 I remind members of the Covid-related measures that are in place and that face covering should be worn when moving around the chamber and across the Holyrood campus. The final item of business is a member's business debate on motion 1675, in the name of Graeme Simpson on East Kilbride rail line dualling. The debate will be concluded without any questions being put. I would ask those members who wish to speak in the debate to please press the request to speak with us now, and I call in Graeme Simpson to open the debate up to seven minutes, please, Mr Simpson. Many thanks, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'm going to start by thanking all the members from across the chamber who signed the motion that gets us this debate today. I'm going to start with a quote. The East Kilbride line is one of the areas that we've identified. I was there fairly recently and the investigation works had started. The work involves not only electrifying the line but dualling it, which will provide it with much greater resilience and capacity to help to support the people who make use of the services. It also involves enhancements to East Kilbride railway station, which, in my view, is unacceptable in its present form. That is why that work is one of the early actions that we intend to take forward. Those are the words of Cabinet Secretary Michael Matheson when questioned by me at the Wreck Committee in September last year. That is the same Michael Matheson who described the service to East Kilbride as inadequate and not up to scratch. While posing in a hard hat on the line, he said that the combination of projects at East Kilbride and Hairmayers will transform the services into Glasgow in the next four to five years and is part of a major investment by us. We want to make sure that the line is able to cope with ever-growing demand for rail services on this route. Those are ambitious plans to take forward for the benefit of those who make regular use of the service on this line. You would think all was well. It was until we had the announcement sneaked out by Transport Scotland in October that we were not going to get a dueled line between Busby and East Kilbride and that the line will be decarbonised, which may or may not mean electrified. The line from East Kilbride runs into Glasgow through part of East Remfrewshire and then through the south side of the city. Going from East Kilbride, it is a single line until you get to Busby, apart from a small loop at Hairmayers so trains can pass each other. Only diesel trains operate on the line. Clearly, if we want to get to net zero, we need to tackle lines like that. We also need to encourage people on to the trains. One of the problems with having a single track line is that if problems occur and they do, trains just stop. If they are coming from Glasgow, they usually go no further than Busby. That is why I, the former MSP for East Kilbride, Linda Fabiani and others have been pushing for years to get the line dueled and electrified. As you have heard, we had agreement for that. That has now been torn up with no consultation whatsoever. Paul Speedy is making an important point about the reliability and resilience. Surely that is a lesson that was learned the hard way on the border railway, which was curtailed with significant sections of a single track line, which now is presenting a huge problem for the reliability of the line with massive delays as a result of the single track sections, which were, as a result of Transport Scotland Valley engineering the project? Mr Sweeney is absolutely right that the border railway is in the same position. The minister and I have spoken about this. I thank him for that. He will say that there is a potential for the £40 million cost of dualling the line to spiral. There is that risk with any infrastructure project, and you have to factor that in. That does not mean that you do not do them. The new MSP for the town, Collette Stevenson, has been quoted as saying that £100 million is still being invested in the East Kilbride corridor. I assume that she means the entire line into Glasgow, which in her view is, quote, great news for the people of the town. Well, it is only great news for the town if there is a guarantee of more trains and no hold-ups caused by there being only one line, or if there is extra car parking at the new Hermize station, not the reduced number which is now being mooted. I am afraid that none of what is being delivered right now, none of that is being delivered, so it is not good news for the town at all, and it is not gesture politics to point that out. East Kilbride is growing at a fast rate of knots. Thousands of houses are being built on what was Greenbelt land to the south-west of the town. We should be doing all we can to encourage the people living in those houses to use the train so that we should be increasing capacity and the frequency of services, not taking the short-term view based on current usage because it will bounce back. The minister is shaking his head, but it is a short-term view. At one time, the line continued from East Kilbride to Hamilton. When East Kilbride became a new town in 1948, the line beyond the town was closed. In the mid-1950s, the dueled section from Busby became a single track. Diesel replaced steam in the 1960s, and in 2000 the Hermize loop was built, allowing for a half-hourly service. Of course, we are not the only place to have a single track line and diesel train. The borders line mentioned earlier is the same. The line from Perth to Inverness is a single track line, and, of course, so is the far north line. There will be others that members may wish to highlight. All those deserve investment, too. This should not be a case of divide and conquer. If we are serious about cutting carbon emissions from transport, then we need to persuade people that they are better off not driving. East Kilbride could be a great example of what can be done. The ambition should not end at dueling and electrifying the existing line in my view. Right now, if you want to get anywhere in Scotland from the country's biggest town, people from Paisley may disagree with that title, you have to go via Glasgow or drive. If we are to be truly radical, then we should be looking to go beyond dueling just to East Kilbride. Why not extend the line again, maybe even to Hamilton at some point in the future? I'll just end with the quote that I started with. The work involves not only electrifying the line but dueling it. That is a promise, and no amount of weasel words can wriggle out of that. I have been clear that I believe that electrification and dueling of the East Kilbride line would offer the best outcomes. I have been saying all along to those who have been in touch with me regarding the issue, and I am happy to have that on record. I welcome today's debate from Graham Simpson, and I look forward to hearing from other members as it progresses. On 8 October, I was made aware of the Scottish Government plans to electrify the East Kilbride railway line. The press release from Transport Scotland's website stated that, by progressing with a single track, that allows funds to be reallocated to other decarbonisation projects such as orders electrification. Other than confirmation that electrification was to take place, there was a lack of detail on what the improvements to station and passenger facilities along the two routes would be. I have had confirmation from the Transport Minister on what that work entails, with moving Hermeyr train station and the creation of more than hundreds of parking spaces to accommodate future demands, where more can be added if required. I welcome plans to encourage active travel, and the commitment for electrification to the line that will decarbonise our railway by 2035. However, I have had several constituents who feel that the town has been shortchanged, and that current plans to enhance the single track only do not go far enough to accommodate future demand. I would like to continue. Although we can all understand that the pandemic has hit revenue, if uncertainty over future usage of the line is cited as a reason for changing plans, surely it makes more sense to dual the line. My position as the Transport Minister will be aware that, if we are upgrading the line just now, then it makes sense to dual it rather than doing it years down the line, where additional costs and disruption could be avoided. Constituents have queried how much dualing will cost, and I appreciate a steer on that. The Scottish Government suggests geotechnical conditions between Busby and Hermeyr are challenging, and double tracking would require significant earthworks to be undertaken, carrying a high degree of risk. We can assume that that is true of any project that is size. However, I would appreciate confirmation of what survey work has been carried out to date and more details on what challenges have so far been found. Can the minister confirm if current plans can accommodate four trains per hour outside the peak period with the enhanced loop? I have not been swayed that longer trains are the solution to ease pressure, and network rail has not been able to give a direct answer to that point. I understand that I have asked a number of questions on that, and I would appreciate an update in the new year as developments progress. Ultimately, the enhancements are good for the town, and the plans will ensure a more reliable greener service, which I am sure will offer locals a real alternative to using the car. I simply want the best for the people of East Kilbride and for the right decisions to be made, which will foolproof the line. I want to be followed by Neil Bibby. Up to four minutes, please. I am contributing to the debate, because a large section of the line runs through my eastward constituency. I thought that I was doing quite well. I have eight stations in my eastward constituency. I have now discovered that Stuart McMillan has got 22 stations in his constituency, although quantity does not mean quality. Nonetheless, I have eight stations in my constituency, and that line runs directly through. It is important to look at some of the positives. First, I am delighted that the electrification of that line is a fundamental part of the decarbonisation and will make a significant difference to that in the years ahead. Secondly, I am also grateful that, in response to representations that I made, and I would make this point despite Collette Stevenson's remarks just a moment ago, a network rail increased the capacity on that line from four carriages to six carriages during peak times. I know that constituents in eastward—I am quite sure that East Kilbride as well—were quite happy to be able to get a seat in the train when many of them I know found themselves standing during peak periods. There has definitely been enhancement in the service that is on offer. However, the decision to remove the dualling or not to proceed with the dualling from Busby, the last point of civilisation in eastward, before one heads out towards Thornton Hall and East Kilbride, let me say that my constituency would quite happily annex Thornton Hall, where the residents there and the Boundary Commission willing so to consider. Nonetheless, as we move through Thornton Hall and to East Kilbride, we resort to a single track. I regret that, and I regret it because all those eight stations that I referred to in eastward are historical. They were all there in the 1930s, and they are at one point of my constituency. That is what one would regard as the north end of the constituency, not the south. Yet the population and expansion and development of eastward and east remfisher has massively been in a southwards direction, with virtually no public transport infrastructure at all, with first bus significantly reducing bus services that are available there, too. There is no option for many constituents, particularly those in new housing developments, but to use their car. I would have preferred and would hope that the dualling would continue, because I would very much like a future consideration to be given to a spur from a dual track to East Kilbride to swing round the back towards the new developments in Maidenhill, up towards Whiteley wind farm, which would afford public transport access to the whole of the south side of the expanding population in Newton-Merns and Maidenhill. As a long-term project, we should be looking to provide additional access to public transport options to people. That would be, I think, a long-term worthwhile project, but it makes it almost impossible to achieve if we only have a single track. I can see the minister sitting there shrinking in shame at this development, particularly when only a fortnight ago the UK Government announced a £10 million investment in the Whiteley wind farm, which will allow for a carbon capture, which will allow for some 250 bus journeys to be made between Glasgow and Edinburgh a day on a completely decarbonised basis. The UK investing in the future of decarbonised transport while the minister sits there and cuts the options himself. The only people who should be shrinking with shame on the issue of rail investment are the Tories. Given what is happening south of the border, while the Scottish Government is investing heavily in rail and rail infrastructure, the UK Government is imposing swinging cuts on rail. The minister knows that the UK Government would be only too delighted to assist in transport projects in Scotland if only Scottish Government ministers would get off their high horse and sit down and have those conversations. Nonetheless, I think that it is important that the commitments that were given are honoured in order to make available future additional rail transport options feasible. Although I know that many of the improvements that have been made are positive, I think that this decision is a retrograde one and one given the long-term population expansion that people will regret and the Government will come to regret as well. Upgrading the East Coast Bride line has been a long-standing objective of campaigners through the decades. As we have just heard from Jackson Carlaw, the line serves growing populations across the south side of Glasgow, East Renfrewshire and East Coast Bride, while those communities have changed dramatically through the years. The railway itself has not. Passengers have raised their frustrations with an increasingly dated railway with me. For example, I have met thawntly bank commuters on the station platform to hear first-hand concerns about the frequency of services, breakdowns and that time excessive overcrowding. The adoption of network rails electrification enhancement proposals was set to be a game changer. That included sections of double track or loops between Haymars and Busby stations that could facilitate more trains to East Coast Bride. The decision to take forward enhancements was welcomed across the communities served by this line. It was the flagship of the Government's rail decarbonisation plan. Transport Scotland and the Scotland's rail website were peppered with references to double tracking on the East Coast Bride line to facilitate a more frequent service and more double tracking at the single line section between East Coast Bride and Busby. Make no mistake, the working assumptions of the Scottish Government and its partners on the ground was that the electrification of the East Coast Bride line included dual tracking after Busby. The assumed dual track would make it possible to improve the frequency of services, not just securing four trains per hour services at peak times but beyond that too. It is astounding that Scotland's largest city and Scotland's second largest town are still connected by a two train per hour service for so much of the day. The failure to improve rail links between two of the largest settlements represents a failure to improve rail links for my constituents in East Renfrewshire and everyone in between. This project would also alleviate pressure on Glasgow central station as a whole by reducing platform occupancy times with benefits to the city region as a whole. The customer outcomes from upgrading the line set out by Network Rail include greater punctuality, quicker journeys, more seating capacity and crucially more trains. The Scottish Government has now chosen not to implement Network Rail's proposals in full. They are limiting the network's capacities to provide more trains and they have done so by their own emission on cost grounds. There is nothing too impossible or too difficult and there is certainly nothing unaffordable about double-tracking the East Kilbride line. They are choosing to divert funds elsewhere rather than future-proof this rail line. Those are short-term financial decisions to the long-term detriment of the suburban rail network. That will not deliver modal shift, that will further entrench car dependency. The Scottish National Party has to come clean. They have no plan to build back rail services to pre-pandemic levels, never mind improving them. That is why they will not disown the discredited docketary report and that is why they are reading the budget for the East Kilbride line. The Tory Government's decision to scrap the eastern leg of high-speed rail 2 was met with opposition from across the north of England. In the words of Andy Burnham, levelling up means bringing forward your best solution, not a cut-price solution. That is precisely what the SNP transport minister is doing in the west of Scotland. That is a cut-price solution for our communities, not the best solution. That is a betrayal of the passengers who have endured overcrowded and inadequate services for years. That is a betrayal of the local economies counting on rail improvements to boost their recovery. My constituents in East Renfisher, where the line is already due, need double-tracking after Busby as much as the people of East Kilbride or the people of Glasgow, because it is only by extending double-track that we can secure for the future the full benefits and networks rails original proposals. Proposals that would mean more trains, quieter, quicker, greener and more frequent. Proposals that could meet the aspirations of the passengers that I met in Thornydbank and many more like them in Busby, Clarkston, Giffnick and all along the line. The Parliament should stand united in telling the Scottish Government to get dueling back on track. That is why Labour is calling on the SNP Green Government to reverse the decision to drop dual-track. Upgrade the East Kilbride line and upgrade it in full. As has been mentioned, given that the East Kilbride line travels through East Renfisher, it is obviously of significant interest to those of us who represent the area as constituency or regional MSPs. Ensuring that public transport infrastructure is fit for the 21st century is key to encouraging modal shift and getting people to move away from cars, to meet the Scottish Government's targets to reduce car travel, to reduce car kilometres by 20 per cent, to cut our carbon emissions and to ensure greater access for those who do not have access to a car. On that point, I would highlight, particularly given my interest in the sections of the track that runs through East Renfisher, that comments are made in debates about improving the line around the comparatively high levels of car ownership in an area like East Renfisher that is relatively prosperous. However, 15 per cent of children in that community live in it. Those assumptions are to the significant disadvantage that the families who are left behind are further marginalised. I have campaigned for improvements on the line for a while now. In fact, two years ago, I managed to secure an additional £5 million fund for improvements to the MoGai and East Kilbride lines. Unfortunately for East Kilbride, that fund was then used entirely for a specific £5.5 million upgrade project on the MoGai line. That was entirely justifiable, given that it has consistently been the worst performing rail line in Scotland. In fact, before the pandemic, it regularly saw less than one in four trains arrive at MoGai station on time. Both lines share a need for much more substantial infrastructure improvement. They both require dualling if they are to see the frequency of service that we need to drive modal shift at the level of reliability that is required to make it a viable and attractive alternative to the car. As was noted earlier, we have seen that single track sections across the country consistently present obstacles to wider capacity and performance improvements. Some of those are historical legacies from a century or more ago. Many are the result of a deeply misguided programme in the late 1980s and early 1990s, whereby twin track lines had one track removed for financial reasons. Some are more recent decisions that have been made again, I believe, on a financial basis. I welcome the £100 million worth of improvements that have been and are being delivered on the line, including improvements to make Gifnick station more accessible to my constituents. That is a necessary step towards decarbonising Scotland's transport infrastructure. Given that transport is the one area in which emissions have consistently risen, electrification of the rail network is essential if we are to meet our emission reduction targets. That is why it is disappointing to hear that the long-proposed dualling between Busby and East Kilbride will now not go forward despite past commitments, a view that I know is shared by my green colleague for Central Scotland, Gillian Mackay. She wrote to the minister to highlight her dismay at those reports, rightly noting that protecting and improving services is key to restoring confidence in public transport as we come out of the pandemic. She also noted that regions across Scotland should not need to compete for funding for essential upgrades, with the money for dualling this line apparently having been reallocated to electrification of lines elsewhere. In response to Gillian Mackay's letter, the minister said that one of the reasons for scrapping the dualling is the level of anticipated demand after Covid. I find that a troubling rationale, because it suggests that government policymaking should be led by external forces rather than used as a tool to proactively drive up use of public transport. If the justification for reduced capacity is that fewer passengers are returning to the railways, then that outcome is being guaranteed by providing them with inadequate capacity to return to and failing to deliver the improvements that have long been needed. That is precisely why the co-operation agreement between the Greens and the Scottish Government includes £5 billion of investment in our railways across this parliamentary term. We should be making it easier, not harder to use public transport, as we are doing for buses with our under-22 free travel scheme. We should be investing the money that is needed to meet the scale of the challenge that we face in cutting our transport emissions. Scotland needs to deliver a more effective and more attractive transport network that draws more people onto our railways, and there is no reason to leave East Kilbride behind on that agenda. I now call Paul Sweeney to be followed by Richard Leonard up to four minutes. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Greater Glasgow has the second-largest urban railway network in the United Kingdom, but it is fair to say that it is less than the sum of its parts. If we are to seriously look at investing in it, we really need to commit to a vision of a 15-minute service in all parts of the city. That is the sort of shift of a turn-up-and-go frequency that unlocks true modal shift that moves people onto railways. I do not know how many people here travel by rail frequently, but I find the attempt of waking up in the morning and trying to figure out whether we are going to miss your connection from the subway to the railway service by one minute and then have to wait half an hour for the next train—a significant deterrent to deciding whether to take the car or the train, particularly if you are having to meet an appointment under time pressure. Those are decisions and calculations that are being made by Glasgow regions every day of every week. Because our transport system across the greater Glasgow region is so infrequent, it is not up to a metro-level standard. That is why it has not been fully utilised. That is why we are not reaping the full benefits of that great legacy of infrastructure that was built during the 19th and 20th centuries, despite the cuts of beaching in the 1960s. We need to seriously look at how we build that commitment. I know that the Scottish transport project review coming up, the strategic project review coming up, will be looking at the idea of a Glasgow metro. Surely a key critical component of that metro is connecting the sixth-largest settlement in Scotland in the greater Glasgow region, East Kilbride, to the urban centre of the city region, Glasgow city centre, in a way that will allow people to say, it does not matter, I do not have to look at my watch, I can turn up at the station and there will be a train arriving within 15 minutes to take me to where I need to go. I recognise the argument that he makes and that is why the proposals around a Clyde metro system take account of seven local authorities around it. Will he accept that rail is only a component of that and that there will be other component parts to achieve what he is looking for? I do not mean specific to East Kilbride, but it might be light rail, it might be enhanced bus, glider-type services, that a metro scheme will take in a raft of modes of transport. I recognise that point and, for example, there are proposals such as converting the Cathcart circle to light rail, which will unlock past its central station, etc. I recognise that potential East Kilbride in the future could be a candidate for light rail conversion, which could increase frequencies and unlock the potential of the line in full. To do that, we still need dual tracking, we still need that reliability, even tramways need dual track. Even if it is using light railway vehicles rather than heavy rail vehicles, the same principle applies. We need the dual tracking to provide the through ways to provide the reliability of the service. It is one thing to model for train for our frequency on a computer. We know from the bitter experience of the Borders Railway that, in reality, it is not as reliable as all that. Of course, as Ross Greer demonstrated with MoGuy, we have a similar constraint on that part of Greater Glasgow's network. We need that commitment to dual tracking. The risk is not just about the earthworks of building up the dual track system, it is about the risk to the reliability of the service, which then deters people from making that choice. Hard pressed at 8 o'clock in the morning, thinking that I will get to work on time. If I miss my connection by two minutes, I have to stand at a platform in the winter for half an hour, waiting on the next train, as opposed to turning up and getting it within seven or eight minutes, as you would in London, which is very much par for the course to turn up and be able to get a service across London at any point in the day within a few minutes. That is the sort of ambition that we need for Scotland's largest city. We are going to unleash the economic potential of the Greater Glasgow region. That is the sort of ambition that we need. The measly attempt to quietly downgrade the line after the great bombastic statements from the cabinet secretary about how it was not up to scratch when it needed to do the dual tracking, to try and do it surreptitiously in this way without any true scrutiny, without any clear publications or the justification. We are knowing how difficult it is to get those railway upgrades on business cases approved, as it is to then quietly downgrade them. It seems like a double standard. We need to have the same level of scrutiny applied to justifying the downgrade. I do not think that it has been presented. Please, cabinet secretary, have more ambition for Greater Glasgow. It is a one-way bet to let us dual-track East Kilbride and unlock the potential of the Greater Glasgow region. I thank Graham Simpson for raising this important debate. Here is a simple test. Is the Government prepared to improve the everyday lives of the people of Scotland to a level that matches its COP26 summit rhetoric? Is it prepared to speak through its actions, not just with its words? Or, with the banners now folded and the flags taken down and the sounds of protest that filled the streets of Glasgow now fading, is the Scottish Government going to make the climate catastrophe not better but worse? We were told at the weekend by the cabinet secretary for finance that tomorrow's budget will be, I quote, a stepping stone towards a fairer greener Scotland. And she did not just leave it there. She went on, that is our social, economic and environmental imperative. So the question this Parliament is asking of the Government this evening is this. Where is that imperative when the transport minister is happy to slash Scotland's rail services across the board by 10 per cent? Where is that imperative when the plan double-tracking on the line between Busby and East Kilbride, which is at the centre of Transport Scotland's decarbonisation action plan, is facing cancellation? Where is that imperative at the very point when we need ambition? We are given managed mediocrity at the very point when we need vision, long-term thinking and investment in public transport, the people are offered short-sighted cuts and government indifference. I read with interest the transport minister's recent interview in the Holyrood magazine and I say to him that he cannot tell us that he has seen the light about rail transport in Scotland and then close his eyes to it in South Lanarkshire. He cannot tell us one week, and I quote him, we should be very clear, rail is devolved. It is for us to decide what Scotland's railways will do and tell us the next that it is somehow out of his hands. So I say to him, we need the same toughness to resist these cuts and boldly invest in the railway as we see in the fight over where decision making power lies in the railway. This is about how we organise the future but it is also about what future it is we want to organise. Earlier this week I read an open letter to MSPs from Kevin Lindsay of the train drivers union Aslef. In it he called for action in tomorrow's budget to reduce passenger fare, to invest in freight and to reject the proposed cuts to services and he is right. In recent weeks we have seen a report supported by all four rail unions, the RMT, the TSSA, UNITE and Aslef, in which they argue for the expansion of Scotland's railways, not their contraction, in which they call for the transport minister to reject the dockety proposals and the abelio plans to act 300 trains a day. So their clear demand and my unflinching message to the minister and to the Government tonight, and I include the Scottish Green Party members of it too, is this, reinstate the dualling of the e-skill bride line, drop the plans to act ticket offices, ditch the proposals to cut jobs and to undermine workers' terms and conditions and once and for all do the right thing and reverse the cuts, these cuts, your cuts to Scotland's railways. It was remiss of me not to mention earlier, not to refer members to marriage service interests earlier on, specifically that I received a financial donation earlier this year from a rail union, the RMT. That is now on the record and could I now call on Minister Graham Day to respond to the debate? Excuse me, I haven't finished yet. Thank you, Minister, up to seven minutes. I genuinely welcome the opportunity to respond to the member's debate on the e-skill bride rail project, not least of all because it provides an opportunity to clear up one or two misunderstandings. Like thousands of rail passengers along the e-skill bride to Glasgow rail corridor, I'm sure that the Parliament welcomes. We've heard from members welcoming the commitment to the full electrification of the e-skill bride line. I hope that clears up the question that Graham Simpson asked earlier about full electrification. This is an exciting project that will not only further our ambitious decarbonisation plans for Scotland's railways by 2035, but it will deliver for rail passengers from e-skill bride and its surrounding communities a sustainable travel option using cleaner greener trains, which will meet anticipated future demand well into the foreseeable future. We all recognise the need for wider decisive action to make the future challenges of the climate emergency. The substantial overall investment, which will rise to at least £120 million that we've announced in the e-skill bride line, will not only deliver electrified services, but also significantly enhance station and interchange options for the travelling public. Those will make rail services more attractive and accessible, and they will encourage a step-changing moral shift from the pleting car to a fully decarbonised rail corridor. Let me address the issue of duelling. Yes, that was talked about, but it was never a specific requirement for the route. What was required for this was to deliver a project that would meet peak passenger capacity into the foreseeable future in a decarbonised way. Duelling was certainly an option that was considered as part of the business case development process. The cost was prohibitive and simply didn't offer value for money or represent the best use of scarce public finance resources. When it is possible to meet projected demand by the approach that is being taken, I want to be clear about something here, because there is a bit of a myth out there that Network Rail had a proposal that was vetoed by Transport Scotland. The proposal that came to Transport Scotland for approval was a joint proposal from Network Rail and ScotRail based on the evidence that it had before them. I give way to the member. Jackson Carlaw. It's a simple question, and I don't know what the minister can answer. Can he define what he means by the foreseeable future? Minister. I want to come on to that, if I may, about the modelling that's done. Of course we know that passenger usage has shrunk during the pandemic. We know that that will return to some extent, maybe to a greater extent, and what's going to be delivered in this line will encourage further usage. The modelling takes account of growth. That was the whole point of this. The plans that we've announced together with the significant benefits that will be delivered will cost less than it would have done with dueing. It will deliver value for money, it will deliver for passengers and it will deliver for the environment. I respect Richard Leonard's demands for all sorts of investment in rail, but if he's going to call for more services, more stations, investment in infrastructure, reduce fares, he has a duty to say where that money would come from. It's so typical, I'm afraid, of the Labour Party to do that in this chamber, or to not do that in this chamber. Thank you, the minister, for taking the intervention. I'm listening very carefully to what he's saying. Does he not accept that the duelling of the East Kilbride line was not just an idea, it was a promise, it was a promise that was made by Michael Matheson, and if you don't do it, how do you get the resilience that we don't have right now where trains sometimes stop at Busby? How are you going to get more trains if you do not dual the line? How can that be achieved? I'll come on to that in a moment, but I want to explain the process here that's undertaken, and it's being undertaken across Scotland's railways just now. We have identified projects in order that are going to be part of the decarbonisation agenda. There is groundwork carried out, that's currently being carried out in the Dunwayne to Aberdeen stretch at the moment. That gives us a better understanding of what lies underneath our railways and to the sides of the railways. When you have an elderly rail network as we do in Scotland, there is no record of what it was built upon. For example, on the Borders rail, there were far more mine workings discovered as the project unfolded. That's inevitably going to lead to an outcome in terms of the nature of the delivery that's perhaps odds with what was anticipated, but we still have to ensure that we deliver the outcome in terms of the passenger capacity that everybody is looking for, and that's what we're setting out to do. Right now, the peak-time demand on the East Kilbride route remains lower than the Scotwell national average. It sits at 34 per cent at pre-pandemic levels. Of course, passengers are going to return, but that's what we want. That's what we want to encourage. The joint industry passenger modelling for this route and the analysis of changing travel and patterns across Scotland give us the confidence that the capacity that will be provided on cleaner, greener trains that we expect to roll into service for late 2024 will be more than sufficient to meet both current and forecast peak demand, because, for one thing, the carriages on the electric trains are significantly bigger than are available on the current rolling stock. Of course, to address Graham Simpson's point about how to address some of the resilience issues, as Mr Simpson knows from our previous conversations, what is being worked through at the moment, in addition to the single tracking, is potential enhancements around signals, which is one of the issues around Busby, and further track infrastructure in the form of loops, which will allow us to address the very points that he rightly makes. That development works currently on-going, and Anticipate Network Rail will be reporting back before the next stage of the business case process early next year. Given the genuine interest and concern that is expressed tonight, I am happy to commit tonight to arranging a briefing for all interested MSPs at that point, which will have an opportunity to interrogate the detail of what will be in the final proposal in terms of the overall package. Our significant investment in this critical route demonstrates a continuing commitment to decarbonisation of Scotland's railway. East Kilbride is only a part of the proposals. We are already targeting barhead, the border railways are coming up, the Fife circle is next on the agenda, the Levenmouth rail development is being done with electrification in place for that connection. As I said earlier, as we speak, the teams are out on the rail link from Dunblane right up to Aberdeen doing that groundwork assessment, and I am pleased to say that the last report I had was that it had not identified any issues. It takes time to plan these major infrastructure projects, and it is important that we do that preparatory work, so that when we go in to do the work on the ground, we do not anticipate any problems. I will pick up a point that was asked about earlier. In addition to the cost associated that we knew about with dueing, there is a risk assessment done because of the nature of the work that has to be carried out. There is a stretch on that line that would involve about roughly 14 metres of earth and various other things to be removed. You take that out, you have to dispose of it, but it is then what you find at that point. The risk assessment provided a degree of concern, but I go back to the point that I made earlier, which of course is about the outcome here. It is to deliver the capacity on a clean green line, and that is what we intend to deliver. As I said earlier, more than happy to invite all interested MSPs to a briefing earlier in the new year to allow them the opportunity to ask any questions that they have and interrogate what the final proposals will be. Thank you minister. That concludes the debate, and I close this meeting.