 The final item of business today is a member's business debate on motion number 12163, in the name of Mike McKenzie, on average, speed cameras on the A9. This debate will be concluded without any questions being put, and I'd invite those members who wish to speak in the debate to please press the request-to-speak buttons now or as soon as possible. Mr McKenzie, if you are ready, has seven minutes or thereby please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I've had a particular affection for the A9 since I helped build part of it during the long, hot summer of 1976. It was a massive improvement on the previous road, but few people predicted back then that Inverness would grow at the rate it has and become such an economic success story. Few people predicted that the road would have to carry the amount of traffic that it now does, and a few people back then could have imagined how fast and how powerful modern vehicles have become. Three years later, in the summer of 1979, my grandparents were killed in a road accident, which involved both alcohol and excessive speed on the driver of the other vehicle. Therefore, I have first-hand knowledge of the devastating effect of road traffic accidents on families. Ever since, I have had a heightened awareness of road safety. That is why I am so pleased that this Government has introduced a lower alcohol limit when driving. That is why I am pleased that this Government continues its focus on improving road safety. That is why I am pleased that this Government continues to improve the quality of our road infrastructure, because the design and the quality of our roads is, in itself, an important component of road safety. That is why I am also pleased that the A9 average speed camera scheme is proving to be successful, with a reduction in speeding cases down from 1 in 3 to 1 in 20, an excessive speed down by 97 per cent. Because there is no question that speed is a significant factor, perhaps the most significant factor in serious and fatal accidents. However, it is not just the implementation of the A9 speed cameras that are important. It is important to the way in which it has been done. The Scottish Government has followed an evidence-based approach, looking closely at examples from other countries and from the average speed camera experience on the A77. The Scottish Government has consulted widely, most obviously, with a wide group of stakeholders that make up the A9 safety group, including Transport Scotland, Police Scotland, Highland, Tayside and Central Scotland Safety Camera Partnerships. Highland Council, Perth and Kinross Council, Bair Scotland, the Road Hodge Association, the Freight Transport Association, the Federation of Small Businesses, the Confederation of Passenger Transport, the Institute of Advanced Motorists, Stage Coach, SDI and others. The proposals and the strategy have therefore been informed by all that informed opinion. Again, in keeping with its overall strategy, the Scottish Government is looking closely at how the scheme is operating and continues to do so, analysing the data carefully as it becomes available. That is why we know that the results after the first three months are so encouraging. However, that is not just a question of encouraging safer and more responsible driving. It also goes hand in hand with a commitment to complete the dualling of the A9 between Perth and Inverness by 2025. The Scottish Government is the first to give that commitment to dualling the A9. The biggest transport project Scotland has ever known, with a cost of around £3 billion. I was delighted as a member of the ICI committee to learn how well the Queensferry crossing project is progressing, being both on time and below budget. I am even more pleased to learn that some of the anticipated savings are allowing the earlier progression of some of the first phases of the A9 dualling project. This is a great example of building on success. Transport Scotland is due great credit for this. This is what good Government, working hand in hand with competent Government agencies, looks like. On Friday, I drove from Edinburgh to Inverness, much of that journey on the A9, in a day of blue skies and silver sunshine, with some snow still on the hills and more on the mountains. I drove through this enchanting landscape with vista after vista opening up before me, through a landscape where the road signs conjured up much of Scotland's history from Killey Cranky to Culloden. It was a very pleasant journey, made at a good average speed through smoothly flowing traffic. Slowing down a bit can add a little quality to our lives, as well as improving safety. The Press and Journal healthily produced a survey that suggests that the public are happy with average speed cameras on the A9. I must finish by condemning those politicians who have seen this issue as a bandwagon on which to jump. I am thinking, in particular, of Danny Alexander, chief secretary to the Treasury, who has blown on some slight embers of discontent, hoping to fan them into a bonfire, merely as a means of opening up an assault on the SNP Government. There is no place in Scotland for that kind of irresponsible and shameless politics. It is time for Mr Alexander to get behind the Scottish Government's efforts to improve safety and to stop playing politics with this important issue. Many thanks. I now call on David Stewart to be followed by Murdo Fraser. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and could I pass my congratulations to Mike Mackenzie in his efforts in securing tonight's very important debate. He also revealed to us all that used to work on the A9. I do not know if he is considering offering his services to Transport Scotland to help build the dualling of the A9 in the future. I am sure that, if he makes a request to the whips office, he will consider a short period of respite for him for a couple of years. I would like to focus my remarks on road safety as a road safety campaigner. As Mike Mackenzie rightly said, the A9 has acquired a almost mythical infamy. Even people who have never driven on the road will be well aware of the notorious A9 and how dangerous it seemingly is. However, one death on Scottish roads is one too many. That is why road safety is vitally important and why we as politicians have to do all that we can do to support the police and other agencies to make our roads safer. For example, if you look at 2010, 208 people were killed on Scotland's roads. 1,960 were recorded as seriously injured, and 11,156 suffered slight injury. Most of the carolates were travelling in cars. Over 2,000 were pedestrians, over 800 were motorcyclists, and over 700 were pedicyclists—just in one second, if I could just finish this point. There were 1,275 carolates of whom Ford died. I just wonder if the member might care to look at the number that he had for who were killed on our roads. We seem to hear 2008 on those benches, and I think that it is a tenth of that. I think that the key point is that the figures are declining, and that is a good point. I think that we can all be united on. What concerns me is that fatality numbers are highest among young adults, with 22 per cent of fatalities in Scotland's roads over the past five years, when 16 to 20 fuel-year-olds only make up a tenth of the total population. As members will know, there is particular concern in the Highlands, Islands and North East to have a disproportionately high death rate among young drivers. The police tell me, as Mike Mackenzie pointed out earlier, that speed is the biggest contribute factor in road casualties. Over half of the drivers killed dying collisions on country roads. Of course, collision risk rises the faster a driver travels. For example, at 25 per cent above the average speed, a driver is about six times more likely to have a collision than a driver travelling at the average speed. The direct cost of road accidents involving deaths or injuries in Scotland is approximately £3 billion a year, but every pound spent in road safety enforcement or safety camera enforcement is £5 saving to the emergency services. I have not been a driver myself for over 40 years, and I suppose that a veteran of the A9 in Vanessa Perth route in particular fails some experience to offer the chamber on this particular route. Few issues have been raised so frequently, motorists, on the issue of the A9 as the issue of the 40-mile-an-hour speed limit previously for HDVs. That is why in December 2012 I jointly launched a campaign with the HDV driver Connor McKenna to have the speed of HDVs increased in the A9 as a pilot from 40 to 50. My motivation in setting up this campaign was purely to try something different. Try something that would maybe just reduce driver frustration. My logic was that if HDVs travelled faster by 10mph to 50mph, then all traffic would increase speed to an acceptable and appropriate level, and there would be less inclination to do dangerous overtaking. There is also a quite interesting climate change issue that Mr Siemenson might be interested in. The haulage industry tells me that a HDV driving in a higher gear at 50mph is actually less emitting than a HDV vehicle driving at 40mph in a lower gear. There is a climate change boost to increasing speed, which seems counterintuitive but is correct. Members will be aware that the pilot was introduced during October last year, along with the A9 speed cameras. Since March 2010, I have been heavily involved in road safety every opportunity. A last time does not allow me, Presiding Officer, to talk about the graduated driving licence scheme, but I would thank the Scottish Government, who has been very supportive of this reserved issue. I have made attempts by having meetings with UK ministers to try to ensure that we introduce a scheme in Scotland that would show a reduction of 21 deaths in young drivers and more than £80 million, something that we would welcome the minister's views on in the wind-up. I thank Mike MacKenzie for his excellent debate and congratulate him on the work that he does on road safety. I now call on Murdo Fraser to be followed by Dave Thompson. I congratulate Mike MacKenzie on securing the debate and thank you for bringing his motion to Parliament. Like David Stewart, I am a regular user of the A9. The road is very important to my pressure constituents, but not just that because people from across the whole of Scotland will have an interest in the safety of the road and what can be done to improve it. It is essential that the Scottish Parliament debates issues important to the people of Scotland. A few subjects have generated as much commotion and heat as the question of average speed cameras on the A9. The number of people who are members of online campaign groups calling either for the removal of the speed cameras or for speedier dualling totals nearly 30,000, so clearly it is an issue very much in the public eye, a one that is not going to go away. When the average speed cameras were first suggested, I was generally open to the idea. Anything that can be done to improve road safety on Scotland's most dangerous road should be encouraged. I was, however, strongly off the view that the speed cameras could only be introduced in tandem with a rise in HDV speed limits to 50mph on single carriageways. That was a case vigorously put by people in the chamber, David Stewart, among them, and other campaign groups outside, including the road hauliers. I am pleased that the Scottish Government listened to those voices and brought in the pilot speed increase. I understand that it is working very well and the feedback has been very encouraging. We are now six months on after average speed cameras have gone live, as Mr Mackenzie's motion indicates. Where are we now? I fear that Mr Mackenzie is just being a little bit premature in celebrating a success. One thing is clear, speed has been reduced. That fact is almost undisputable. Is the road safer as a result? I am not so sure. Scarcely a week goes by when I do not open the pages of the courier or the press and journal to read about yet another serious crash or another deadly near miss. It was just two weeks ago that we saw yet another tragedy, a horrible double fatality, on the perthster section of the A9 near Dunkeld as a result of a head-on accident. We do not know all the details of that and we should not speculate, but sadly we continue to see people die on the A9 and we continue to see near misses. The week before last, a video went viral of a dramatic near miss close to Blair Athol. Almost every major Scottish news outlet ran a story on it and even the New York Daily News featured a different near miss from the week previous on their online edition. That is global recognition for Scotland but entirely of the wrong kind. Proponents of average speed cameras claim that reducing speeding has ultimately made the road safer, but that assumes that speed is the primary factor in accidents on the A9. As has been mentioned time and time again, road layout and driver frustration are responsible for a large percentage of collisions on the road. Until we have a full year of evidence on the accident statistics, it is too early to celebrate the success of the average speed cameras. Of course, we know on the A9, because it is a very important tourist route, the road traffic levels on the summer and the propensity for accidents to take place are much higher during the summer months than they are over the winter. I do not think that Mr Mackenzie will forgive me that we can rush to judgment on this and we need to wait until we gather more evidence. I hope that the Scottish Government will resist the urge to install more average speed cameras on different roads across Scotland until we have concrete full year results and a proper opportunity to scrutinise things. In creating transport policy, I strongly believe that the Scottish Government should consult with the people who use the road, the drivers and those who live in the vicinity. Taking into account their views is a must. I am very pleased to note that, right at the moment, Transport Scotland is having public consultation on the proposed Dalwini junction and I would ask it to take a similar approach if it is considering rolling out average speed cameras to other trunk roads across the country. Everyone in the chamber is united in their desire to see the A9 loses reputation as Scotland's deadliest road. I hope that average speed cameras are part of the cure. We will be able to make a judgment on that, not today but in due course. In the meantime, I still believe that the only long-term solution is a fully-dualled road, and I urge the Scottish Government to press ahead with our current dualling plans. We all know, as has been said already this evening, that the A9 average speed camera has actually been a resounding success. Although I agree to an extent with Murdo Fraser. I agree to an extent with Murdo Fraser that all the evidence is not in yet, but I think that there is sufficient evidence there to show us that it has been very successful to date. Despite some continuing accidents, which are tragic of course, I hope that they will remain at a much lower level than was previously the case before the speed cameras. The system costs £3 million, and it has been credited with cutting the number of people speeding on the A9, as has been said already. I do believe that the road is much safer. I, like others, have driven on that road. I have been driving on that road since about the mid-60s, when I first passed my driving test. I remember travelling from Lossymouth to Edinburgh and taking seven hours on the old A9, nose to tail, the whole way. A big chunk of the A9 runs through my constituency in Badenoch, a very important part of my constituency. In fact, three times over the years, I have managed to avoid head-on collisions with various different vehicles when coming round corners or driving at night. I have been very fortunate three times when, somehow or other, I managed to, just at the right time when someone was coming towards me, get into a lay-by that just happened to be there. Three times that has happened to me. I hope that it does not happen again because I am not sure that the lay-by would be there next time. I am very aware of the dangers of the A9. The other very encouraging thing, I think, was the way that the Government did listen in relation to the heavy goods vehicles. A number of members have already said that they made representations and campaigned with others, as did I. I met the Transport Minister, Keith Brown, at the time and his officials and made a very strong case to them that the limit had to be increased because it would have been an absolute disaster if the average speed cameras had come on and we had left the limit at 40. That would have just not worked and it would have created an awful lot of frustration. The 50 limit was crucial. Driving on the A9 now, you will actually find that you are driving at about 54 or 55 for a lot of the way if you do come up behind an HGV. That is perfectly acceptable because you get to the dual carriageway stretches and you can get by them at those and even some of the two plus ones, which I am not very keen on, I would have to say. However, the average speed cameras have not been without their detractors and, as Mike Mackenzie said, the lid-dems in particular seem to have a strange logic and teamed up with anyone who had anything negative to say about the speed cameras. Thankfully, they have stopped their silly posturing now as the evidence is coming through to show that it is indeed working. I think that we also need to look more broadly and I think that Mike Mackenzie mentioned the introduction of the new drink driving limit, something that I campaigned for from 2007 until eventually we wore the Westminster Government down and forced them to devolve it to us. It took over five years. The Scottish Government acted within about five months or not much longer once they had the power and I was very pleased about that. The speed cameras are a road safety issue. The drink driving limit is a road safety issue. Safety must always be our top priority. However, as the Scottish Government—I have to thank it—gets the dualling of the A9 under way, and that is happening now. You will see real progress from now on and within 10 years, if not less than that, we are going to see a fully-dualled A9, which I think is something that everybody in this chamber will welcome. Due to the number of members who are still wishing to speak in the debate, I am in mind to accept a motion under rule 8.14.3 that the debate will be extended by up to 30 minutes. Mr Mackenzie, would you move such a motion? Fonly moved. Many thanks. The question is, we agreed that we will extend the debate by up to 30 minutes. We are. Thank you very much. I now call on Dave Thompson to be followed by Stuart Stevenson. It was not his worst speech, but I do not think that I want to listen to it again. Can I join others in congratulating Mike Mackenzie on bringing this debate to the Parliament? Acknowledge his hitherto unremarked upon connection with the A9. I notice that he did not claim credit for what part of the A9 he was responsible for helping Bill. Nevertheless, I put on record my gratitude to him for bringing this debate. Clearly, the personal experience that he has arising out of personal tragedy underscores his commitment to road safety and, indeed, reducing the alcohol drive limit. That is to be commended. However, it was, perhaps, betrayed in the peroration to his speech, the political attack that underlies the motion and, perhaps, his debate. I do not necessarily see it as Danny Alexander's role, or, indeed, any MP's role for that matter, to simply get behind the SNP. I think that there are undoubtedly concerns about the implications of average speed cameras, and those cannot simply be described or dismissed as reckless. There are more than 3,000 highlanders, including local business groups, who have called on the Scottish Government to do away with average speed cameras, and I think that there is a debate to be had. Murdo Fraser made a valid point about the data that we have seen already. I think that it would be foolish of any of us to leap on that and draw conclusions at that stage. In fact, a brief intervention. I would hope that Mr McArthur can surely agree with me that, although the data may not be absolute definitive proof, it is nevertheless very encouraging indeed. I think that, to quote the transport minister himself back in January, after only three months of average speed camera operation, police injury accident figures are not available. A longer period is required to evaluate safety performance typically three years before and after in the case of road safety schemes. The minister himself has put on record some of the caution that needs to be adopted when approaching those figures. I think that the minister will still have an opportunity in a second to respond to my comments and others. I think that what the figures do not show is what has happened to reckless overtaking, whether or not that has increased, or if, indeed, driver frustration has increased. As I say, most importantly, they do not include an analysis of the safety on the road, despite what a number of SNP MSPs has taken. I think that we have heard from you, David Thomson. The number of business groups have raised concerns about the implications of average speed cameras on longer journey times. I cannot imagine that it can simply be dismissed as somehow reckless. I think that there is a considerable amount of work still to be done, particularly looking at the analysis on the periods in which the road is most heavily in use, as Murdo Fraser said, over the summer months will be illuminating in that respect. I again congratulate Mike McKenzie on bringing today's debate, allowing the opportunity for the chamber to express its views on the matter. As someone who is himself a regular user of the A9, who is constituents who are also regular users of this main artery north to south, I also take the opportunity to remind not just the chamber but also the minister that this is a road that does not just stop at Inverness. There is an important chunk of it between Inverness and the north coast that often appears to get overlooked in debates around the safety and, indeed, the dualling of the A9. I conclude by joining the universal chorus of support for the dualling of the road. As a means of lifting its reputation as the most dangerous road in the country, I would also suggest that, as the next photo call comes up at the side of the A9, perhaps note that it is eight years and we still have not seen countless billions that have been provided through the UK Government and the Lib Dems' involvement in the UK Government being deployed in dualling that A9. I now call on Stuart Stevenson, followed by John Finnie. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and thanks to Mike Mackenzie for the opportunity to debate this important subject. I declare that, on my register of interests, I am a member of the Institute of Advanced Motorists. I also declare that I had no hand that I am aware of whatsoever in building the A9, apart from when Transport Minister relocated 41 colonies of wood ants as a result of a small improvement. They are doing very well, by the way. Have safety cameras measuring average speeds, changed behaviours and reduced law-breaking? The answer, with the benefit of a few months experience, has to be yes and yes. Have accidents and the number of killed seriously injured been reduced? Again, conditionally and provisionally, I think that the answer is yes. I think that we need to look at what people who say that we should not have average speed cameras are actually saying. What they are saying is that we have a law that sets the speed limit and that we do not want to enforce that law. Why are we choosing this law that we are not going to enforce among all other laws? It is a matter of personal convenience and arrogance among those who wish permission and unsupervised and unenforced to break one of our laws. If the law is wrong and one could argue that it is and the speed limit might not be the right speed limit, there is a way to deal with it. We are putting other people's lives at risk to do that. It is not on in any way whatsoever. I very much welcome the improvements that we have seen to the layout and engineering of the A9. The dualling all the way to Inverness will be of great benefit. Given that I, in my distant past, lived in Fife and my girlfriend lived in Inverness, you can be absolutely sure that I was very familiar with that road. Indeed, we as a family used to travel from Fife to Sutherland on our summer holidays every year for many years. That used to be a 12-hour journey in the previous incarnation of the A9. Today's A9 is very different from the one before, and the next generation will be very different. However, we will not engineer out all the accidents and all the issues on the A9 by making it dualling. In parliamentary answers to Murdo Fraser, for example, every single year that he asks questions about the M8, which is a motorway and dual carriageway, has had a higher rate of accidents per kilometre than the A9 every single year. We do not just find ourselves in the question of engineering, and that is where Dave Stewart's efforts, focusing on driver education and graduated driving licences, is something that I absolutely support. Members will have heard before that I am a private pilot, and in flying, you do not simply pass your test and get the right to go off and do everything. It does not happen that way. You cannot fly at night, you cannot fly out of sight of the ground, you cannot fly in clouds, you cannot fly multi-engine planes, you cannot fly planes with retractable undercarriage, you cannot fly planes with variable pitch prop. You want to do these things, you have to go learn, acquire the skill, get the endorsement that you have done that you need. When you pass a test, be it as a pilot or as a driver, you do not suddenly and magically acquire the experience that will enable you to cope with everything that you will meet during your career in charge of a vehicle. You have to learn that, and we have to look at whether there are ways in which we can sensibly help people to make the progress in a safe way. Therefore, I do not speak for my party but for myself very much support the idea that we should have graduated training. That does affect young people in particular, I accept that. In rural areas such as I represent, there are particular challenges because cars are an important transport vehicle for young people, but we can do it. I think that we have to look at that further. Frustration on the A9 or any other road is never an excuse for creating an accident or the possibility of an accident. We cannot just imagine engineering solves this problem, we have to look at the drivers as well. That is something that we do not have all the powers to do, but I hope that we will be willing elsewhere to help on that. I, too, would like to commend Mike McKenzie for bringing this important issue to the chamber. I have enjoyed the contribution so far. I think that one of the purposes of government is to provide a safe transport system for its citizens, and I certainly commend the efforts of the Scottish Government with regard to the A9. Those are efforts that have undertaken with other agencies, the local authorities and some of the Transport Scotland and others. Why do they do that? It is a good thing to do, but it is also a very cost-effective thing to do. A lot of people have talked about supporting jewling, and I am going to add my support to the jewling. The jewling of the rail line, which would be far more cost-effective than the obscene sum of money that has been spent on the A9. I will look for reference to the Scottish Government's website, and there is an excellent document that I recommend called Scotland's road safety framework to 2020. I will not quote the statistics in there. Many people have quoted the statistics of Dave Stewart among some of them, and I commend Dave Stewart's work and Mr Stewart's work in relation to the particularly young drivers and the challenge that many people have spoken about there. However, we must remember that those statistics are about real people, real people, real people with families, real people with neighbours, real people who live in communities. Those communities have a coalition of voices and support of efforts to stop the carnage that was taking place on the A9. As has been said by many, the road safety cameras are but one mechanism that is being used for that. That document has some wonderful phrases in it and chapters encouraging a drive for life culture. I think that that is what we need to encourage, reducing the tolerance of risk on roads. We know that risk-taking is a factor, and of course the largest factor being responsible driver behaviour. Mike McKenzie talked about slowing down and adding to the quality of life, and that is an important factor. It is also very good for the planet, too. There are rights, and we must uphold the rights of all users to expect to travel safely. That is not what was the position in the past. I suspect that I am alone in here. I have been involved in road-building in the past, not that particular road. However, having dealt with incidents as a police officer on that road, and those incidents have gone from the minor to the serious and involved individuals, I recall being sent as a dog handler to look to see if there was a pillion passenger on a motorcycle, but being told to ignore the leg that was lying on the road further along. That is the sort of things that is not just police officers but the other emergency services having to deal with. So anything that can be done to offset the carnage that I am in support of, I wrote to the Scottish Government shortly after I was elected and I was told that it was not feasible. If it was not feasible at that time, it is certainly feasible now, and I am very welcome that they have been introduced. Results from elsewhere are compelling. The 77 and the experience, the anecdotal that we have heard from people, I think, is very positive. It is not about road design. It is about irresponsible driver behaviour, and the most common facet of that irresponsible driver behaviour is speed. There has been brief mention of irresponsible elected representative behaviour, and I too cannot let it pass without saying that my member of Parliament certainly has not represented me with the way that Danny Ambrander has talked about this issue. I think that a lot has changed since I was in the police service. Something else that I found in the Government website this afternoon was clang. I do not know if the minister is going to tell us about clang. I knew nothing about clang, but clang is a smartphone app that is apparently used by young people. It was launched in the 16th of February this year to encourage road safety using. I have been told that it is of no use for me, but what of course is for you is that other app that the Scottish Government has put in place, that is the road safety cameras. That is the app that is a hands-free app that you just need to, as Stuart Stevenson said, stick to the law. I think that we are not there yet. Of course, we are still a responsible driver behaviour. That has contributed to making things better, and I, for one, welcome it. I thank Mike McKenzie for bringing this debate to the chamber. Thank you, Deputy Siding Officer. My congratulations to Mike McKenzie on securing a debate on one of the most significant and certainly the most dangerous roads to the Highlands and Islands. It is a credit to Mr McKenzie that he recognises that. I also know of the SNP pledges to duel the A9 from Perth to Inverness, but when? I wish to declare an interest in that I often drive the A9 from Edinburgh to Inverness and beyond, and some years ago I was caught by the A9 average speed cameras beyond the fourth road bridge while on my way to a funeral in Perth. I still maintain that I was in a queue of cars who were presumably all going too fast, but nonetheless I paid the penalty and took the points. The A9 is part dual carriageway and part two-way is a recipe for danger, especially for those tourists who are used to driving on the right-hand side of the road. I remember well the words of Lord Burton, the roads convener of the Old Inverness County Council. Now that was a council. Who always maintained that this road had been built with dueling in mind, and he was always furiously indignant that the preparations had never been taken forward. It should have been dueled much earlier. And when you look at the motorways in Spain and France and Italy and the highways, the multiple lane highways all over the United States, you realise that the poverty roads in the north of Scotland are in. Yes, I will take an intervention. I thank the member very much indeed for taking the intervention. I wonder if he can remind us who it was that Lord Burton railed against in terms of dueling the A9 back in those days. It was certainly well before the SNP Government came into power, so it must have been Tory or the Labour's or the Lib Dems. Does the member remember who it was who didn't duel the A9 then? I have to say, I don't know who it was now, and I don't think he did rule it. He was always afraid of pro-dueling, as far as I knew. I may say that our Government, Conservative's Government, we produced many more good roads in Scotland than any other. So there you are. I think that I will always agree with any scheme that reduces fatal accidents and injuries, but this cannot ever be used as any form of excuse to delay the essential dueling of Scotland's main backbone road, the A9. I now call on Minister Darren Mackay to conclude this debate on behalf of the Government. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I can say first of all that road safety is of paramount importance to this Government, and we are committed to reducing casualties and saving lives on roads across Scotland, including the A9. I know that there has been a great deal of local expertise brought to the table in terms of the issue. I also personally experience and an understanding that each accident is a tragedy for all those involved. As transport minister, I am informed of that every time there is a fatality on any road in Scotland, and it does not make pleasant reading because lying behind that will be a family or a community affected. I think that it is with that level of seriousness in which we approach the subject. I, too, congratulate Mike McKenzie for bringing forward the debate, and also David Stewart for the way that the Labour Party has engaged very helpfully in that. Even Murdo Fraser, a man renowned for his balance and modesty for his contribution to the debate, is well engaged in the debate with an open mind. I think that that is fair, rather than the closed mind of some who have engaged in the debate. Out with this chamber in a more opportunistic fashion, as well as the loss of human life, there is also a cost to the disruption caused by accidents. I commit again to this Government seeing through the dualling work on the A9 at a cost of an estimated £3 billion by 2025. That is 80 miles of work in quite challenging circumstances, but that commitment is strong. I have to say that it is a first for an executive or a Scottish Government of this Parliament to commit to those works, and we will complete them as quickly as we possibly can. It is about education and driver behaviour as well, and we will continue to support educational campaigns led by the road safety partnership to address issues such as inappropriate driver behaviour, including excessive speed, close following, unsafe and overtaking, because it contributes to a significant proportion of road accidents generally. We will do that in partnership. There is a range of other works going on, not just the deployment of the average speed cameras such as new lining and signing, vegetation clearance, high-visual profile policing and targeted education campaigns, as well as the average speed cameras. However, the average speed cameras have been deployed based on evidence, which is a key point, and also within the route of where the highest accident records were as well. Some people have called them money-generating schemes, but they are not. They are about safety and deployment where they make the biggest difference, and the evidence tells us that they are making a difference. In terms of public views, in the spring of last year, 78 per cent of those we spoke to anticipated that such cameras would be effective or very effective in making the route safer. In recent surveys and polls, such as in the press and journal, I have suggested that a majority of people think that it is having a positive impact on driver behaviour. Some 56 per cent of those surveyed through the press and journal felt that the average speed cameras have had a positive effect on driving behaviour. I take Murdo Fraser's point about public opinion, but I would argue that public opinion has moved as the experience has been that they have made a difference on the ground or on the road. The evidence from the stats that we have from the first performance figures tells us that excessive speeding is down. Often the bane of journeys between Perth and Inverness has been reduced by 97 per cent. Speeding overall is down from 1 in 3 vehicles to 1 in 20, and change of that magnitude reflects significant improvements in driver behaviour. However, I have been comprehensive in my response to Liam McArthur who said that we need to look at the accident statistics as well. However, those figures that we have tell a very positive story about how speeding has come down. I believe that incidents in the disruption caused is also falling. Despite comments to the contrary, traffic is not diverting from the A9 on to other roads. The A9 is very much open for business, and there is better journey time reliability. I accept that there has been a slight increase for some in the average journey times between a scale of three and 14 minutes, but I do believe that that is a price that is worth paying for a safer road, of course. I am very grateful to the minister for taking the intervention. Will he be able to comment at this stage in terms of the way in which the figures are able to disaggregate the implementation of the speed cameras from the introduction of roadworks at key sections on that road? I think that there is a level of analysis that would be required there, but what is pretty consistent when you look at some of the stats that were produced in the briefing for today? It certainly shows a correlation between the installation or even perceived installation of the average speed cameras and the reduction in speeding. I do not think that there is any coincidence. Of course, in terms of the questions that have been raised around further deployment of average speed cameras in other parts of Scotland, we do not have any plans to satisfy the members who have raised the issue to deploy average speed cameras to any new area as an isolated road safety measure, but where there are further major construction works, we will judge it on a case-by-case basis to see whether they should be deployed as part of the package that is clearly worked here on the A9, where the number of drivers being detected and prosecuted for speeding offences has fallen eightfold. That clearly illustrates both the effectiveness of average speed camera systems and the fairness of its operation. It has delivered far higher enforcement levels than were previously possible, yet provides much higher compliance levels than other methods. We will embark on further educational campaigns, not just about the A9 but focusing on the A9 as well, because many of those educational messages are relevant to the country. I think that it is right that the Government listened on wider speed limits as it happens as well in the highlands, but specifically on the HGV issue, too, is part of that package. We have a clear commitment around drilling, of course. I appreciate the work that the Government is doing on the increase to 50 million hours of HGVs, and I appreciate it as well that you will need some years to analyse the results of that. I understand that there have been changes in England in those speed limits. Will you be analysing evidence from England in terms of looking at a wider roll-out? We will consult closely and look at the evidence in England south of the border. It is only a consultation at this stage in terms of the HGV speed limit increases. I have to say that this Government is not convinced that it would be the right thing to do from a blanket position, but we will look closely at the consultation and then, if it is implemented, the evidence that it produces. However, we are not convinced that the evidence is established that we should take a blanket increase across the roads of Scotland, but we will give it careful consideration. In terms of the question around consultation with local communities, of course we want to consult and actually get the plans, the proposals, the consultations and the road orders correct. That is why there is so much time taken up in the preparation for the dualling work, which has broken down to 12 phases to ensure that the dualling is properly planned and we engage with local people what the engineering solutions look like. In terms of clang, you are absolutely right, Mr Finnie. I was able to have the pleasure of launching that app for young people to engage in road safety in a way that they enjoy so much so that I cannot get my hands on my own iPad, because my own sons now want to play that very popular Scottish Government road safety game. It is very well received, but on a more serious note, engagement with communities is absolutely vital going forward. I want to finish on the somewhat politicisation of it, because I do fear that some have focused more on electioneering rather than the safety of their constituents. I am called by Danny Alexander and part of the Edinburgh elite. I have been called many things in politics, Presiding Officer, but certainly not part of any elite and not Edinburgh-based either. I would not ask Danny Alexander as the constituency MP to get behind the SNP, but I would ask him to get behind road safety in the interests of his constituents, because surely they are paramount. I think that Liam McArthur is a gentleman, maybe even the token Liberal Democrat, the apologist for Danny Alexander today. However, if the Liberals were so keen on dualling the A9, I wonder why they did not do anything about it when they were in office for eight years or indeed when the chief secretary to the treasuries reduced the capital budget in Scotland. I think that there are ways that Danny Alexander could have helped in dualling of the A9 and has failed to do so, but I would ask him, of course. I just remember very well our ex-colleague John Farkham and Rowe, well-known, Lib Dem MSP, suggesting that the dualling should go as far as wick. I commend the member for trying to get me to extend the dualling commitment beyond the current limitations, but I think that that £3 billion commitment in 10 years and 80 miles of challenging road network is ambitious enough, but, of course, we will look to extend it as resources allow. I again congratulate the member for making that bid. To Danny Alexander, I would say, stop the political posturing, look at the evidence and recognise that public opinion has moved, safety has to be paramount. I believe that it is not about getting behind the SNP, I believe that Danny Alexander has been getting at the SNP and it should stop, and then it should get on and working in partnership to make all our roads safer, but particularly the A9 and, once again, I commend Mike McKenzie for bringing us a very important debate to the chamber. Many thanks. I thank you all for taking part in this important debate, and I now close this meeting of Parliament.