 The next item of business is a debate on motion 3650 in the name of Patrick Harvie on delivering on active travel commitments. I would be grateful if members who wish to speak in the debate were to press their request to speak buttons. I call on Patrick Harvie to speak to and move the motion up to 10 minutes, minister. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I'm genuinely delighted to be able to do so. It's the first opportunity for us to debate active travel in this session of Parliament, and it's the first opportunity for me to set out my priorities since becoming the minister for active travel. I want to highlight three themes around choice, delivery and leadership. Over the last couple of years, many, many more people in Scotland have chosen to walk, wheel or cycle. They've discovered new ways to see their neighbourhood and interact with other people around them. They've discovered the social health and wellbeing benefits of making those choices. They've discovered joy in less congestion, quieter streets and cleaner air. However, the political choices that have been made over the last 60 years don't make it easy for them. Choices made in past decades about the location of shops or services, the layout of streets, the design of footways and junctions, the sheer volume of traffic that we've generated and the car-centred culture that we've allowed to develop. All of those conspire to make the choice to walk, wheel or cycle, which should be the natural first choice for many, many more people, at times feel like a choice in the face of adversity. For everyone who's said to me how much they've relished the freedom to walk, wheel or cycle more, someone else has said that they feel apprehensive about doing so. As did I when I moved back to Glasgow. I had been a regular cyclist as a student in Manchester with Europe's busiest bus route as my daily commute, but even compared with that, my home city didn't feel safe to cycle in. Then there are people who tell me they do need their car for certain trips, but they would happily leave it behind in favour of active travel or public transport for the majority of their travel, so active travel choices are not binary choices. My job, and I believe our job as Parliament, is to make the political choices and the personal choices come together. That's why I'm very pleased to be overseeing the biggest ever budget for active travel in Scotland's history. £150 million next year and a big step on the way to our commitments to allocate £320 million or 10 per cent of Scotland's transport budget to walking, wheeling and cycling by 24-25. It's a level of investment equating to £58 per person in Scotland, far above £10 ahead in England and 23 in Wales. In two years' time, our commitment will also outstrip the per capita spend of the Netherlands. Admittedly, our Dutch friends have been at it rather longer than we have, illustrating how important sustained investment over a long period of time is and how investment in active travel needs to be part of a much bigger picture of how we plan and design our streets, towns and cities. However, that is about more than just money. Dutch levels of walking, wheeling and cycling didn't get to where they are now simply by allocating budget. It's how that money is spent that also counts. Over this year, I set in motion a full review of how we deliver such a rapidly growing programme. I want to ensure that our delivery model for active travel makes the most of the scale of investment that we're putting in. I'm not sure who I heard first. Mr Whittle, I think possibly. Brian Whittle. I thank Patrick Harvie for taking intervention from a colleague to let me do this. I wanted to highlight—Did you just talk about budget there, minister? I wanted to highlight—I've spoken to this before— a third sector organisation in my area, Cycle Station, who over the last year have recycled and sold affordable bikes to the tune of 650 bikes to the cost of nothing to the Scottish Government. Aren't they showing us where our money should be and how we should invest and how we should deliver on active travel? Minister, there is a huge amount of community leadership in places right across Scotland. We will get the greatest benefit from supporting that community leadership through Scottish Government policies and spending as well. I want to maximise the role that active travel has in the wider transition to a sustainable transport system with fewer unnecessary journeys. There's really no time to wait, so I'm pleased to announce that over £300,000 to develop a national dashcam safety portal with Police Scotland, with more and more of us using cameras, not just on dashboards but on handlebars and even on our clothing, will make it easier to report crimes that put people, particularly cyclists and pedestrians, in danger. That's why we're also sustaining our headline places for everyone programme and more than doubling investment in the national cycle network next year. Those programmes will deliver the connected network that's so important so that we can talk just as meaningfully about a path and cycleway network as we do about the road or rail network. A lot of that delivery will happen in partnership with local authorities, which is why we're also increasing the capital funding programme for cycling and walking and safer routes, which goes directly to local authorities, from £24 million to £35 million next year. That means that over a period of four years, direct local authority funding will have increased fourfold. I look forward to working with the newly mandated councils from May onwards on turning those pounds into projects. Now, every part of our... I'll take another, yes? Liam Kerr. Just on that point, the minister will, however, I'm sure that he acknowledged Cozler's point that local authority budgets have been cut by £100 million in the last budget, so how can they be expected to deliver on what we all want to see them do? Minister. I think that the member knows we'll always continue to debate local authority funding, and I don't agree with the way that the Conservatives interpret the figures, but I do say that across the country we do now see examples, not everywhere, but examples where local authorities are giving the real leadership, so they are clearly capable of doing so, and our increased funding to them will support them. I want to pick out a few specific strands of our programme today. The first, which I'm announcing today, is the new Ian Finlay pass fund, managed by Pass For All. It's named in memory of the Pass For All chief officer, Ian Finlay, who very sadly passed away suddenly last year and was a passionate and hugely respected advocate for active travel. This new £1.5 million fund will support small local projects to make improvements to existing path infrastructure and make connections where there are gaps in the network. It will demonstrate that transformation isn't just about big city or town centre changes, it's as much about connecting remote communities and making our neighbourhoods better places to live in, move around and relax in. I hope that Ian, who would have turned 61 today, would approve. The second aspect of the programme that I want to pick out is to highlight that active travel is inclusive travel. Walking, wheeling and cycling should be choices for the maximum number of people. Through our development and roll-out of street design guidance and through the projects that we fund, I want to see that active travel is a choice for everyone. I need to make some progress, I'm afraid. That's why, for example, I was pleased to announce a further £825,000 to support 36 innovative e-bike projects across Scotland through the e-bike grant fund. That fund includes support for non-standard and adapted bikes. The third delivery arm that I want to pick out today is the work that we're doing with children and young people. The impact, for example, of the under-22 free bus travel policy that's been implemented this year will be even greater alongside the work that we're doing to make it easier for young people to walk, wheel and cycle. In the last year, we've invested £1.3 million in bike-ability training for schools in 31 local authorities. That's supporting 47 per cent of schools to deliver on-road training. Next year, we'll mose and double our grant funding to Living Street Scotland to over £0.5 billion for programmes including Walk once a week, involving over 100,000 primary school children and their families in 26 local authority areas to encourage them to walk to school. I know just how passionately young people care about the climate emergency and about the future of our world. They challenge us to respond to that passion. Our job is to give them the choices over sustainable travel that rise to that challenge. It's the full package that's going to make the difference. Supporting active travel choices and delivering projects also comes down to leadership at every level. I don't doubt that over the next hour and a half we're going to hear sincere and powerful arguments in favour of active travel. All political parties in this chamber went into the last election with significant commitments on active travel in their manifestos. I hope that we're going to have a debate that echoes that sincerity and that significance. Too often, sadly, that support, both at local and national levels, can disappear when it comes to projects on the ground. It's not enough to support active travel in principle and then stand in the way of project after project actually happening. Too often, what we see is delay, dilution and disruption. Even the opportunism sometimes of those who complain about an imaginary war on motorists. Clear and consistent leadership is so important in order to ensure that people can choose to walk, wheel and cycle more often. We also have to choose. We make choices on who gets priority for a finite road space. Choices on speed versus safety. Choices about changing our car culture and achieving a sustained reduction in traffic levels. Choices about what we want our future to look like and our places to feel like. I'm afraid I'm just closing. In winding up, choice, delivery and leadership. Scotland can be a nation where walking, wheeling and cycling are the first and natural choice for so many more people. We can deliver transformed paths, roads, streets and communities more swiftly and more inclusively. Over the next 90 minutes, let's demonstrate that we have the vision and the leadership to make that happen. I move the motion. Thank you. I now call Graham Simpson to speak to and move amendment 3650.3 up to eight minutes, please. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. This is the first transport debate that Patrick Harvie has led on in his portfolio since he was elevated to the heights of becoming a government minister. So it was with eager anticipation that I prepared for it. I imagine that the de facto Deputy First Minister would be spelling out a list of his achievements and laying out specific actions to come with delivery dates and costings. You would expect that the new kind of politics promised by Mr Harvie and Ms Slater would usher in a waffle-free era where vagueness is banished to the dustbin or the incinerator. For this is an SNP, Green Scotland, where there is still no moratorium on them. It is with some exasperation, therefore, that I discover that Mr Harvie has very quickly settled into his new role by reading the SNP ministerial rule book. Rule 1, turn up for photo calls at projects that you've had no hand in but take the credit anyway. We had that at bowling. Rule 2, talk big but don't deliver. Rule 3, consultations and buzzwords please, but no promises, the electors won't notice. Then we have Mr Harvie's own personal rules. Harvie rule 1, don't change how you act. Now you're a minister. That's actually it. And we saw that when he refused to wear a helmet when turning up for a ministerial photoshop for a bike-ability event. Now I've listened to the minister's speech and I have to say I am disappointed. He and I do share the same ambitions on active travel, but let's be clear, there's a huge gap between what the government says is its ambition and the actual delivery on the ground and that's been the case for years. Now Mr Harvie may wish to take credit for getting the SNP to agree with our own position that 10% of the transport budget should be spent on active travel, but he's now responsible for making sure that it happens. And I do wish him every success and he may wish to work with other parties to achieve that. If he wants to reach out for me, I'm all ears. And I will reach out to him now. Let's work together on this one area of policy where we agree. Travel of all forms, as you know, Presiding Officer, is interlinked. So I won't just talk about active travel. The Scottish Government wants to see a 20% reduction in car miles by 2030. So within eight years, they want to see us all using cars a fifth less than we do now. How that's going to happen, we don't actually know. I don't think anyone in Transport Scotland knows and I suspect the minister doesn't know either. Yes. I'm grateful to Graham Simpson for giving way. I mean, the minister said that his party is not responding, but there's no one from his party here other than the minister, actually. That's the point worth making. But he says he's not conducting a war on motorists, but he's actively supported, he's actually supported the Glasgow Greens who wish to ban all drive-throughs in Glasgow. I mean, is that not a war on motorists? Graham Simpson. Well, I do think there's a war on motorists going on. And I think what the Government wants to do is to make it so difficult to own and drive a car that you just give up. What they don't have is a plan to make the alternatives to cars better. Councils are finally going to get the powers to run bus services, but the regulations won't be through until next year and it's not clear whether they'll get financial help. We must assume not. So it will be some years before anything worthwhile happens, if at all. And if we talk about active travel, walking, cycling and wheeling, here we have to pin our hopes on some speedy delivery. Where better to turn than STPR2 still in its draft stage? It talks of active travel freeways, which is an American word. They described as segregated active travel routes on main travel corridors. All sounds good, but no one I talk to seems to know what is meant. And where the first earmark for 2025 will be. Now by 24-25, at least 320 million or 10% of the total transport budget should be allocated to active travel. And that is a major increase in a very short space of time and I welcome it. But it will be councils that deliver on it. And apart from Glasgow and Edinburgh, they don't have the resources to deliver at scale. This is a serious issue. And I would ask what the minister intends to do about it. You can, as the minister has recognised, see good and bad schemes across the country. Some of the infrastructure that's been put in Glasgow is very good in my view. Edinburgh, which Jeremy Balfour will talk about, has been less impressive. It's steam-rolled schemes through, bypassing troublesome councillors and communities, and making, frankly, a right pig's ear of it on some things. Now in my own town of East Kilbride, I've seen spaces for people money spent on a particular short route, which took months and is a confusing dod breakfast of weird lines and colours. Nobody can work out what it's about. We need sensible national standards that people can work to and where councils don't have the staff, the time and the money, then help them out. That's what needs to happen. Our amendment, which I move, talks about the need to train children how to ride bikes, and that's where bikeability, which I mentioned earlier, comes in. There are still too many schools, more than half, which don't offer on-road training, and we need to do better. And I know, as a former councillor, who's taken part in bikeability sessions, that actually sometimes it's teachers that need the training to deliver the schemes. Electric bikes are becoming more and more popular, but just like electric cars, they need to be recharged, and currently there's no network for that if you're out and about and doing a longer journey. So can I suggest the minister looks at that? STPR2 is a typically woolly document. You don't really know what it means, but it needs to align with other policies, for instance planning. The CPG on sustainable transport, which I chair, is doing a piece of work on what the government needs to do to achieve its ambitions. And our conclusions, when they're made, could be challenging for us all. But I'll share them with the minister, and it would be good if I could bring them to the chamber. My own conclusion is that we need less naval gazing, less word spin, and more wheel spin. We need substance, and we need it fast. Thank you, and I'll call on Neil Bibby to speak to and move amendment 3650.1 up to five minutes, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and just at the outset of the phrase, a war on motorists has been used in this debate already so far. There is a war happening at the moment in Ukraine in mainland Europe, and I really think members need to reflect on the language they are using. All parties today agree on the principle that at least 10% of the transport budget should be invested in active travel. That investment represents an opportunity to help more Scots live active, healthier, and longer lives. As Sustrans have told us, physical and activity contributes to nearly 2,500 deaths, and only 39% of adults do 30 minutes of moderate activity five days per week. Presiding Officer, it's barely six months since COP26, and active travel must be a part of our move to net zero. So on the principle of spending 10% of the transport budget on active travel, the Government will find no disagreement here. There are serious questions, however, regarding the best use of that money. We need to channel funds effectively and ensure money is spent in a way that is joined up and thought through and is not just spent on any projects, but the right projects. Otherwise you do end up with situations such as in Johnston where a newly installed cycle lane has had to be removed due to serious safety concerns from the public. Local authorities need time to plan sensibly. I do not believe short windows for funding contribute to the best decision making. It appears that too often, rush decisions are made to access time-limited funding. That's not just an issue in Renfisher but in other parts of Scotland too. So I would ask the Minister to consider that going forward and help councils with long-term planning and also long-term funding. Consultation is also vital to better decision making. Faraway planners cannot have simplistic build-it and they will come mentality. We should ask communities what would make the biggest difference and invest accordingly. Presiding Officers, Liam Kerr said that this is obviously takes place against the backdrop of long-term cuts to council budgets by this Government. The accounts commission confirmed last week that once emergency Covid funding is accounted for local authorities have faced a 4.2 per cent reduction in funding. Local government has been hit harder than any other devolved spending area. Even accounting for movement in the budget for the coming year council still faced £51 million of core funding cuts. Cuts have consequences. Scottish Labour revealed at the weekend that there is a local roads repair backlog of at least £1.7 billion. That is not just of concern for motorists but it is of concern for cyclists too. In fact a pothole is likely of greater concern to a cyclist than a driver and is unquestionably a factor in the levels of cycling. There is also a serious issue of transport positivity not everyone can afford to buy and maintain a decent bicycle. Wonderful charities like Own Your Bike in Ferguson Park and Paisley in my own region do so much to help here. Own Your Bike offers free classes to kids on bicycle maintenance and repair and a range of services for more mature cyclists too. The SNP and Greens promised before the election free bikes for all children of school age who cannot afford them. The question is where are those bikes? Just last month only 1,000 had been given out as part of a pilot scheme. There are 145,000 families in Scotland entitled to a school uniform grant. Yes, God. Not only do we know how few bicycles have been given out but they cost £1,000 each. Neil Bibby. There are only 1,000 bikes that have been given out so far and there are 145,000 families in Scotland entitled to a school uniform grant so that there is clearly a big gap in provisioning so far. I think that this is a test for the Government. Are the Government still committed to this policy if so when will it be delivered or will this be another broken promise? Yes, certainly. I very much hope that the member will welcome the fact that the Scottish Government is continuing with this policy. It would have been wrong just to crash ahead without designing it properly. That is why we have a pilot phase. The pilot phase has been taken including those that do not necessarily lead to ownership of a bike but access to a bike and the ability to change bikes. Those range of pilots will be evaluated by the autumn and we will continue to roll out the national programme as a result of what we learn from conducting those pilots. I think that it is right to evaluate the pilot projects. I absolutely agree with the minister on that. The bike should have happened by August 2020. If they are committed to this surely they will implement this by the end of the year after the pilot schemes come to an end. There has been a lack of meaningful consultation with pedestrians and disability groups. Active travel is about walking and wheeling as much as cycling. We must always ensure that we are getting the balance right. There should be good, safe, clean, well-lit and secure places where all people and especially women can feel safe as well as young people. The £1.7 billion repair backlog that I referred to earlier does not include footways many of which are a disgrace after years of council cuts. Our walkways, footpaths and pavements need serious investment to turn active travel into our reality but that will not happen until we start to restore the funding councils have lost in successive budgets. Sustainable journeys are often multimodal journeys. Our active travel network should be integrated with our public transport network. Let me take the opportunity to say to the Scottish Government again that they must stop cuts to 1 in 10 in ScotRail services. They cannot reduce car dependency in Scotland while simultaneously shrinking ScotRail timetables and cutting services. We welcome investment in active travel invest wisely and we can make Scotland greener and healthier but we cannot view active travel in isolation. Promoting sustainable and active travel requires co-ordination. It means falling through commitments that have been given investing in walking and wheeling not just cycling and it means multimodal journeys on our transport network should be easier to make for those reasons I move the Labour amendment in my name. Had my amendment been picked this afternoon it would have asked the Scottish Government for an update on how many schools currently offer cycle training. This would have followed up the Scottish Liberal Democrats motion in the last session which called for every school child to have the opportunity to benefit from cycle training. When I asked for the recent figures on this in a written question I was informed that the Scottish Government did not hold that information. I was told that annual school cycle training performance figures for 2021-22 included delivery data from all participating local authorities and would be available in September 2022. I note that Bikeability Scotland briefing states that 37 per cent of primary schools were offered on-road training in 2020-21. Despite national school closures local restrictions on external instructors and staff pupil absences through illness or isolation it would be good if the Scottish Government could confirm this figure. I also note that the latest Sustrans data for 2020 shows 3.8 per cent of pupils cycle to school down slightly from 2019. Investing in cycle training for young people is an investment for all our futures. If we can get the conditions right we will have a generation of cyclists who would sooner walk, wheel or cycle for short journeys rather than hop into a private car. Our infrastructure needs upgrading to tackle the obstacles which breed a reluctance to cycle on roads alongside cars. Cyclists need to be safe on our roads and feel as safe as possible. Research by Sustrans and Edinburgh Council in 2015 found that just 62 per cent of city residents felt safe riding a bike during the day falling to 34 per cent at night. The figures for driving a car were up towards 90 per cent. Potholes add further safety concerns. Do you swear to avoid a pothole? Do you move towards the car or the pedestrians? We have cuts to council budgets on the way and 1.7 billion worth of potholes to fix. As many more of us return to work to office blocks we should do what we can to make an active travel commute possible, comfortable and a safe endeavour. We have called for funding to be made available to help businesses and others, install showers and changing rooms in workplaces and community facilities. We need a new vision on cycle way planning so that routes take commuters where they need to go, keeping up the maintenance of paths and providing signage along them. Further work is needed to join up existing cycle paths and ensure that they do not end abruptly. There are significant challenges to improving active travel in rural, remote and island areas where natural barriers, sheer distance and inclement weather make active journeys difficult. For those locations the Scottish Government needs to do more to ensure that transport is a realistic alternative to private cars. I hope that the Government will take on board our plan for buses, empowering local communities to have a significant voice on routes and not allow routes to only go where profits lead. For some in Scotland, particularly those in island or rural communities the car is the only option to travel so we need to support those people to transition to the most sustainable private cars available. Active travel is and should be a key plank of plans to net zero targets. Like other plans those require significant investment. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Thank you. We now move to the open debate and I call on Paul MacLennan to be followed by Jeremy Balfour. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I thank the Minister for bringing forward this debate this afternoon. Following the Scottish Government Green Party Cooperation Agreement I'd like to begin to commend the Scottish Government for the record investment in active travel over the next year. As referred to, £320 million dedicated to active travel by 2024-25 will bring us even closer to reaching our net zero targets. The new tripling of the active budget equates to £58 per head of population here in Scotland. It compares, as the minister said, to £10 in England, £20 in Wales and £30 in leading countries including the Netherlands. As he said, we've got a little bit of catching up to do with them. This funding will help us to move towards a transformational shift and help to meet the 20 per cent car kilometre reduction target that will protect the climate from damaging transport emissions. The key aim of providing free bus travel to under-22s has now been delivered. There were some tearing problems but it was a real statement of intent. The beautiful landscape of East Lothian in my constituency makes an incredible place to walk and cycle. We've got the coastal towns of Dunbar, North Berwick, the Lamomule Hills and the surrounding villages in towns. The residents and visitors are truly appreciating these lanes, hills and coasts. I want to talk about a specific project in East Lothian. In my constituency, discussions have been on-going for over a decade for a pedestrian and cyclist friendly route between Drem and Gullin. A survey conducted during the lockdown by the Drem to Gullin path campaign reported that 40 per cent of residents were cycling. 77 per cent were walking more during the lockdown alongside a drop in car use. 89 per cent of respondents also believed that the council should significantly increase investment in cycling and walking infrastructure. Recently, when East Lothian council budget round it was confirmed that £30,000 would be ringfence to help the creation of a path for locals. Sir Strand Scotland partnership also awarded East Lothian council £30,000 to examine design options for the first section of the path. That work is now under way. A spokesman for the Drem to Gullin path campaign was delighted with it. If I can get time I've only got four minutes. You can get the time back. Brian Whittle. Very grateful for the member to give it away. I wonder if he would recognise that there's an early quality and access to the ability to cycle between lower and higher SIMD areas. It's really, really important that we make sure that that inequality is tackled. Paul MacLennan. I'm actually going to touch on that in a little second. A spokesman for the Drem to Gullin path campaign was delighted with the increased investment and said that investing in active transport and travel infrastructure is vital to keep pedestrians and cyclists safe and encourage healthier and greener journeys. In East Lothian the council is also looking to pilot active transport hubs in each of our main towns and I would hope with increased national investment that this will become the norm as part of the local planning processes. Walking, cycling, bus and train links must be interlinked as possible if we are to achieve our target on that regard, I think that's really important. We also need to continue investment in public transport, just like the new railway station being constructed in East Lothian in my constituency at this moment. The Scottish Government commitment to investment in assist, transfer to your national cycle, network plan and a new cycling framework for active travel is also very welcome. Each local authority needs to do the same locally as it also. East Lothian, like many other constituencies, has a mix of rural and urban towns and villages so connectivity between villages and towns must be considered as well as within towns and villages. The demand responsive transport must be part of the solution for our towns and villages. We need this not only in a manner to reduce emissions but to help our local villages to stay in their local schools and help our villages to thrive. Partnership between the Scottish Government, local authorities, SUSTRA and other active transport groups are key in local delivery. As a member of the local government housing and planning committee, NPF4 and local development plans must ensure that any new developments are an integral part of an existing settlement. Active transport links are a condition of any grant of consent. That must be part of any formal consultation processes and beyond. Coming back to the point that Colin Smyth made as well, designs of those links have to be co-produced. I think that it was Neil Bibby and my apologies. Design of those links have to be co-produced with local groups. In conclusion, with commitment from the Scottish Government to active transport it is very welcome. I hope to see local councils increasing their commitments to active travel and supporting projects such as the Gem to Gull and Path campaign. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr MacLennan, I can advise the chamber that we have a bit of time in hand, so anybody who wants to take or make an intervention should be recompensed. I call Jeremy Balfour for around six minutes. Thank you. Active travel is a great thing. It is functional and it is healthy. It allows us to experience for physical and mental benefits of exercise while going about our daily lives. One of the small benefits of the last two years has been to spend more time walking during lockdown and enjoying the countryside around me. But active travel should be promoted and prioritised. However, the Scottish Government's record on it seems flimsy slapped ass at best. Its record is not following through on policies, it is not following through on policies, not following through on policies and often it is counterproductive in actually helping people to do active travel. A prime example of this was spaces for people and the way it was implemented here in the capital city. It has wreaked havoc for those who had been imposed upon. I sent out a survey with my annual report this year asking people to list the three biggest issues that they had within the whole of Llorian. What came back as number one by miles was to get rid of spaces for people. Not only did it affect cars, not only did it affect people but, ultimately and even worse, it affected health. The school where my daughters go to is on a main road. Normally the traffic is heavy but it keeps moving. Because of spaces for people being put in, literally it took 10 minutes to go 20 yards. Buses, cars, everything came to a standstill because of the scheme. The policing that occurred outside a major primary school affecting children's health was as a direct result of this implementation of this policy by the SNP Labour Administration in Edinburgh. I'm grateful to the member for giving way and I'm quite sure he was actively advocating for better active travel rather than simply reacting against it as some people do. But he said he was criticising Scottish Government policy and he's now giving an example of a local implementation by a council that he objects to. Does he recognise that this is one of the tensions that we need to openly and honestly debate? Do we allow local decision making and fund it from central government? Or do we take control and have a top-down approach? Surely the Conservatives want to achieve the kind of fostered local leadership to get active travel infrastructure right rather than merely react against it? Jeremy Balfour. Absolutely and that's why we need to get rid of this SNP Labour Administration and the main elections and have a Conservative-led administration in the city that will implement it properly. But the minister makes a fair point. The policies and the policy that Labour and SNP implemented here in Edinburgh was a direct result of legislation that was passed in the Parliament. So the two are not separated. But what has been worse about spaces for people is massive problems for the most vulnerable in our city. The disabled and the older people have simply been ignored. There was no consultation in regard to the implementation of this. When older people, when disabled people, when mums with prams pointed out the dangers of this scheme they were ignored completely. With less parking spaces in town I'm just going to count for a moment if that's okay parking spaces in town for those who have low mobility the scheme effectively excludes many disabled people from town centres and high streets. Not to mention the barriers that have been erected create further obstacles with people who have visual impairment or other physical impairments to street crossing and other activities. Spaces for people were supposed to create room for more active travel but for disabled people here in Edinburgh it is served to do nothing more than alienate them and cause stress. Once again, ideological and dogmatic driven policies from the Government have come at the cost and determined of the disability community here in Edinburgh and in other parts of Scotland. Audry Nicolle. I'd like to just point out and I'd be interested in your comments that the Labour Tory administration in Aberdeen City equally made what I can only describe as a bit of a mess of the spaces for people interventions in the city centre and the people of Aberdeen are still living with them because the administration will not remove part of them and that has excluded people with disabilities who have been strongly represented by the local disability partnership. Jeremy Balford. I'm sure Mr Kerl will answer that in his closing statement but I absolutely agree where disabled people are affected then there needs to be proper consultation before the schemes are brought in rather than after they've been brought in and that has not happened here in Edinburgh. I've no doubt that the scheme was started with noble intentions but the reality is that it's failed and actually needs to be scrapped and started again. But even worse than that Deputy Presiding Officer we have cycle lanes being imposed when there's already a cycle lane in place. Mr Harvey turned up a few weeks ago at Roseburn Terrace to look at the new cycle lane being put in there. That cycle lane has been hotly contested I know that was the local council for the area for many years but they've now decided to close down the shops and assume an economic impact on that and there was literally a cycle path already there 20 yards away which was already being used now it may have needed a slight upgrading it may have needed a slightly better way to reach it but it was there and was being used by cyclists already but the dogma again of Edinburgh City Council was let's make it more difficult for shop owners let's make it more difficult for local people to shop let's stop all the people and disabled people getting to the nearest shops by putting up more barriers more road works and causing more problems this is the ridiculous policy that we are seeing I would be interested if the minister would in his summing up like to just clarify two points how many disabled charities has he met with as minister to discuss act of travel and secondly can he confirm that the access to bike scheme which was launched in September 2021 to provide loans to our people to purchase your own bike have had no people signed up for it yet thank you deputy minister thank you very much indeed Mr Balfour I welcome the fact that members have embraced the invitation to intervene I would be encouraged then to be slightly briefer but with that I call Stephanie Callhan to be followed by Carol Mocken and Ms Callhan joins us remotely please Ms Callhan thank you and you won't need to worry about interventions seen as I'm online just now and can I thank Patrick Harvie for bringing this motion to the chamber today don't we put act of travel involves using your body to make the journey and it's an important part of leading a healthier lifestyle with the potentially healthy carbonised transport systems in our towns and cities too as we recover and build back from Covid-19 and implement plans to achieve net zero cost of living crisis we are at a critical juncture with transport and travel there's a great opportunity to re-prioritise and put communities and families health and wellbeing and the environment right at the forefront with crisis comes opportunity Transformed Scotland highlighted this week that walking, wheeling and cycling infrastructure remains unacceptably poor and often dangerous across Scotland and that's something that we must turn the tide on it's great to hear them Mr High like young people and earlier this week I hosted my first sustainability forum with four schools across the University of Edinburgh constituency and that was to listen to students' views and priorities travel was right at the top of all their lists and students wanted to see less vehicles in their school parks and express concerns about the negative impacts of the school run on the environment and in their own health too pupils suggested limiting parking capacity encouraging drop-off zones in a walk to school week they were really keen to raise awareness about school run emissions and encourage both students and their parents to embrace the benefits of active travel we must learn from our young people their appetite for reducing emissions and living a healthier lifestyle through active travel is really clear and it's now our job to deliver and making active travel routes safe, practical and widespread across our towns and cities in Scotland it's paramount that we place communities at the heart of active travel policy young people, parents, the elderly those living in rural Scotland and commuters, all of them have distinct needs and concerns and while there's much to be learned from cities like Amsterdam, Seville and Copenhagen Scotland has its own unique needs and we can use that knowledge for male spare to male policies that deliver for everyone across Scotland too active travel is also a question of equality if our kids are walking their cycling to school they need to have the right water proofs equipment and opportunities to learn to cycle safely this to ensure a cultural shift in Scotland that's got equality at the core and I warmly welcome the 12 month pilot project to deliver free bikes to school aged children who can't afford them and to see this rolled out more widely it's highlighted in today's motion the commitment to invest at least 320 million 10 per cent of the transport budget as has already been said but active travel by 2024-25 will be transformational and we'll be asked about the coded distribute in that funding new funding for footpaths, significantly increased funding for local authorities and more than doubling the funding for the national cycling network should all be getting warmly welcomed across this chamber these are encouraged in funding initiatives for the Scottish Government and I'm keen to see local plans for new cycling facilities at Strathclyde park and my own constituency become a reality North Lancer council will involve community groups and there will be excellent links to the surrounding area and foot and wheels this is a great example of the joined up and participative community partnerships that we need to see to become a more active nation Presiding Officer the long term vision is in place and by focusing on strategic investment listening to communities and placing equality and accessibility at the core of our policy I'm confident we can deliver an active travel commitments first health and propel ourselves towards net zero and causing but let us all go forward with ambition and determination to level the route map and make the successful journey to Scotland's active travel destination thank you thank you very much indeed Ms Callaghan and I call Carl Mocken to be followed by Stuart McMillan and again Ms Mocken joins us remotely around four minutes please Ms Mocken thank you Presiding Officer we all know the benefits of active travel are wide ranging from the environment to the health wellbeing of the population encouraging and facilitating active travel is something on which we should place significant focus and that is why every other day Scottish Labour's commitment calls for 10% of the transport budget to be afforded to active travel Presiding Officer we do not make this request without reason days debate has recognised the progress we have made but we must focus more on what there is still to do isolation, poor housing health inequalities and poor transport links impact the poorest and most vulnerable in our society more than anyone else it is therefore crucial that any active travel plan has the livelihoods and opportunities of those in our most deprived areas at its core yes we can welcome investment in e-bikes and cycling paths walking paths and more but it does little to improve the health outcomes for those most in need if we do not bring these investments to our communities make it as feasible as possible for people to use active travel routes actual access to active travel is a factor in tackling health inequalities and that must be a priority for this Parliament as we know the health inequalities we know that health inequalities create some of the biggest challenges facing Scottish society indeed Presiding Officer for active travel to become a successful reality by my colleague Neil Bibby it is crucial that the Scottish Government improves its performance in two areas where it has failed in recent times in the first instance the SNP must stop cutting local government services with the political will and pressure from the SNP back benchers this government could actually create high quality well funded accessible and affordable services including active travel up and down the country to cut the budgets of councils and thus cut their ability to provide solid travel infrastructure and then come to this chamber today with a self congratulatory motion should shame SNP and green MSPs who stood on a manifest of investment but have presided over horrific cuts to the services our communities rely upon and further Presiding Officer cutting train services and increasing the cost of train travel and the cost of living crisis that is putting strain on the pockets of millions it's not going to encourage people to choose active travel it is vital that more people choose to walk, cycle or use public transport instead of the car both for the future of generations to come and our planet but we must make that choice a clear and easy one to make the Scottish Government has failed in that regard Presiding Officer active travel is a worthwhile cause to pursue I'm glad to have this debate today indeed I had the privilege of joining paths for all based in Kilmarnock train station in my own constituency and I walked through one of the newly installed active travel routes in Kilmarnock and it was clear to me how beneficial this could be if rolled out properly and more widely however we have to get the basics right we have to take a gendered approach to ensure that those routes are accessible for women to ensure that they feel safe and in turn be accessible for other vulnerable groups such as the young, elderly and the disabled we have to invest in rail and bus services keeping services frequent at low fares and close to the communities and we have to make sure active travel routes serve those impacted modes by health inequalities doing so will take steps towards improving the health outcomes of those who have been impacted worse by the cuts of both the Scottish and UK Government in recent years and doing so, Presiding Officer we give the active travel plan for Scotland the best chance of being successful and thereby urge colleagues in the chamber tonight to back the Scottish Labour amendment this evening. Thank you very much Thank you, Ms Malkin Point of order Stephen Kerr Earlier on I intervened on Neil Bibby on the cost of the free bicycles that had been made available to children who couldn't afford them, I may have it inadvertently misled Parliament so I'd like to put on the record that the number of bicycles that had been distributed to February in the scheme was £988 at a cost of £935,797 I'd said they cost £1,000 each, in fact they cost £947 in 16 pence each and I think that's important to be straight about what the actual cost is Thank you, Mr Kerr Detail is always important, I appreciate that point of order I now call Stuart McMillan who joins us remotely to be followed by Jackie Dunbar for around four minutes, Mr McMillan Thank you very much I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate and active travel is a topic that I have been discussing at local level for some time in addition to highlighting it in my support for active travel and to be consultational A constituency of Greenock and River Clyde has some of the most stunning scenery anywhere in the country and before the pandemic I had the opportunity to visit the Greenock Cut and go for a cycle along the then newly installed cycle trails with David Hill from the Clyde Museum regional park The historic Greenock Cut is an outstanding location to visit and which John Mason MSP will support as he has visited in the past and will link up parts of the constituency We all have a decision to make about how we get from A to B Often it is the easiest and quickest option and as the Tories indicated in their amendment there sometimes is the only one option for some communities and that is the car However it is fair to say that we all need to consider our travel arrangements going forward and if we are serious about the climate emergency The end of the Tory amendment speaks about resources for local authorities and also a postcode lottery The three points I want to touch upon in this regard Firstly the postcode lottery will always happen as every community will be engaging in active travel investment from a different starting point Secondly the topography of our communities is different and as anyone who has had the pleasure of campaigning in Inverclyde will acknowledge that Inverclyde is nowhere near as flat as Amsterdam or Copenhagen and thirdly the decisions on local investment are taken by local councillors who will have a wide range of opinions Right beside my constituency office last year Inverclyde council installed a cycle lane running from Battery Park to Newark Town centre It has had some mixed reviews It was advertised by Inverclyde council before installation but I believe that many local people were just a bit more focused on the pandemic and its impact upon them to fully pick up on what was being proposed I support cycle lanes and I have no issue with cycle lanes being installed where there is room and if the design is sound I want people to be able to hop on a bike and cycle from A to B if they so desire and installing cycle lanes will make this a safer option I want to contrast the approach taken by two local councillors to the cycle lanes outside of my constituency office One is a Tory and one is SNP Local Tory councillor Graham Brooks recently had a motion to Inverclyde council to remove the cycle lanes It thankfully was rejected In the Graham Brooks telegraph he commented that he had only seen four cyclists use the lanes since it was installed last year and he stated and I quote that it is very clear for constituents that the cycle lane was never requested it is not wanted and it is not needed That certainly contradicts a lot of the comments we heard from some Tory MSPs this afternoon Can I start with the SNP councillor Chris Curley someone who uses his bike and is a local champion of active travel and he stated If you want to try and encourage people to use things you need to have them there for a period of time Are we really thinking about the future of travel in Inverclyde? Is everybody in a car? It isn't you've got to give people options I wholeheartedly agree with councillor Curley We need to be bold in our aspirations and I'm confident that over time the cycle lanes will be used more and more by locals as well as opening up Inverclyde to more tourists In effect the Scottish Tories in this chamber are calling for something that their council colleagues are voting against The rank hypocrisy on the Scottish Tories in this issue is there for everyone to see active travel benefits our country in many many ways producing a carbon footprint and the obvious health benefits associated with being active will all be supporting and improving With that, so much positive work is happening so please let's reject the Tory negativity and the hypocrisy and actually support active travel Thank you very much I now call Jackie Dunbar to be followed by Maggie Chapman for around four minutes I'm pleased to take part in today's Scottish Government debate on delivering active travel commitments recognising the important investment our government is making in our communities and the benefit that this will have to our constituents As the minister has already said it is the Scottish Government's aspiration to reduce car kilometres by 20 per cent by 2030 and so as we sorry was that an intervention nope sorry and so as we move forward towards net zero we need to get people out of cars and consider other forms of transport this will need to see a number of folk consider active travel for the first time as a serious option of getting around this will also improve people's wellbeing through increased active travel and will contribute to safer cleaner and healthier communities active travel helps to build healthy habits improving the health of our population and reducing the burden on our NHS given that physical inactivity contributes to nearly two and a half thousand deaths in Scotland each year as Mr Bibby has already said earlier with us in mind as we move forward we need to increase the number of adults meeting their physical activity guidelines of 30 minutes moderate activity five times a week if we can get more folk to cycle or walk regularly this can contribute to a potential reduction in the risk of heart disease cancer and diabetes and it will improve mental health and tackle asthma Presiding Officer to achieve these ambitions carbon reduction targets will require some serious investment it is therefore welcomed that the Scottish Government is committed to investing in public transport by spending 10% of the transport budget by the end of 24-25 on active travel I was very pleased to attend a walkabout with Sustrans in my constituency of Aberdeen Donside recently where we discussed the active travel networks in the city and the challenges that face local authorities while they challenge the behaviours of drivers and get people out of their cars it is key that we change habits and the best way to do that is by ensuring our young people are participating in active travel as it is then more likely that they will continue to do so in their adult life The Scottish Government's commitment to provide free bikes for all children of school age who cannot afford them will make such a difference to so many of my constituents the benefits of increasing access to bikes for children are obvious it ensures equality of opportunity in building life skills confidence, independence and embeds healthy and sustainable travel choices into everyday life it will also increase their options through affordable travel to education, work or further training to ensure they continue on a journey to a positive destination at this point I am going to give a shout out to a local project it's the middle field project they just now have bikes that they give out for long term loans and they can help with the servicing and fixing of those bikes to the children they do an awful lot more in my community to give them a shout out for that we have a long way to go to reach our net zero emissions targets but if we continue this investment in active travel and investing in our young people we can't change habits for the better and ensure a sustainable future for generations to come thank you I call Maggie Chapman to be followed by Fiona Hyslop Jeremy Balford I always look forward to Ms Chapman's speeches but my understanding is that you are meant to be here for opening speeches if you are taking part in the debate and I don't think Maggie Chapman was here for any of the opening speeches and I wonder whether that is a problem in regard to Fiona Hyslop today thank you very much Mr Balford your understanding of standing orders is correct, Ms Chapman though had advised the Presiding Officers before that she had prior commitments bound to attend and had permission from the Presiding Officers to be absent at the start of the debate but the point you make in relation to standing orders is absolutely well made and one I would take the opportunity to reinforce but with that Maggie Chapman a generous four minutes thank you Presiding Officer and can I welcome the Scottish Government debate on active travel can I also offer my apologies to the chamber for arriving late and my thanks to the Presiding Officer for giving me dispensation for that I'm standing in for my colleague Mark Ruskell who is absent from Parliament for a while with Greens in Government Scotland's world leading commitment to radically transform our transport system in line with our net zero ambitions are finally backed up by significant long-term investment in active travel our vision for integrated, safe and inclusive local active travel infrastructure that prioritises walking, cycling and wheeling for everyone can finally become a reality for far too long our transport systems have been cast in the image of car users our cities and towns have been designed for cars first and people second people who rely on public or active transport have often been ignored leaving too many of us often women, children, disabled people and marginalised communities poorly served by transport networks as a woman who cycles planning out the safest routes ahead of commuting balancing safety and condition of the route I hate cobbles with time, distance and hills I have experienced first hand the feeling of terror when close past or overrun by reckless drivers on vehicle heavy roads and at times have been discouraged from commuting altogether sadly I am not alone this is the experience of many women and girls 79% of whom were found by a recent Sustran survey to be in favour of more protected cycle routes the scale of the challenge for safe, green and accessible local infrastructure is significant but the prize of safer roads reduced air pollution increased physical and mental health and tightened neighbourhoods is worth the blood, sweat and tears this modal shift will require but our communities already know that that's why they've been coming together to collectively showcase the safe and accessible environment for walking, cycling and wheeling that Scotland can lead the way on in Edinburgh the Our Streets Our Nights campaign led by the Infrasisters is advocating for safe and inclusive night-time infrastructure for women and girls in Glasgow the Hijabi Riders group have been working hard to tackle the common barriers preventing Muslim women from cycling which includes safety concerns lack of confidence, costs associated with buying a bike as well as religious barriers they have been organising group cycling events across the city and teaching members how to carry out their own bike repairs in my own region, in addition to what Jackie Dunbar has already mentioned cycling groups such as bells and bikes are also promoting a community of care creating a welcoming and safe environment into cycling for women these groups are proving the point that active travel is not only for able-bodied men in Lycra it is for everyone this element of safety for women and girls is echoed across our transport system with transport focus discovering that 85% of women and girls forward plan their journeys in efforts to identify and board the safest possible public transport routes I welcome efforts by the new minister for transport to address the gender cap in transport through the upcoming consultation and embed the element of safety in the Scottish Government's plans for an all-inclusive national conversation but after May our newly elected councils will have an opportunity to utilise their new powers under the Transport Act and recent investments in public transport such as the community bus fund to deliver truly integrated local transport networks that link public transport with active travel in order to ensure that active travel networks are designed with safety in mind they must be delivered in tandem with national ambitions for 20 per cent car kilometre reduction and 20 miles per hour by default the time has come to finally take back our streets and transition away from a driver heavy culture towards integrated, safe and inclusive local infrastructure that prioritises walking, cycling and wheeling for all of Scotland thank you I call the final speaker in the open debate Fiona Hyslop for again a generous four minutes thank you I'm going to shake my remark from the local the hyper local, the national and also the global and international I think it's very striking that the Scottish Government has committed to spend at least £320 million or 10 per cent of the total transport budget on active travel by 24, 25 that's since 17, 18 by 39 million pounds and that's going to mean that the active travel budget will equate to £58 per head of the population here in Scotland comparing to £10 per head in England £20 per head in Wales and £30 per head in leading European countries now they too may also choose to spend money on active travel and those figures may change but it's very striking indeed and listening to the debate this afternoon everybody's circumstances are different there is the city experience but there's also the rural experience and there is the town experience and I would want to reflect from West Lothian about the town experience and we've had some very positive developments I would commend Sustrans and their work in helping to develop our networks and the Armourdale to Whitburn cycle path has made a difference it also provides access to trains and I also want to reflect on how we can encourage people in that commuting active travel to have that walk wheel cycle but to a bus or a train and that will have an impact on our wider transport issues about affordability, accessibility and the provision of public transport because to me that is the key to see that step change to mean that people have less use of their cars but you're starting to see that prospect in hand and that will also mean and dare I use the term smoke but a hub and smoke approach to active travel in my constituency and indeed many across the central belt we have many towns, former mining villages which are very long, have lots of spaces in terms of the pavements and the roads but also have very interesting routes by which people could travel to work and to travel to their transport hub Winchborough which is a growing town in my community has already worked with Scottish Canals to ensure that we've got that cycle network and that fantastic link into Edinburgh I'm not sure how many people commute into Edinburgh from West Lothian it might take quite a while but in terms of people actually using our canals as walkways to work you see that already happening in terms of how they're used in my constituency I think the e-bike provision is going to be hugely important because if we want more people not just men in Lycra to take part then we are going to have to have I'm going to come back to men in Lycra but the e-bike provision is going to be really important but I also think it's going to have to have practical steps, common sense steps I'm not sure if you're a men in Lycra but I'm happy to take the intervention Brian Whittle, as a man who's long left Lycra behind I wonder whether Fona Hyslop would agree with me that it's important to increase bike racks on trains to have that connectivity between cycling and getting into work Fona Hyslop I encourage the provision of bike racks for tourism provision but we need it more obviously for commuting and other provision but also the safe aspect which is also for cyclists knowing that their cycles are safe it means lighting, safety it means cameras, round stations etc and I think that's very important and also for women walking and increasingly walking to work or walking to the transport hub lighting is going to be very important and issues are going to be very, very practical and this is where I get hyperlocal it should have taken an MSP myself to sort a tiny piece of road it was actually a path, it wasn't even a road the ownership was in question capstone walk in on the school but we managed to fix the potholes worked with Sustrand, I pulled everyone together we got it sorted and it allowed people then to use either walking or cycling or wheeling to get from one part of the town to the other part of the town sometimes it's common sense yesterday I spoke to Network Rail about how we could get more people walking or cycling from the massive west or inch site onto the station and I'm going to finish with my global if that's okay 2023 Scotland will see a historic moment in cycling we're going to have the 2023 UCI cycling world championships coming to Scotland, I helped when I was a minister to secure that world championships are in different countries in different months throughout the world they're all coming here in August 2023 and that's why we want to ensure that it's not just about the elite sports people, that year should be an ambition for all of us to show that cycling's for everybody and it's why the Lithgow cycling circuit which is going to be built in my constituency is hugely important because it's about people learning relearning how to ride a bike and also to have that accessibility and to make sure that cycling is for all so let's be ambitious yes with our budget but also with our vision about what we can do and I encourage all of you to get excited about the 2023 UCI cycling world championships in Scotland and Glasgow and present officer I think if you're happy for me to close at this point I will and I've enjoyed the debate but let's be ambitious and exciting and please less grumbling and more action thank you very much Mrs Hyslop, the full frontal assault on men in Leica I was finding deeply uncomfortable there we now move to closing speeches and I call Colin Smith for around six minutes Mr Smith thank you very much today's debate has shown a real cross party recognition indeed consensus when it comes to the importance of active travel that's not surprising most parties gave a commitment in their manifestos last year to increase investment in active travel to at least transport budget including Labour and I hope we will reach at least the promised level of dedicated funding of 320 million per year sooner rather than later but Presiding Officer it was disappointing that there had been during the debate a failure by SNP and green MSPs to acknowledge that for every £1 allocated to active travel in this year's Scottish budget Scotland's local authorities would have to find more than 10 pounds just to tackle the backlog on the roads and my own home region of Dumfries and Galloway the current bill to deal with the plague of pot holes capping our roads making life miserable I have to say for Scotland's cyclists is £217 million that's more than £50 million higher than the Government's entire active transport budget for the forth coming year and there's no bibli highlighted that backlog bill is at least £1.7 billion across Scotland and if Mr Harvey and his Green Party colleagues continue to back the type of budgets they have done over the past six years that have seen a real terms cut in council funding year on year that bill is going to get higher and higher and those pot holes frankly will soon become canyons so while there's an opportunity as we increase investment in active travel interventions to have for example more dedicated cycle routes the growing crumbling footpaths and public roads will continue to be a barrier for those who want to walk, to wheel or cycle unless we do have a change of direction from the Government and when we do invest in those active travel interventions we need to do so wisely and a number of members have rightly highlighted concerns over this now I understand why during the pandemic the Government moved its focus from the places for everyone initiative to the spaces for people one to enable people frankly to travel safely interventions is a result of that but we have to recognise that the Government's spaces for people initiative did lead to a number of projects that did alienate local communities and the redirection of almost all of the funding to temporary measures away from the permanent measure schemes that we had actually in many ways has set back the move towards permanent schemes and also crucially led to a lack of consultation with communities because of the real drive to deliver in a short period of time. The allocation of more than half of the funding on our two biggest cities also highlighted the disproportionate way that Government does invest in active travel and I think Carol Mocken rightly raised the very real fear that we don't have equitable access to active travel in many of our communities. We know the communities that lobby love this and I wonder if the Government have carried out a proper mapping exercise to see where exactly investment in active travel interventions are being made. I suspect those deprived communities are the ones that once again are missing out. Communities because communities do have to be at the very heart of all our investment. I spent a great deal of time as a local council and chair of Dumfries and Galloway councils economy and environment committee pressing the case for investment in active travel and the projects that I was involved in that were the most successful were those that evolved the community and were actually part of wider regeneration. The partnership for example in the Queen Street area of Dumfries town centre between Sustrans, Dumfries and Galloway council, local housing associations but most certainly well yet. Graham Simpson. Thank Colin Smyth for taking the intervention. We've heard today of some excellent projects around the country. Would he agree with me that the best projects are the ones where councils bring communities with them and not impose projects on communities that don't particularly work because they've not been thought out properly? Colin Smyth. I agree entirely with that point. We've all seen that and I saw that as a council and a chair that there is not always 100 per cent support for active travel and the best projects are the ones where you take the community with you. I want to highlight just one example that I started talking about and that was a partnership from agencies but crucially it was a partnership with local residents. It was an example of how we can really lift a community and make not only a street safer for walkers, wheelers and cyclists but actually regenerate that community. If we understand that active travel is more about not just investment in cycle pass for commuters bypass communities, it's about investment in communities. That project included redesigning roads that had effectively become rat runs for motorists including new housing and regenerated housing investment for example in street act and all of that was actively shaped extensively by community engagement. It was a fantastic project, it was a very intensive project, it took a lot of work a lot of discussion with communities but sadly there's simply not enough of those projects across Scotland. Presiding Officer you would be forgiven for thinking from the SNP green motion today that the solution is simply to lecture local government on responsibilities rather than maybe taking a step back and the Scottish Government also taking their responsibilities seriously. I want to give you just one quick example Presiding Officer. Today of all days with the devastating news about ferry job losses at Cairnryan as a result of the shameful decision by P&O ferries we're drawn again to the lack of investment we see an infrastructure in the south west and that includes active travel. When you arrive at Cairnryan to bring your cycle your route to the nearest townstone is along with 40 ton lorries coming off the ferry along the A77 trunk road because the utter failure of the Government to extend the national cycle route to Scotland's largest ferry terminal means that it's a danger frankly if you want to cycle when you arrive in the Scotland. Welcome to active travel Scotland Presiding Officer. If Mr Harvey therefore wants to discuss whether he really does need to look no further in that example and his own Government's transport agency Transport Scotland who really have shown no leadership in tackling that problem. Finally, Presiding Officer, the Government believes as their motion says that public transport should be a priority as well as active travel then. Hopefully in his closing comments Mr Harvey will agree with my colleague Neil Bibby and say that he now opposes the cuts to train services that he opposes the cuts to ticket offices and that he opposes the massive hike in rail fares and he opposes the dismantling of our bus routes that we're seeing right across Scotland at the moment. Presiding Officer, let's all get behind the need to grow our investment in active travel to that at least 10 per cent of the transport budget but let's also unite behind ending the cuts to local councils ending the cuts to rail and bus services and ending and making sure that we have an equitable share of infrastructure investment in active travel to every community the most deprived and rural communities as well. Thank you very much Mr Smith and I call on Liam Kerr for again a very generous eight minutes. Thank you Presiding Officer I think the key point in this debate was made right at the outset by Graham Simpson when he said in reference to the minister that he and I share the same ambitions on active travel and it's clear from the Labour amendment which we can support a broad consensus in this area. A number of speakers talked of the benefits of active travel so Neil Bibby reminded us that physical inactivity contributes to nearly two and a half thousand deaths in Scotland each year. Sustrans say that regular walking or cycling can reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer diabetes can improve mental health and tackle asthma and crucially as we come out of this pandemic living streets research suggests that walking and cycling projects can increase retail sales by up to 30%. Yet if we're all persuaded of the case people will wonder why as Stephanie Callaghan put it Scotland's walking, wheeling and cycling infrastructure remains so poor and often dangerous which is where I will diverge from the consensus because the government's motion gives us the answer. As Carol Mocken said the government shows an incredible capacity for self-congratulation self-awareness and acknowledgement of reality not so much. So whilst the minister and his motion proudly trumpet the investment in active travel it fails to remind the chamber that the Scottish Conservatives were the first to call for 10% of the travel budget to go to active travel still. Paul MacLennan talked about public transport and active travel use but fails to point out that between 2015 and 2019 the proportion of commuters using public transport or doing active travel in Scotland actually fell. So we heard Jackie Dunbar describe the drive to car kilometres by 20% by 2030 but she omits to mention that the distance travelled by motor vehicles by 8% between 2015 and 2020 and we've heard a great deal about cycling but strangely less about the promise that by 2020 10% of everyday journeys would be made by bike which I guess is not surprising when you consider that at the current rate of progress it will take nearly 300 years for the SNP to meet their target. Beatrice Wishart even suggested that there were fewer children cycling to school at the moment and remember the minister loaded electric bikes yet as Graham Simpson pointed out there is no recharge network only if we recognise the challenges and stop with the spin can we seek solutions so going back to Graham Simpson's contribution he pointed out that the government motion wants to see a 20% reduction in car kilometres by 2030 but that they've made the announcement without having the faintest idea how to deliver it it is a government which chases the positive headlines by announcing an access to bike scheme but then fails to hand out a single loan in the first three months of its operation despite costing nearly half a million pounds or it promises free bikes to children then as Stephen Kerr a couple of times reminded us gives out fewer than a thousand last month at a cost of around £1 million whilst failing to learn from the truly circular economy scheme that Brian Whittle flagged in his intervention and the motion talks about public transport and reducing private car trips being essential to cutting emissions yet it fails to acknowledge that cutting 250 rail services and having a £640 million black hole in funding for decarbonising buses is not going to get us there and a crucial point is made by Transform Scotland in their briefing where they pick up on the motion's expression of hope that local authorities will deliver active travel they say this is entirely inadequate on that they are unquestionably correct because look at the context in which the government hopes local authorities will achieve this and the motion loads significantly increased funding for local authorities yet COSLA say £100 million was cut from local authorities budgets this year the minister's response to my intervention on this, COSLA are wrong it is a government which hopes local authorities can do this and the minister's intervention earlier on suggests he wants to see local leadership yet as Sustrans put it local authorities have been under significant budgetary pressure for two decades leading to significant shortfalls in the numbers of council officers available to co-ordinate and deliver measures to support active travel and Cycling UK agree I will do thank Liam Kerr for taking the intervention I can hear the minister shuntering as he seated but would Liam Kerr agree with me that the challenge here is not so much giving councils large amounts of money but is the resources in those councils to deliver once they've got that money and a lot of councils have been hollowed out in terms of staffing they don't have specialists in this area Liam Kerr yes I do very strongly and I think that was exactly the point that Sustrans were seeking to make and actually Cycling UK take that forward but what they say in the submissions that they provided to us is that councils need to be able to see the direction of travel and be able to plan their budgets over a long period of time which of course they can do at the moment with the funding settlements coming from this government Presiding Officer it is not acceptable for this government to just hope the minister said in his earlier contribution we need leadership well it's long past time for this government to show some starting perhaps with the mapping exercise Colin Smyth rightly called for in his contribution The final crucial points I want to pick up were made by Jeremy Balfour and Maggie Chapman especially it is hugely important that we ensure as our manifesto does that active travel schemes are suitable for all including buggies, wheelchair users all the people and so on Maggie Chapman I thought laid out the issues particularly well and I felt it was such a complete analysis that rather than try and summarise I will just simply commend the official report to members who didn't hear it it was a very good summary yes Maggie Chapman you won't hear me say that too often I'm sure but I will hear it certainly Jeremy Balfour said schemes brought in must not exclude disabled people and those with visual impairments and he posed a question for the minister in his closing which I'll remind him of just to make sure he picks it up because Jeremy Balfour asked how many disabled charities has the minister met with to discuss active travel and I hope the minister will cover that in his closing to sum up Presiding Officer I would like to return to comments made by Graham Simpson in opening this debate he said let us work together on this one area of policy where we agree and he's right and that means working also with the likes of Sustrans Transform Scotland and Cycling UK amongst others who submitted several excellent suggestions to guide us in this debate as well as the local organisations of the sort which Jackie Dunbar and Brian Whittle brought up earlier but it also means less of the spin more acknowledgement of reality and more substance in the proposals and action as Fiona Hyslop put it less grumbling, more action all of which is called for in the amendment in Mr Simpson's name which is why I shall vote for it tonight. I now call on the minister to wind up the debate if you could take us to just before 5 o'clock would be very grateful minister. Thank you Presiding Officer I was very much hoping for a wholly positive debate today perhaps that was setting my expectations just a fraction too high but there were very many positive contributions very many members to the debate about the public health and climate imperative this combined imperative that we have to achieve a sustainable transport system and the role of active travel within it members including Paul MacLennan and Carol Mockin placed great emphasis on that about partnership with the third sector and a number of members commented on that including Stephanie Callaghan and Beatrice Wishart in relation to some of Beatrice Wishart's other comments yes I would say that over a third of a million children have been trained via bike ability since 2010 and were committed to continuing to build on that positive track record and the role of local leadership not just local authorities but also at community level was touched on by a number of members Brian Whittle, Paul MacLennan Jackie Dunbar Fiona Heslop set herself the aspiration of covering everything from the global to the hyper local in her speech and I think it was very clear that throughout everything she was saying her intention was to ask how can we make this better how can we make this better and I do wish that everybody had had that same that same constructive approach to the issue but contrast as Liam Kerr did a moment ago two speeches in particular about the issue of inclusion and trying to make sure that our approach to active travel is inclusive, is respectful of the diversity of our society Maggie Chapman's speech and Jeremy Balfour's speech both focused very clearly and I'm sure equally sincerely in both cases but the contrast between the tone of them was really clear to me Maggie Chapman's speech very clearly was celebrating examples where this is done well and constructively challenging us to do better whereas Jeremy Balfour seems to want policies and indeed projects to be scrapped that was the tone that was the tone very much I will in just a moment that was the tone very much that came across I would say in relation to some of the points that he made yes I've met with the mobility and access committee Scotland who are one of our main advisers to this to the government on these issues and I know that other organisations such as Guide Dogs for the Blind work very constructively with the Society of Chief Officers for Planning and Transport and other organisations to try and make sure that there are guidance and advice to local authorities respects that need to be inclusive but the challenge I think must be that we don't see disability access and disability equality issues in contrast or in conflict with an approach to active travel I know from sadly growing personal experience as someone who has grudgingly come to know arthritis over the last few years and as members across the chamber will have seen me walking with a stick sometimes I know that there are many people who are disabled for whom active travel using a bike is a mobility aid there are days I have when I know that cycling is much easier than walking so we need to ensure as well as that the access to adaptive bikes to the wide range of bikes that can enable a great many people with different kinds of disabilities to travel actively as well so this must be about how we do both not seeing the two issues as in conflict with each other Jeremy Balfour Can I thank the minister for giving way? Can the minister understand that there is genuine anger within the disability community that when things like you and Adam Bush are imposed without any consultation how does that disability community be heard they want to play a constructive role but they are simply not being listened to or being asked for opinion before so can he suggest to me and other disabled people how does that happen if local councils don't engage before schemes are imposed Minister I have given an example of how Guide Dogs for the Blind Max and Scots work together with Sustrans to produce guidance and I value that kind of constructive contribution more so than some of the wholly negative comments that have been made here in the chamber which brings me to the Conservative opening and closing speeches some of which wholly lift down to my expectations clearly had written his opening paragraphs bemoaning the lack of detail about funding and specific projects he must have been very disappointed then that my opening speech mentioned so many clear specific examples of specific figures for what we are doing to increase funding and the specific projects that we are working with he said he wanted us to develop national standards he must not have been listening to my opening speech when I talked about the cycling by design guidance that has been updated he wanted us to provide more money at local level he must not have been listening to my speech when I talked about the additional funding including that going directly to local councils to deliver this work and he fully he fully lived down to my expectation when he used part of his part of his speech to yell wear a helmet at me look this government like every other government in the UK does not make wearing helmets mandatory because the evidence would not support that I like every cyclist make a decision for myself about whether a helmet is something that I wish to wear and like every other cyclist I have angry drivers yelling out of the window wear a helmet at me when they should be paying attention to their responsibilities on the road I deeply regret that Mr Simpson thinks it's appropriate to bring that very same energy to the chamber the Labour motion brought in some much more credible and substantive arguments I think Mr Bibby knows that there are aspects of his amendment that we can't support but he does add some significant issues particularly around the motivation that's being done here the climate and public health imperative was acknowledged and indeed gave some specific local examples of projects that he criticised but he did that I think in a more constructive way I think one of the fundamental arguments that Labour are putting today is that none of this can be done properly given that we have a debate and an honest disagreement about wider local government funding the reality is that the leadership being shown on active travel at local level around the country is patchy there are some great examples now Glasgow I would say is a great example I wouldn't have said that ten years ago I might not have said that five years ago I might well have been scathing about the level of respect that is given to active travel in Glasgow those years ago but now very clearly not just because of the support and the funding that is given by the Scottish government but also because the political will exist there at local level I am going to continue to engage with the Labour arguments for the time being not only because of that support from the Scottish government but because of political leadership at the local level they have invested in specific infrastructure and they have a long-term plan to continue to do that and I want to pay tribute as she is not re-standing in the coming election to Anna Richardson for the work that she has done on that Over the coming year as I said we are going to engage in a transformation project about the delivery model and there are substantive issues that we all need to grapple with particularly about the role of local leadership we have heard some people here using this debate to unleash their inner Nigel Farage and call for the cycle lanes to be ripped up or to condemn particular councils for not ripping them up in the first place if we want the Scottish government could simply allocate that 320 million by 2425 just purely according to where we think the maximum benefit will be in terms of road transforming model shift that wouldn't give the fair crack of the whip to every part of Scotland we could simply split that funding up by local authority and we wouldn't foster that we see in some local authorities but we don't see from others we do need to respond in closing to some of the constructive challenges that have been put by the transform Scotland briefing who clearly welcome what we're doing and are constructively challenging us to go further that's the kind of engagement that I think will make the Scottish government's programme on delivering active travel better rather than simply complaining that there are specific examples that people don't like in their own neighbourhood if we want to get this right if we want to be a nation where everybody inclusively can choose to travel actively and sees that as a first natural choice we need to change a great deal about how we deliver this not just spend money and so every political party across the chamber has a responsibility to foster that local leadership for making it better rather than railing against projects as I'm afraid too many have done in this debate today thank you that concludes the debate on delivering on active travel commitments it's now time to move on to the next item of business which is consideration of motion 3612 on legislative consent motion cultural objects protection from seizure bill UK legislation and I call on Neil Gray to move the motion thank you minister the question on this motion will be put at decision time the next item of business is consideration of business motion 3677 in the name of George Adam on behalf of the parliamentary bureau on good food nation Scotland bill and any member who wishes to speak against the motion should press their request to speak button now and I call on George Adam to move the motion thank you minister no member is asked to speak against the motion therefore the question is the motion 3677 be agreed are we all agreed the motion is therefore agreed the next item of business is consideration of parliamentary bureau 3678 parliamentary bureau motion 3678 on approval of an SSI and I ask George Adam on behalf of the parliamentary bureau to move the motion thank you minister the question on this motion will be put at decision time and there are six questions to be put as a result of today's business and the first is that motion 3647 in the name of Ivan McKee on subsidy control bill UK legislation be agreed are we all agreed the Parliament is not agreed therefore we'll move to a vote and there'll be a short suspension of the voting system