the cuts that are currently taking place and have more services for the future. That is about municipal buses, but if you look at today's report by the Accounts Commission, it highlights that councils are at breaking point, I quote. If you take the comments made by COSLA, they know that they do not have the money to make the radical change need. We need the fares cap now to keep people able to use buses. We need conditionality for the money that the Scottish Government currently spends on buses through our over-60s and our under-22 schemes, and we need to see investing and supporting bus services as a key action. If we are going to tackle social inequalities, if we are going to shift people out of cars and if we are going to tackle the climate emergency, and if we are going to address constituents' fears that they have now that there are more bus cuts to come, it is in Renfrewshire, it is in West Lothian, it is in Pathhead in Mid Lothian, right across the country, even in Edinburgh with Lothian buses. We are seeing constituents right to us because we have lost buses like the 42, we are losing the 41 and the 49. We need action now, so it is a political commitment. I would go back to the minister's first word. Can we have consensus? Yes. Cross-party groups on sustainable transport have a mission, they are telling the Scottish Government what to do now. Our motion says what we need now. If we take the amendment and we get action before the summer holidays, love my buses next week, whereas my bus is a now problem, and we need action from the SNP Green Government now. Not warm words, not nice pledges, action. Next week, announce what you're going to do to spend that money to get better results for our constituents, because trust me, we don't have the climate emergency without it. Thank you. That concludes the debate on access to bus services. There will be a very brief pause while front benches change ahead of the next debate.