 Felly, mae'n adael, y ddweud i ddechrau i ddweudio'r ffordd yng ngyfrif dudd ac i ddweud gyda'r rhyw gŷnol, a'u ddweud gwylwg ei ddod yn ei gynryw arnyn nhw i ddweud o'r ei ffordd o gyddi, am dwi'n gweithio i ddweud o ddweud, nad oedd dim i gael i ddweud i ddweud, am bobl sydd heb oedd o'r ffordd o ddweud i ddweud o'r ffordd. y fan yn dweud eich bwysig i diwethaf north Baing KYL i chi'n bwysig i wedi'i gWestfarkon i fynd o'r ddechrau cymdeithasolion, ac yn fawr iawn, a dwi'n buddau ar ei ddweud yn myth i ddefnyddio'r ddaeth i ni o'r ddigon o'r ddechrau cymdeithasolion. Felly fe gynnerrach i chi'n dweud ei ddim yn ymddangos cymdeithasolion aeth yn meddwl i chi'n gweithio amlawn i gwybod am hynny. Felly ym youtube neb登ig, fod wedi'n sgolwch chi'n set to become a reality in the new year, that will open up transformative opportunities for young people and their families. It will also significantly increase the number of people getting on buses, improving the viability of those services. It represents an unprecedented level of investment in the bus sector at a financially challenging time for the Scottish Government. Of course free bus travel can only work where bus services actually exist. If services across Scotland are being withdrawn, reduced in frequency or are facing repeated cancellations, then ticket cost is a secondary concern. Every single person in Scotland deserves affordable, reliable and accessible public transport services regardless of where they live. However, it is often rural communities who find themselves entirely reliant on bus services for public transport. In my own region, amidst Scotland's fife, we are seeing unacceptable cuts coming just weeks before the extension of free travel, including the complete cancellation of the X-53 bus, connecting Clackmannanshire with Stirling and Kinross, as well as the reduction in frequency of key routes around Stirling. Of course, it is not just the rural routes that stagecoach have also warned of changes to their intercity service between Perth and Edinburgh, coming at a time when ScotRail is also consulting on a timetable change that will unacceptably extend journey times between the two cities. We are seeing the same pattern across the rest of Scotland—suspension to services in central Scotland, same-day service cancellations in Glasgow, college buses cut in Cacubry and services cut in Aberdeenshire earlier this year. I am sure that members will have their own stories from constituents to share. First, I want to share the voices of my constituents who have been in touch to explain exactly why services such as the X-53 are so important and why protecting rural bus services truly matters. I have been contacted by a former bus driver who is now registered blind and therefore cannot drive buses or a car anymore. He relies on the bus as his main former transport to access medical appointments and to get to local shops. He is hoping to retrain in a new industry based at Stirling University, which he would have travelled to on the X-53, but without that service he will be forced to travel by private taxi far more expensive and more polluting. I have also been contacted by a single parent with two young children. She relies on the X-53 for her children to be able to see their grandparents for childcare and to get to work. That is three generations of the same family who depend on this service to support one another. This family does not have a private car nor can they afford to pay for taxis. They have been looking forward to the children being able to make use of next year's expansion of free bus travel. I have also been contacted by a constituent living in Palmill, a village already cut off from public transport. That constituent already walks a couple of miles to Rumbling Bridge to catch the X-53, but without the service my constituent would have to walk over four miles from Palmill to Dollar to catch alternative transport to the hospital. That is simply unacceptable. My final example is a family living in Dollar. They have one car in the household that is used for a family member to get to work in Glasgow. The X-53 provides an essential service for the rest of the household when the car isn't available. Without that service, the family's only public transport route to Stirling would involve at least two buses, each of them only running every two hours. Trying to get a connecting bus would be incredibly difficult. As the family said, you would be out all day and it just wouldn't work. The impact of losing this bus, the X-53, is severe. We are talking about vulnerable people being further isolated from essential services, young people losing their independence and people being forced to use private cars exactly at a time when we need to be reducing car kilometres. I have spoken to bus operators who have said that service cancellations with drolls and reductions are due to the on-going impact of Covid on bus patronage as well as a serious shortage in bus drivers. At the height of the stay-at-home measures, concessionary bus journeys were down by 90 per cent. However, by this time last year, patronage was improving and data from September this year shows it recovering further, now only down by about a third compared to the pre-pandemic baseline. Onicron poses a further challenge. Over the past week, certainly more public transport staff have been off sick, leading to short-term cancellations that have left many of my constituents stranded, especially on the long-suffering users of the X-10 to Balfron. However, the evidence shows that, as restrictions lift, patronage starts to return, so now cannot be the time to slash bus services. The bus industry is also facing a serious challenge with driver recruitment, with a 14 per cent vacancy rate across the sector in Scotland, up by 200 per cent on 2019 figures, representing around 1,000 bus driver vacancies. What we have here is a perfect storm of Brexit, the end of free movement, drivers retraining as HGV operators, and delays in driver training applications at the DVLA, leading to a UK-wide shortage of drivers who can operate large vehicles. I know that bus operators and the Government are working hard to address those shortages. First Bus have told me that they are launching a recruitment campaign, they are working with the Scottish Refugee Council to encourage new Scots to train as bus drivers. In no doubt, the expansion of concessionary travel will provide an opportunity to encourage more young people to join the workforce at this critical and exciting time. However, in the here and now, the choices facing bus operators right now are stark. We have been told by first that, due to driver shortages, priorities will now be given to the most used services with the highest passenger numbers. However, that will disproportionately impact rural services, cementing transport poverty in already poorly served communities. There is no excuse for leaving rural communities behind. Protecting rural bus services is about addressing the climate emergency, addressing inequalities and building a green recovery from Covid. For too long, rural bus services have been particularly vulnerable to the boom and bus cycle of private operators. It is time to break the cycle. I hope that the minister will agree with me that we need to redouble our efforts to protect lifeline rural routes, take urgent action to resolve workforce issues and be able to outline what the Scottish Government can do to help to build a resilient bus network in Scotland that leaves no one behind. Before I call the next speaker, our gentle reminder to anybody who wants to participate in the debate to press the request-to-speak buttons now, I now call Jackie Dunbar, who will be followed by Alexander Stewart. I want to congratulate Mark Ruskell and Fankham for securing this member's debate today. Access to adequate bus services in rural areas is vital to ensure that communities are not isolated and have access to goods and the services that they need. As someone who grew up in the country, Fe Peterheed, Tenairn and Awai, in a tween, I understand the importance of regular, reliable and affordable local bus services. There are a lot of folk in rural areas who do not drive and have to rely on public transport to get their messages and to get to their work or to attend medical appointments and meet up with their friends and family. Without the vital bus services, those folks would be completely isolated. My constituency of Aberdeen Donside stretches to the north edge of the city, and a number of folk commute from rural locations and travel through my constituency. It means that many urban residents benefit from rural buses passing through, so you can see that country buses, as we call them up in the northeast, are not just beneficial to country folk, but for the city folk in A. Transport providers between our rural and urban locations should work together to ensure consistent and affordable routes and to create a cohesive bus network that works for all their passengers. Without a reliable bus service, rural residents become reliant on single-driver cars to provide access to services. As Scotland moves towards net zero, we should be promoting the use of public transport, ensuring that it is not only fit for purpose but also affordable so that we can reduce the use of cars, as our aim is to reduce car journeys, but that can only be done by providing affordable, reliable alternatives. Public transport should be that alternative. Although my constituency of Aberdeen Donside is not strictly rural, we have a mix of urban areas and suburban communities that are not that well connected to the city, for example Kingswells. We have been fighting for a number of years now against the removal of the Kingswells bus services, especially at weekends. We have not only seen the service reduced over the past few years, but we have also seen the start of isolation for an entire community from the city. Without vital investment from Transport Scotland to bus companies during the Covid-19 pandemic to ensure that a level of bus services remains, despite reduced passenger numbers and social distancing measures, we could potentially have seen entire communities completely cut off without any options for travel. I am pleased to see the investment from the Scottish Government for free bus travel for under-22s from January next year. That will make bus travel accessible for all, reducing barriers created by fair prices and should hopefully increase bus patronage. That investment has the potential to make a huge impact on how our young folk travel. Taking the bus or taking their driving test or moving into the tune, which is what I did when I was 16, is the choice that they have. It is important to promote sustainable bus travel to younger people and to change behaviours as we move towards more environmentally friendly modes of transport. Let us make getting the bus easier and affordable for all. I am pleased to be able to contribute today. I congratulate Matt Russell on bringing the member's business debate to the chamber. As we have already heard, the importance of local bus services, which can be a lifeline especially for rural communities, cannot be overestimated. Matt Russell's motion acknowledges that rural communities are especially vulnerable to the loss of routes. The X-53, which covers Clackmannanshire, the Wee County, but both Stirling and Conross, was the catalyst for this afternoon's debate. I note that Stirling Council proposed an action plan to protect bus services at the last fuel council, and I suggest that Clackmannanshire and Council do something similar. As we have already heard, the debilitating effects of the Covid-19 pandemic has had previous lockdowns and on-going controls on customers less fruit fall, both on buses and indeed in supporting businesses. We have already heard today about the initiatives to ensure that people get free bus travel, but a bus is required to ensure that that can take place. If the X-33 goes, individuals will be left with no bus to attend. However, it is also important that we are dealing with the management decisions and that they decide what routes are—or lesser routes or more susceptible routes. In my view, it is essential that bus operators work to meet the requirements of all communities in which they operate. It is also essential in the motion to mention that this is the second time that we have had difficulties with this bus route the X-53. 18 months ago, there was talk about its removal and it was reinstated. However, at this time, it looks as if it will be removed. I have heard from many individuals who have brought serious difficulties, especially if they are disabled, elderly or young, with equal measure, have difficulties with the whole process. One resident has indicated that the effects of the bus service for someone like herself who is disabled and a single person would ensure that they might not be able to get to their employment because they used that to go to Stirling. They had used a car in the past, but due to cancer surgery they no longer can do that. The bus service was their only lifeline to that employment. Also, the anxiety of going through that is very difficult in ensuring that you can retain employment when you do not have a bus service that will adequately support you to receive that. Another resident who does not drive specifically moved to Muckr because they knew that they could tuck on the bus going from Allawa to Stirling. The service, if it is removed, will mean that there is no link between Cunross and Stirling. First buses route themselves. Many people have to call this a callous movement by more than in ensuring that there will be difficulties not just within this area but across the central belt. From January 10, if the bus is removed, it will mean that individuals may not be able to get to school within the locations. That has a major impact. There will also be no service from Muckr to Dola to Stirling to Cunross. We know that new housing developments are taking place. There is one taking place in Muckr itself at the moment and there are others across the region. Those normally attract young families who are interested in living in the community, but that may wane if there is not the potential for individuals to be able to get to work or to get to school. Previously, in a debate that I called for, we talked about the stratified passenger transport and that it was decided that a task force should be set up to look at vital services. I was also fully supportive of a debate in the last session, which talked about looking at how we would deal with cutting-bus services. Back then, I asserted that the need to ensure that greater urgency was enhanced in all those routes was vitally important. We have already heard that the pandemic has had a devastating effect on many of us in the region. It is particularly important that we focus on the task force that was set up in urgent recommendations that were brought forward. I hope that the minister will touch on that. Last year, the Scottish Parliament backplanned for local authorities to run their own services. I certainly believed at that time that they ensured greater protection for under threat services if that decision was going to help local people and local areas. I acknowledge the fact that my colleague Elizabeth Smith has done a huge amount of work in supporting buses across mid-Scotland in Fife and that COP26 had an emphasis on where we would go. In conclusion, it is vitally important that first bus reconsider the decision on the X-53, and I encourage Stirling and Clackmannan councils to take up the powers that they have to ensure that they can protect those services for the future. Thank you, Mr Stewart. I now call Colin Smith to be followed by Maggie Chapman. Thank you to Mark Ruskell for his motion and the opportunity to discuss the importance of our bus services. There is no doubt that Scotland's diminishing bus network is in crisis and our rural communities are paying a heavy price. That crisis did not start because of the pandemic and the failures of privatisation were not caused by Covid. In Scotland, passenger numbers have been plummeting since deregulation down 43 per cent between 1987 and 2020, yet fares have risen by 159 per cent since the index started in 1995. At dismantling of our bus network, route by route has accelerated under this Government with passenger journeys falling by a quarter since 2007. I know that there has been a decline across Britain, but, while that fall was 5.6 per cent in England, it was nearly three times higher at 15.3 per cent in Scotland between 2010 and 2018. There are many reasons for that decline, changing work patterns, growing congestion but also decisions that are made by the Government, not least cuts to council budgets. The recent green S&P budget, which includes a real-terms cut of around £300 million to councils, will mean a real cut in more bus services in rural areas, the overwhelming majority of which rely on subsidies from the local council support that is now under threat more than ever before. This is no way to run an essential public service that so many rely on. Buses account still for 366 million journeys a year in Scotland. They boost growth, alleviate poverty, and connect communities. Instead of providing an attractive alternative at a time when transport is still the single biggest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions, a deregulated bus system has been turning people away from public transport and towards cars. We see that in all our communities. Let me give you just one example, but there are many across my region. The X95 bus run by Borders buses connects rural communities between Edinburgh and Carlyle, in Mglothian, Borders and Dumfriesen Galloway. Its frequency was cut from hourly to every two hours during the pandemic, but as we moved out of lockdown, it was not reinstated to hourly. That lack of frequency simply means that it is just not an option anymore for those who want to use that bus to commute to their work. I know that there are challenges with the backlogging process and driving licences at DVLA and the lack of availability of tests to ensure that when bus companies decide to increase services, they have the drivers to do so. I have written to the UK transport secretary on that issue, but there has also been a failure of the Scottish Government to secure proper guarantees from bus firms in return for the over £330 million of taxpayer support given to the sector during the pandemic. We need better conditionality to maintain services in return for that support, but we also need more fundamental change. Regulation in London and municipally-owned operators such as Lothian show that the current broken system does not have to be this way. It is three years since I tabled amendments to the transport bill to lift the ban on council-run bus services, put it into practice, unite the unions, hod the bus and the co-operative parties people's bus campaigns calling for a bus network that puts passengers and not profits first. However, the Government has still not passed on those powers that are secured to councils. Never mind giving them the resources that they need to set up their own publicly and community-owned bus services. In astonishingly, the green SMP coalition continues to stack the cards against public ownership with a £500 million bus partnership fund that can only be spent on deals with private bus companies instead of using some of that funding for the setting up of publicly-run bus companies. Scotland's bus passengers deserve better, as do Scotland's bus drivers. Deregulation has seen a race to the bottom in staff wages, yet it was our drivers and support staff who kept Scotland moving during the pandemic. They often put their own health on the line, such as bus driver Willie Wallace from Kilmammock. Willie sadly died of Covid in October 2020. It brings home to us all that amazing work our key workers do, and we really do owe them all a huge debt of gratitude. We owe our passengers a better bus network, one that meets their needs and understands that public transport is a public service. Like all public services, in my view, it should be run for the benefit of the public and not for profits. I thank my colleague Mark Ruskell for securing the important and timely debate this evening. I am speaking this evening on behalf of Arian Burgess, who, like others, has been the victim of tech failures. I thank the bus drivers who have worked throughout the pandemic, getting other key workers to their jobs and continuing to provide a low-carbon form of transport, on which many of us depend. However, bus services are under threat throughout Scotland. Almost 700 routes were cancelled in the past couple of years. In Arian's community, in Forres, they have been fighting hard to save the number 31 route, but it has still been progressively reduced and has left certain neighbourhoods without a local connection to the public transport system. In the Banffanbuckan area of the region that I represent, which has no rail services, 15 bus services have had their financial support cut or withdrawn, affecting most severely the people who are already struggling. Covid and Brexit have exacerbated such service reductions and cancellations. Just last Friday in Inverness, stagecoach withdrew a host of services for the second time in two months due to staff needing to self-isolate. There had already lost many drivers to the HGV sector, which is now offering better pay in order to fill its own Brexit-induced driver shortage. However, Brexit and Covid are not the only forces behind service cuts. A report published in July by the UN special reporter Philip Alston found that privatisation and decades of deregulation has resulted in services that are expensive, unreliable and dysfunctional. Bus fares have soared while passenger numbers have slumped. In Scotland, ridership has declined by 43 per cent since deregulation in 1986. Fewer passengers means less revenue for operators making services unviable and leading to reductions or cuts, in turn pushing people to choose other forms of transport, continuing the circle of decline. The problem is most acute in rural areas where cancellations are more likely to lead to isolation. Not everyone has a car, so buses should enable everyone to get to work or the job centre, access healthcare and education, and to connect with family and friends. To take that option away is unjust. Transport Scotland has even recognised the key role that bus services play in helping people to realise their human rights. Buses will also play an increasingly important role in Scotland's journey to net zero. However, the current system is not working for passengers, for taxpayers or for the climate. Commercial bus networks are subsidised to the tune of hundreds of million pounds per year, yet private operators pay out generous shareholder dividends instead of reinvesting in services and driver pay. Instead, we should support local authorities to establish locally-owned bus companies. Transport for Edinburgh, Transport for London or two have shown that municipal-owned companies or regulated franchises can provide less expensive and more reliable services. We look forward to working with our co-operation agreement partners in government to introduce the community bus fund to help local authorities to make use of those options set out in the Transport Scotland Act 2019. To make bus travel more attractive to more people, we must make them accessible. That is particularly pressing in rural areas, where the average time to walk or wheel to access key services is 22 minutes, as opposed to 12 in urban areas. We must make buses well ventilated and Covid safe to address public concerns and enable more people to get back on their local buses. We must make it easier to take bikes and buggies on buses by requiring all new buses to carry both. We must support demand responsive and community transport to address particular local needs to help combat isolation and enable easy access of other services and facilities. We must ensure that the Government meets its commitment to make the majority of buses fossil fuel free by 2023. We can transform our bus sector so that it delivers cost-effective services, meets the needs of communities and aligns with our climate goals. I would like to start by congratulating Mark Ruskell on securing the debate. I know that public and particularly green public transport is a subject close to his heart and I am sure that he would have enjoyed the event. I was pleased to be able to attend in Perth on Monday, as did Minister Day. Support with the Scottish Government, the project has seen stagecoach working in partnership with Alexander Dennis Ltd, the Falkirk-based bus manufacturer and SSE, who are providing the charging facilities. Stagecoach were unveiling the first of their all-electric zero-emissions buses. They are introducing to two routes within Perth city from early in the new year. Starting with nine vehicles, they hope to almost double the fleet to 16 by the end of next year, and there is a real ambition to see Perth to become the first city in the UK—excuse me— and there is a real ambition to see Perth to become the first city in the UK entirely served by zero-emissions bus service. That would really be a fantastic and brilliant contribution locally towards net zero objectives, and I hope that it will not just be confined to the boundaries of the fair city itself as we go forward. In the interests of fairness issues stress that I know that first bus are involved in an electric transport system, and as a communication I received on their behalf yesterday pointed out, their Glasgow depot is the largest electric vehicle charging hub in the UK. However, despite that positive news about the bus services for the future, we are here this evening to talk about an unfortunate threat to an existing bus service for our constituents. We are here this evening to talk about the unfortunate threat to existing bus services for a lot of our constituents. The X-53 service, named in the motion, visits three different constituencies within Mid Scotland and Fife region that Mr Ruskell represents. It connects, Can Ross in my constituency with Stirling via a number of communities in Keith Brown's Clackmannanshire and Dunblane constituency. I am sure that, if he were here, the cabinet secretary would also be speaking in this debate, and I know that he has been in correspondence with First Bus and Muckert Community Council on the issue. Mr Ruskell has outlined the history of the bus service already, but bears repeating that it is a relatively new service introduced just over a year ago by First Bus in replacement for the one that Stagecoach ended during the lockdown. While the replacement service was welcome, it already represented a reduction in the service for my constituents since the 23 bus that I had replaced it used to run between Stirling and St Andrews. The service is to be suspended from 10 January and with lamentable lack of consultation with the affected communities beforehand. I know that bus service changes frequently and other members will have doubtless over the years and have seen many changes to their constituents opposed, so why was the service different? Why does its suspension deserve this chunk of parliamentary time spent on it? The answer is that it is not just a commercial decision by First Bus. It rarely admits that. Rather, the problem is a systemic one, a consequence of the perfect storm of Covid and Brexit that has resulted in an industry-wide shortage of drivers. Nevertheless, I urge First Bus to change their minds on this one. Can Ross in, can Ross here as an area with a growing population and does not deserve to be repeatedly cut off from neighbouring towns in the way that it has been? Yes, of course. I thank the member for taking the intervention. Is there not an argument that rather than taxpayers providing free bus travel for those in urban areas, that is where most of the funding is going to go to provide the free transport for under 21s? That money would have been better spent supporting the services that you are talking about and enhancing rural bus services so that those under 21s could have access to a bus and not necessarily just free access. Rather than subsidising those in urban areas who have plenty access to bus, the money would have been better spent on rural areas to protect those services. Mr Fairlie, I can give you the time back to Mr Carson's speech. I absolutely support the under 21 system because it is a part of the system that will get young users on to buses, because we need to try to change the culture of bus use in the first place. If we remember who it is that loses out when a bus service is removed, it is the well less off members of our community, the elderly and the young. Those are the people who depend on buses to take them to work or to education, to shops and to hospital appointments, to visit friends or just to have a day out. We are supposed to be trying to get more people on, not fewer, to use the buses. As the motion says, come next month we will see the very welcome introduction of free bus travel for young people under 26. They will only get the benefit of that if there are buses to take them there. I take the point that you are making, but I still prefer getting people on to buses in the first place. I hope that we will hear something from the minister and summing up in the debate this evening that we will give some hope that there will be work with the operators to find an answer to the challenges that they are facing in terms of driver shortages. I completely acknowledge that the main changes that the operators know will help them are the ones right now that can only be taken by the UK Government. I know, for example, that the first bus that has been working with the Scottish Refugee Council, as Mark Ruskell has already alluded to, on recruitment and have been calling on the UK Government to change the rules around visa requirements for bus drivers by classifying them as an essential worker. It would be a small change and an easy change, but it would be one that could have a positive benefit for our public transport system and to support the urgent need to encourage more public to use the public transport system more often. Thank you very much indeed, Mr Fairlie. I now call on Liz Smith, who will be followed by the minister. Can I add my thanks to Mark Ruskell for bringing this important issue to the chamber? I also welcome the acknowledgement from the minister at last week's transport questions when he said that there was a problem here. I heard him comment about driver shortages, and that is undoubtedly true, but it is not the whole story. I think that the minister is very well aware of that. As we try desperately hard to make it easier for people to go green when they make their transport joints, I really do worry that the situation with the X-53 bus is yet another barrier in the way. Jackie Dunbar and indeed Jim Fairlie just now made interesting points about trying to change people's behaviour, and that is true. If we are going to go green, then it is important that we do not have too many barriers in the way of that. I also think that the context is important here, because it comes at the same time as Stagecoach has reduced the Edinburgh to Perth X-56 bus by around half. Yesterday, we learned that Stagecoach is announcing a merger with National Express on the loss of the Perth headquarters. There are worries about the sustainability of some of those services, and it also comes at a time when ScotRail plans to lengthen the rail journey between Edinburgh and Perth by 10 minutes because of the new diversion that will happen via Dunferman. That is a journey time that is already pretty lengthy if you make comparisons with other UK and European journeys of the same distance, and indeed comparing what it was like between Edinburgh and Perth over a century ago. Plus, we know that we have obviously had issues around services at Cercody, in Invercithing and the Dumblane station, so it is not a great context for passengers in Mid Scotland and Fife just now, especially those who are based in our very rural locations. In particular, the cross-country X-53 is a lifeline for many rural passengers, some of whom feel pretty badly cut off by the loss of the bus service, and certainly that is the message that is coming out from Mid Scotland and Fife constituents. Mark Russell cited many examples there, and he is quite right in what he said in terms of those who have got essential business to do but cannot necessarily get there quite too easily. Alexander Stewart made an interesting point about Stirling Council, who are obviously worried about the situation, and I think that that is something that we need to pay a lot of attention to. I do not really think that this decision sits well with modern transport policy, where we are supposed to be doing all that we can to encourage more people out of their cars and on to public transport, but neither does it sit very well with the demographic changes across Mid Scotland and Fife, which in some key areas is seeing substantial growth, particularly around a M90 corridor, because we know of the extent of the house building that is happening in Milnerthork and Kinross. I think that I saw a statistic not long ago that Dunfermlyn was expected to grow between 2016 and 2026 by 30 per cent. That is an awful lot of people, and it is a lot of extra people who are obviously working in Edinburgh, in Stirling, in Glasgow, in Perth, etc. I would hope that many of them want to make use of public transport. Just to finish, I thank Mark Ruskell again for highlighting this. I certainly am one of the MSPs, such as many in the chamber, who have received a lot of communications about the issue. I think that it is something that I hope the Scottish Government will address. I know that there are extenuating circumstances and some of the causes of that, but I think that it is a very real issue that we need to do something about. I thank Mark Ruskell for bringing this motion forward, and to members across the chamber who have contributed tonight and highlighted the vital role that bus services play for people across Scotland. The impact of Covid-19 on public transport has been unprecedented demand for public transport plummeted in the first national lockdown and fell steeply when Covid restrictions were reintroduced last winter. Patternage today is still significantly lower by about 35 per cent than it was before Covid, though there were significant variations across the country. Our transport priority has been and remains to keep public transport running for those who need it and to maintain service levels close to pre-Covid levels, while patternage recovers from the effects of the pandemic. To maintain a viable and safe bus network, we have committed up to £210 million in additional financial support for bus services since June 2020. We have also maintained concessionary reimbursement and bus service operator grant payments at pre-Covid levels, where we would normally spend over £260 million each year. That is, of course, an addition to the money that local authorities receive through the general revenue grant to secure additional bus services, which are socially necessary but not commercially viable on their own right. In 2019-20, for example, £57 million was spent supporting those local services. Mark Ruskell I thank the minister for giving way. He describes an enormous sum of money that has been invested in the bus industry in recent years. Is there not a case here for ensuring that there is some conditionality in the way that services go forward and that there is not a waiting towards cutting rural services that is inherent in a lot of the choices that those companies are making? It seems to be the case. I think that it is at the heart of this debate that there is a waiting here that is disproportionately being felt by rural communities, because they just do not have the numbers that stack up on the spreadsheet. I will deal with conditionality as we go along, but I think that the member makes a good point. It is one that I have made to some bus providers as well. It does seem that it is a disproportionate impact. They would argue that, in the space that they are in, where the shortage of drivers, they are focused on trying to get the maximum number of people to where they need to go. However, I absolutely represent the rural area myself. The service is in severe. We reduce ticket income due to suppressed demand. Operators who receive the additional funding are not allowed to make a profit under the terms of their public service contracts with the Scottish Government. Any profit before tax that is made on Scottish local bus operations is recovered from the participating operators. The largest bus operators are now running on an average of 85 per cent of their pre-Covid mileage. In some places, operators are running below 100 per cent of pre-Covid mileage due to lack of drivers because of sickness, self-isolation or national driver shortages. Talking to one major operator earlier this week, I was struck by their concerns that they are planning in the evening before work for what they anticipate will be their capacity and then, lo and behold, as happens across society, first thing in the morning, they discover that there is another number of drivers off and there is much reshuffling done. Of course, it is difficult to communicate to service users about the additional changes that they have made, although they need to get better at that. With current driver shortages, bus operators are having to make sometimes difficult decisions, but they have to do so in consultation with local transport authorities about where best to deploy the capacity that they have to meet demand and maintain basic connectivity. It is right that decisions about local bus service provision are determined locally in consultation. That is why it is a condition of the funding that bus operators are required to consult and co-operate with local transport authorities when planning services. Operators must respond positively and quickly to reasonable requests from local transport authorities to amend provision and keep services under review. Minister will know that the overwhelming majority of bus services in rural areas are subsidised through council support to bus companies. What does the budget cut of about £300 million to local councils do? That money is a ring fence that goes to councils. Does it think that that will lead to even more services being reduced? Minister, I will give you time back for that and the earlier. Thank you. It is regrettable that every contribution cost within this chamber comes down to an anti-SNP and Scottish Government council versus local government. I did not notice earlier that £57 million in additional money is given to local authorities to support that. However, the current model does not work and we need to change it. I understand that the relevant local transport authorities are in discussion about the plan suspension of the X53 service. The issue is due to driver shortages. I welcome the on-going work on potential solutions to maintain the service. The X53 was put in place during the first national lockdown, as Alexander Stewart will recognise. After stage 5 cancelled, there is service 23 between St Andrews and Stirling due to low demand. First Scotland stepped in to run the X53 as a partial replacement of the route on a commercial basis. I understand that it is operating on a commercial basis, but the problem here is driver shortage. I very much welcome the fact that the relevant LTAs are currently exploring what alternatives can be found to maintain the service, either in full or in part. I know that that is not entirely ideal, but at least the effort has been made to see whether there is an alternative solution to that, while long-term arrangements to maintain connectivity in the area can be looked at. We are appropriately impractical. Operators must also plan services in consultation with local health boards, having in regard to serving key workers and supporting travel to healthcare, including vaccinations. We are seeing labour and skill shortages across the economy and public services right now, and the staffing pressures placed on the bus industry by the pandemic are adding to the Brexit-related problems. There is no doubt that that is adversely and significantly affecting bus service delivery. Scottish Government officials are working closely with the sector that facilitates solutions to, for example, the labour and skill shortages action plan and connecting local employability partners with bus operators. My officials are also in contact with the department for transport to address issues around delaying of licence applications and driver testing. Those are the kind of issues that I have raised directly with UK Government counterparts. However, as we have heard and as I said to Colin Smith earlier, the current system is not working in the best interests of our communities. We have the opportunity through the implementation of part 3 of the 2019 transport act to make progress in this regard. The development of the secondary legislation was paused out of necessity by the pandemic. The consultation relating to that closed in October. The analysis should be completed by the end of this year, following which we will move to the secondary legislation that is being developed and introduced. Local transport authorities ask for flexible options so that they can put in place what works in their area. The act provides that range of options with new partnership and franchising models and a power for more local transport authorities to run bus services. Supported by the community bus fund, I look forward to seeing these deliver bus services that better meet the needs of our communities wherever they live.