 I have selected an urgent question to begin business with today, and so, as a consequence, decision time will be at 5.15, later this afternoon. We move to the urgent question. Colin Smyth. To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that hundreds of drivers were stranded overnight on the M74. Minister, Hunza Yousaf. First, I repeat on record my apology to any driver who was stranded last night in hours of queuing, particularly on the M74. That would have been a deeply unpleasant experience, certainly not one that I would have liked to have been in. I imagine that nobody here across this chamber would let me first put on record my apology for that. In terms of context of the wider trunk road network, it is worth pointing out that the majority of the trunk road network, of course, despite extremely challenging weather, was moving. Clearly, though, we had issues on the M74, as the member highlights, at 6 p.m., seven HDVs on the M74 skidded and came to a halt southbound, blocking all three lanes and closing the road. Over 15 gritters and two fast tracks were resourced and brought to junction nine at southbound on the M74, and deployed salt treatments and pre-treatments undertaken at that time. Lane 3 of the road was opened around 8 p.m., enabling traffic to slowly blast the blockage, traffic followed in gritters and convoys. However, of course, the weather persisted, snowfall continued to be challenging. We saw a number of HDVs continue to lose control and continue to lose traction. At 9 p.m., a further four HDVs involved in incidents at 2 a.m. in the morning on the M74. Preparations were put in place. Appropriate travel warnings were issued. 162 gritters were patrolling last night. However, localised issues, often relating, as I have said, to HDVs losing traction persisted. Looking ahead, we now have the Met Office who have confirmed an amber warning for the south and south west of Scotland for this evening. I have just come off the phone with Police Scotland, who, correspondingly, advised that it will be upgrading its travel warning from stage 3 to stage 4. That in practice means that all travel should be avoided on those parts of the trunk road that are affected by the amber warning, namely south and south west of Scotland for the duration of the amber warning. More information on that will be released shortly. I conclude by thanking drivers for their patience. I also thank Police Scotland, the emergency services, Mountain Rescue, the gritters, transport Scotland staff and others who worked tirelessly throughout the night to help us to recover the situation as best as we could. Our focus now is on the challenging weather ahead and on ensuring that we can keep Scotland moving. I thank the minister for that answer. I also echo his thanks to our emergency services, winter service workers and the volunteers of the Moffat Mountain Rescue team for their heroic efforts last evening, trying to keep the M74 open and supporting those drivers who were stranded. In December, the minister said in response to a parliamentary question that the winter service capability has never been higher. Is the minister absolutely confident that everything possible was done and all resources needed were deployed on the M74 to try to keep the motorway open or to prevent traffic access in the stretch of the road? That was blocked. A stretch that I have to say is well known for being badly affected during adverse weather. Given the amber warning that is now in place that the minister mentions, what specific lessons have been learned to ensure that we do not have a repeat of stranded drivers on the motorway this evening? I thank Colin Smith for the tone of his question and for absolutely making the point that for every weather event that we have, we must learn the lessons of that. However, I would say that what we face is extremely challenging weather that we actually have not seen in Scotland for a number of years in the sense of the widespread nature of that snow, the persistence of it and even some of the depth of that snow. Like I said in my previous answer, yes, preparations were made. 162 gritters, which you can see from our live gritter track, were deployed last night. On the amber warning and looking ahead, what I would say is that we will certainly do everything in our power to co-ordinate with our partners, Police Scotland primarily but, of course, with local authorities and others to ensure that we have the resources and strategic locations. However, we are facing, on top of the amber warning, wider yellow warnings in terms of snow and ice across the country. We are going to be tested undoubtedly to our limit. That is why I believe that Police Scotland has taken the decision that it has to raise its travel advice warning from a stage 3 to a stage 4. We will also be appealing to drivers to heed the warning, which is to avoid all travel on those parts of the trunk road network that is affected by the amber warning. We will also be asking drivers in other parts of the country that are travelling to check the traffic Scotland website, plan their journey ahead and, importantly, drive to the conditions. The minister will know that the adverse weather, of course, also impacts on roads maintained by our local authorities. They are often used as alternatives to motorways when they are closed. This week, council after council from the north of Scotland to the south have reported that they have already overspent their winter maintenance budgets for this year. Can the minister tell us what assessment has been made by the Scottish Government of the effect of cuts to councils on the level of winter maintenance budgets? Does the minister accept that those cuts will impact on the extent to which our councils can keep Scotland moving and the public safe on our roads and pavements during the current adverse weather? Can I say to the member that, again, we have to look at that in the context of each winter that passes by. In some winters, local authorities might have underspent their winter budget, because they might have had a milder winter. Clearly, this one is a challenging winter. Therefore, it has been overspent. What I have said this morning in answer to questions that have been asked by the media on this specific question is that my door is clearly open. In fact, we are proactively contacting COSLA to speak to those local authorities that have particularly faced the effects of a challenging winter thus far. I will continue dialogue with them to see where we can assist to give some reassurance to the member. Let me say that we have plenty of salt on stock and in order. We have more salt in stock now than we used in the entire last winter. There are resources there that can be deployed and shared, whether that is through mutual aid or other mechanisms. I will not go into discussions on the financial settlement for local authorities for the 2018-19 budget. I am sure that that will come up in debate later this afternoon. However, when it comes to the conversation with local authorities, we will work closely with them. They know that my door is open and that we will be proactively contacting COSLA. I noted this morning that a Dumfries truck driver who was caught up in the snow drift on the M74 called BBC Radio Scotland to praise the emergency services and the snowplows that he saw and said that they were working flat out to address the situation and help motorists. Can the Scottish Government set out what discussions with officials and stakeholders took place once the Met Office issued an amber warning for snow and ice across Scotland and what preparations were put in place to best address those weather warnings? That is an important point. Clearly, at the end of last week, we knew from the Met Office that we were embedded in a control centre at Queensfury that we would be getting severely challenging weather this week. Therefore, of course, we had the multi-agency response team set up, as well as Scottish Government resilience calls that took place, which brings in all stakeholders involved in tackling the extremely challenging weather, including local authorities. The member is absolutely right to highlight the efforts of those involved in winter resilience. The gritters are a good example. They work on Christmas day or New Year's day, if needed. They were absolutely flat out. 162 out last night, working all hours of the day, I received messages from Transport Scotland officials at 1 in the morning, 4 in the morning, 6 in the morning, working overnight in the early hours of the morning. Clearly, lessons should be learned. None of us want to see the scenes that we saw last night repeated elsewhere. Therefore, I believe that Police Scotland has taken the step that they have to upgrade their travel advice warning. I put on record my thanks to local emergency services and the mountain rescue team. Given that local police had advised against all but essential travel, can the minister say if any consideration was given to putting an advance closure or HGV restrictions in place on the M74 as conditions deteriorated yesterday? Of course, all options would have been considered. The difficulty with road closures—for example, the AMBA warning that we are facing this evening—we are talking about a number of trunk roads that could be affected by the M74, the M77 and the M75. To close those entire trunk roads, the police have told me this afternoon that they would require huge amounts of resource. Of course, all that they would end up doing, in some respects, is diverting that traffic on to local roads, which could increase police resource. To answer the question directly, of course, all options would have absolutely been considered. However, I go back to my response to Colin Smyth, which was that, of course, every weather event that we have—we should learn the lessons of that—would be folly for me to say that we should not learn lessons. Of course, we should learn lessons from that very unpleasant experience that people would have had on the M74 last night. However, we have to strike a balance here. I am not saying that road closures will not happen. The police have said that that is always an option. They will look at tonight that there might be very localised road closures. However, they are very aware that, if they do that, they may well shift the pressure on to local roads, which may want to be avoided. However, it remains an option. However, the clear advice from Police Scotland, which we are releasing more information on, is that this has now been upgraded to stage 4 warning, which means that all travel should be avoided on those areas of the trunk road network that are affected by the AMBA warning, and indeed for the duration of the AMBA warning. Mike Rumbles Aberdeenshire Council has spent its winter maintenance budget and has also said that it will spend all of its winter reserve funds. Does the minister not see that, in these conditions, it would be helpful if he could speak to his colleague the finance minister to see if funds could be made available in the coming budget that we are about to debate in this Parliament to assist our councils that are in need that have spent their winter maintenance funds when they keep our traffic and people moving? My understanding is, from speaking to my officials, that we have not necessarily had a proactive approach from any local authority in terms of the winter budgets. However, as I was saying in my earlier answer, some winters, of course, will underspend some of the lower spend. I completely understand whether local authorities may well have been stretched. This winter, it is for them, of course, to decide how to use the budgets, but my door will be open to conversation. I have instructed already officials to proactively contact COSLA to have those discussions. Of course, there are mechanisms in place for emergency situations. The member will be aware of the bellwine scheme and so on and so forth that had been used previously for flooding. However, it will have that conversation with local authorities. As I say, I will keep a very open mind to that. There is plenty of salt on stock, so resources can be shared if any local authority is feeling like it is needing more salt on stock and does not have the financial resource to procure that. I apologise to those members who could not get in if you have any urgent constituency issues. I am sure that you could raise them tomorrow if there are opportunities.