 y wneud y bydd y dal yn y cwmifio. Y cymdeithas cyfnod yn y cyfnod yn F1-15904 yn y cyfnod am FDM. Mae'r cwmwysig i'w cyfrifio ar y cyfnod ar gyfer y mae'r ystyried. Mae'r cwmysig i'w cyfnod yn y cyfnod y byd, allwch chi ychydig i'w cwmysig i'w cyfnod sydd. Mae'r cwmysig i'w cyfnod yn y cyfnod yn y cyfnod yn y cyfnod o'r haf fyddai'r llefogiadau o'r ffordd cynau sorgioneddau massive iawn. Phallosaeddenau y gall, phallosaeddeunad, l opportunities nsiwr, yn ei arlenleurau abb увgei ag군iaidd, hon ac..]wch. Fyddwn y gynhygrif mwynydd sydd o'r lefelau o'r Llyfrideg Bwyrfa通 gyffredinog i ond 3 December last clearly caused widespread disruption and frustration for the travelling public and had a significant impact on many businesses during one of the busiest periods of the year. The ICI committee therefore referred that it was essential that it examined the circumstances that led to the closure of this key artery in Scotland's transport infrastructure and considered whether it could reasonably have been foreseen. The committee's inquiry benefited greatly from the expertise and experience of our witnesses and our technical adviser, Alan Simpson. I would like to take this opportunity to record the committee's thanks to them and to those who submitted written evidence for their input. Before I outline the key issues addressed by the committee in its inquiry report, I would like to say that I am aware of comments by some members following the publication of the report suggesting that it was somehow incomplete as it did not address the impact the bridge closure had on businesses, particularly the haulage industry. This suggests a failure to recognise the very focused nature of the inquiry, which the committee agreed should focus only on issues related to the structural defects that lead to the closure of the fourth road bridge and its repair. However, the committee is very conscious that issues such as the design and operation of alternative travel routes following the closure and its economic impact may justify further detailed scrutiny. Therefore, it intends to include a recommendation in its legacy report that its successor committees should consider while their further work on such matters should be carried out early in the new session. Turning to the report, one issue that was explored by the committee was the timeline of decision making leading to the closure of the bridge on 3 December. It emerged that there was a time delay of five hours between the recommendation at 4 pm by Amy that the fourth road bridge should be closed and the decision to close it, which was taken at 9 pm at a meeting with ministers. The committee recognises that the delay on 3 December did not present any immediate danger to bridge users. However, it is of the view that it should be possible for an emergency closure that is considered necessary by senior engineers to be implemented by them without delay, without a requirement. Can I confirm for accuracy that it is the case that Amy, the operating company, can at any point for an emergency close the bridge at a moment's notice without recourse to Transport Scotland or ministers if that is required? Thank you very much for the helpful intervention minister. Could I then move on to, as part of its inquiry, the committee was keen to establish whether the defect that led to the closure, a crack in part of the bridge mechanism known as the trust end link, which was subsequently found to be caused by a seized pin, could have been identified earlier and the closure somehow prevented. We were advised that, despite 23 inspections since 2001 of the area of the bridge where the defect occurred, and most recently in May 2015, no defect had been identified by engineers from the 4th Estuary Transport Authority, FETA, which was responsible for the maintenance and operation of the bridge up until June 2015. The committee was advised that one key difficulty in finding this particular problem during an inspection was that the pin, which was ultimately found to have seized and led to the defect, would not have been visible, so there was no way of determining whether it was rotating properly. The former bridge master made clear to the committee that even with the robust inspection regime that FETA had in place at the time, FETA engineers did not foresee the issue with the pin sticking. All of the independent expert witnesses who appeared before the committee believed that everything reasonable had been done to inspect the trust end links and the pins at the 4th Road Bridge, but that the failure had been unforeseen and unforeseeable. The committee agrees with that view. The committee heard how, following the identification of the defect and the closure of the bridge, temporary and permanent repair solutions were designed and implemented. The efforts that were made to deliver those engineering solutions, leading to the reopening of the bridge to the majority of traffic on 23 December, were considerable. However, the bridge could not be opened to HGVs at that point, as further seized pins were identified, which necessitated a wider programme of repairs. The bridge was finally reopened to all traffic on 21 February this year. The committee notes that the estimated cost of the full phase 1 to phase 3 programme of repairs is in the region of £19.7 million. Those costs are not insignificant, although it is clearly necessary to ensure that the structural integrity of the 4th Road bridge is maintained going forward. The committee welcomes the fact that structural health monitoring equipment has now been installed on the 4th Road bridge and notes that this will, in future, assist engineers in identifying stresses on bridge components. Now, a great deal of the discussion during the committee's inquiry centred on proposals to replace the trust end links contained in FETTA's indicative capital plan, agreed in February 2010. The level of capital funding available to FETTA was also discussed extensively, principally in the context of the impact that this may have had on its indicative capital plan proposals. The indicative capital plan included proposals for carrying out work on the trust end links, which had been developed following a report received by FETTA in March 2008 from fairhurst engineering consultants, which showed that the welds connecting the bracket at the top of the trust end links to the main towers were overstressed. The committee noted that the report contained no indication that either the links or the pins were found to be overstressed at this stage. The estimated cost of those proposed works was put at somewhere between £10 million and £15 million, although it was noted that they had not at that stage been fully developed or designed. The committee is aware that FETTA announced a tender exercise in May 2010 to identify consultants to provide advice on how the proposed work and how the trust end links might be developed. That was withdrawn in March 2011. It is not clear to the committee exactly why the tender exercise was cancelled in early 2011, although it notes that both former FETTA and Transport Scotland officials have indicated that it was due to affordability issues. There is also at least a suggestion that may have coincided with FETTA beginning to explore alternative solutions to the replacement of the trust end links. What was also not clear was whether the work on the trust end links, as originally proposed by FETTA, had it been carried out, might have avoided the fourth road bridge closure in December 2015. Several witnesses told the committee that there was uncertainty over whether that proposal would have proceeded given that consultants, if appointed, might well have proposed an entirely different approach. However, what did clearly emerge was that, following a challenging spending review in 2011, the capital grant allocation made to FETTA by Transport Scotland was not sufficient to allow it to deliver all the non-committed capital works proposed in its indicative capital plan. As a result, FETTA decided to carry out a risk-based reprioritisation of its indicative capital plan proposals. That resulted in the replacement of the trust end links coming fifth in the ranking against other priority projects. Engineers assessed that the failure of the trust end links would not jeopardise either the safety of bridge users or the long-term integrity of the bridge, and the project was therefore recategorised accordingly. On that basis, the FETTA board agreed a recommendation that the trust end link project should be deferred. From the evidence that it received, it is the committee's view that the development of the fourth replacement crossing would also have had an influence on FETTA's decisions to reprioritise certain capital projects. In the light of that, the committee, with the exception of one member, considers that the decision by FETTA to defer the proposed work on the trust end links and to subsequently develop an alternative approach was an appropriate course of action on the basis of the financial circumstances that were faced by the authority at the time, coupled with the engineering advice suggesting that the project could be deferred. The committee, with the same exception, is also content with the suggestion that it made in evidence that had any of the non-committed capital projects been deemed to be of sufficient priority, FETTA could have made an approach to transport Scotland to request additional capital funding. Relevant precedence had been set. In its report, the committee makes it clear its view that FETTA acted entirely professionally and responsibly in managing the maintenance of the fourth road bridge. The authority's robust maintenance inspection regimes had identified that work was required to the trust end link mechanisms. It had developed proposals to take this forward, which were reconfigured following the capital plan reprioritisation in 2011 as an alternative strengthening project. Those alternative proposals were subsequently transferred to Transport Scotland in AMAY and ultimately taken forward in May 2015. Finally, the committee wishes to commend all Transport Scotland, AMAY and engineering consultant staff who were involved in responding to and resolving the defect, often in extremely challenging working conditions. It echoes the view of one of its expert witnesses who referred to it as a remarkable engineering achievement. I look forward to hearing contributions from the other members during the debate, and I commend the ITI committee's report to the Parliament. Thank you, Mr Ingram. I thank you for your service to the Parliament as an MSP, as a committee member and as a minister over the past 17 years. You will be missed. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I concur on behalf of the Government and your praise of Adam Ingram for his remarkable work as a member of the Scottish Parliament, as a minister and as a constituency member. I remember very closely that Adam Ingram's work is doing some of the work, particularly around children and young people, which was substantial. At the time, I was leader of a council. I know that many of the interventions that Adam made were very important and significant to the life chances of the young people in that area. I agree that Adam Ingram leaving the Scottish Parliament will be a loss to the Parliament. I thank the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee for its work on that very important issue. All those who have provided expert evidence to allow the committee to produce an informative and balanced report into the closure of the Forth Road bridge in December 2015. At the outset, I also wish to echo the committee's view that the response by all staff at the bridge to the closure in midwinter, let's not forget, was nothing short of remarkable. I am sure that I am speaking for all members in saying that. To begin, I would like to take this opportunity to comment on some of the key points raised in the committee's report and to provide the Parliament with further reflections upon the information supplied to the committee. Holy Legitimate concerns exist about whether such a defect could have been spotted sooner and, if so, could have been repaired. There were no warnings of a defect at this part of the structure. Between 2001 and May 2015, FETA carried out 23 separate inspections of the trust end links. The unique nature of those structures means that the identification of common defects is disseminated quickly across the globe among bridge experts. On those occasions when defects appear, as the experts confirmed to the committee, they are typically accompanied either by wear and tear due to stresses that gradually become visible or by noise that reverberates through the structure or indeed both. With no evidence emerging from the biannual inspections, no indication of sudden failures from elsewhere in the world and none of the typical indicators present, clearly no defect revealed itself to FETA's engineering staff or later later AMEs until December 2015. I agree with the committee's conclusion that the defect was wholly unforeseen and the expert opinion that it was not possible to have foreseen the particular failure. Quite rightly, the committee has focused its attention on the particular defect that led to the bridge closure. It is also critically important, however, for the Parliament to understand why FETA invested significant time, money and effort, not on the trust end links but on other major maintenance and investigations in the period before and after the comprehensive spending review 2011. FETA identified certain key tasks as necessitating action that stemmed from its own risk hierarchy, years of accumulated professional experience, an intimate and detailed understanding of the bridge and its own enhanced bespoke inspection regime. The original proposal to replace the trust end link was not at the top of FETA's priorities, in fact it was only fifth in that list. The FETA board, its experienced professional management and engineering advisers all agreed on those priorities. That included the main cable dehumidification and acoustic monitoring and the £3.2 million on anchorage investigations, as well as the £2 million on replacing cable-band boats. It is in that context that FETA decided not to proceed with a consultancy that might have an earth at potential defect, which might have led to actual works in a part of the end of the trust end links that never actually failed. Remember that it was the other end of the trust end link that was being looked at. Would FETA have acted differently if more funding had been available in how they progressed the trust end links scheme? From the evidence that I have seen and heard, I do not believe that they would. FETA had other higher priorities and the later engineering reports revealed no other stresses or concerns with the trust end link member itself. Is the Scottish Government's response to strengthen the… Dennis Robertson. I thank the minister for taking a brief intervention. When you are talking about priorities, Minister, is the top priority safety of the users of the bridge at all times? Of course it is. Safety is of paramount importance, so that means the number one priority. Before, during and after in all of those works and in all other interventions. Even in difficult budget periods, it has been made perfectly clear to FETA at the time that financial decisions should have been undertaken with the view of always protecting the structural integrity of the bridge, but of course safety is paramount. A wider decision that the Scottish Government had taken to strengthen the strategic links over the 4th of 4th was, of course, the construction of a completely new crossing, the Queensferry crossing. The unpredictable event on the fourth road bridge occurred in early December, necessitating the closure of the bridge. Some may conclude from the closure that a wholly different approach to risk management is required, one that somehow expects the unexpected and the unpredictable. That is not my conclusion. We must continue to apply a robust methodology to identify the greatest risks to removing or mitigating those risks, subject to adapting to circumstances and to emerging evidence and to balancing funding requirements, making the case for increased investment where the evidence supports that case. The decision to build in structural health monitoring as part of the new Queensferry crossing, a first for a UK bridge, is an example of the efforts that will safeguard that essential crossing for the future. The committee has highlighted the crucial issue of Scottish ministers' grant-thin funding of the bridge, including contrasting that with income from tolls. Prior to their abolition on the fourth road bridge, tolls generated income of around £10 million per annum. Since 2007, Scottish ministers invested £107.8 million at the fourth road bridge, or approximately around £1112 million per annum. Feta invested additional sums from its own reserves, reserves that reached as high as £7 million in 2011-12. In part, that was due to the Scottish Government providing maximum flexibility to Feta prior to and after an extremely tight spending round. While it is true that, inevitably, the funding mechanism for Feta changed following the abolition of tolls, what did not change was that Scottish ministers continued to fund fully all-essential and safety-critical schemes, as well as other works at the fourth road bridge. Feta prepared an indicative capital programme of its future works needs in isolation from the spending review process or consideration of the impacts of UK budget cuts and what budgets may be available. However, as Feta representatives explained to the committee, because of the good professional relationships that existed, budgets were agreed, capital programme was refazed and reshaped, critical and non-critical works progressed and where exceptional demands arose, those were funded too. In terms of requests, I have made it clear through evidence that any further work requests would have been considered by Transport Scotland. In terms of the works that were carried through, the final editor of report of the Truss End Link study to Feta by its engineering advisers noted that the Truss End links were crucially not overstressed. The tower brackets and the welds, not the Truss End links, were the focus of the report. Feta, not ministers, chose not to progress a design development consultancy contract costing between £150,000 to £500,000, a design contract that was well within Feta's budget. No evidence exists to suggest that the decision was incorrect. As I explained earlier, the defect was unforeseen and subsequently Feta proceeded to develop a scheme that was proportionate to the problem that it aimed to solve in work commenced in May 2015. We have undertaken a complete additional inspection of the bridge and found no significant issues. We have installed more monitoring equipment and it is providing good real-quality information to us on the performance of the bridge. There are further additional visual inspections being carried out to provide extra insurance. The defect was not foreseen nor foreseeable. Feta was an independent organisation that maintained and managed the bridge and was independent of the Scottish Government. There is no evidence to suggest that Fota ought to have acted differently, despite a tough spending review, if emergencies arose, Transport Scotland could have intervened to support it fast. The Scottish Minister's decision to close the bridge was the correct one. I believe that there was an excellent response to the closure and we have taken all reasonable precautions to prevent another closure. I would also like to thank Jamidie and the committee for producing this report. It was very important that the committee looked at that, given the massive scale of disruption and the massive problems that were caused—certainly macking stack insin across Fife, but across the whole east of Scotland and the costs that had to be borne personally by people, as well as businesses, and no doubt to the wider economy. I welcome the report. Adam Ingram and the minister, Derek Mackay, have been at pains to stress that no warnings of a defect were there. I do not disagree with that. I think that this report will be important and people will read this report and will be able to draw conclusions from themselves of what exactly happened in the history of the maintenance of the bridge. I would like to draw attention to a couple of points. First, I would like to, in the conclusion, agree with the committee that I should congratulate and thank all those who worked so hard to get the bridge opened again, given the devastating impact that was happening. I would also like to include those who the minister and Adam Ingram have talked about, but I would also like to include the police, who had to work very hard, and the local authorities and the local authority staff. I know that the Fife side, particularly the transportation staff within Fife Council, did an amazing job given the circumstances. The culture of the matter for me is this question of whether, in 2010, Feta at that point, we are going to go ahead and replace the trust end links. In the report itself, there is a significant point that is drawn out by Transport Scotland, where the officer draws the difference in approach between Feta and himself. He says that, when talking about Feta's approach, here is everything that we want, whereas Transport Scotland built up from the bottom. We highlight the minimum funding requirement for maintenance to ensure the safe operation of the asset and for the works that are required to maintain the structural integrity of the bridge. We then consider the risk of not doing the work. If you then look at where the former bridgemaster, Barry Coford, gave evidence to the committee, he was asked if the works had gone ahead and the trust end links would have resulted in the bridge not being closed. What he says is that, as an engineer, I do not want to answer hypothetical questions. All I can say is that, at the point that we intended to replace the trust end links, the capital programme included what we considered needed to be done on the fourth road bridge. It was not a wish list and what we wanted to do included what we considered needed to be done. Obviously, finance then came into that. It is clear at that point in time that Feta and the engineers considered that the trust end links should be replaced and that was their intention up until the point where their budgets were cut. Now, whether that had all happened, would the bridge still have run into these problems? I suspect that it would not. However, it is up to people to draw the conclusions themselves from reading the report. The bottom line for me is that, as this works was planned, had the work went ahead, the trust end links would have been replaced. That is where the problem was caused from. Had that happened, the likelihood of closure and all the subsequent costs that came from that could have been avoided. However, that is at the end of the day for a conclusion that people can read themselves. It is good that we have the report to do that. I thank Mr Rowley for allowing me to come in and say this. While we can say what ifs and what might have beens, the fact of the matter is that the trust end link and the scoping of that project have not been done. There is absolutely no guarantee that the replacement of the trust end links would have been completed before this fault emerged on the bridge. I accept what ifs. What I am saying to you is that the conclusion that I draw for this is that FETA intended to have that work done as a result of cuts in budget. It did not. The bridge master went on to say that FETA had the governance of the bridge, but the funding came from a third party. We had to deal with that, but the capital programme included what we felt needed to be carried out. On the expertise of the engineers at that point in 2010, they believed that the trust end links needed to be addressed. I am sure that the member is also aware that I have not read the report on understanding the indicative capital programme that paint jobs, landscaping and vehicle replacement were also in the capital programme. I am not sure that Alec Rowley would agree that those were the top priorities. Rather than supposition or raising questions as if we do not know the answer, how about I ask Mr Rowley to look at the board paper that says why it did not take a scheme forward. On the board papers from FETA on 16 December 2011, it says that, given the cost and difficulty in replacing those elements and the potential disruption to bridge users, further examination of the probability of certain combinations of load occurring and further structural analysis has been carried out, as a result of that work, there is now the potential to upgrade the existing links rather than carry out a full replacement. Will the member maybe stick to the facts rather than empty rhetoric and political supposition? At the end of the day, the report is there. The report speaks for itself, the evidence speaks for itself and I will allow people to draw their own conclusions. If I can, just briefly, given the time that the minister took there, there is another important point that I want to come to in terms of the report itself. I am delighted that the committee has made the recommendation in its legacy report or will make it, that we need to consider further work on the issues in terms of the impact on businesses in particular. I wrote to the minister and highlighted a whole different type of emails that came in contact. I have had the companies in five and I am afraid to say that the minister never really gave any real recognition to the major financial difficulties that companies actually faced. There was a degree of ignoring the facts when it comes to how businesses in five have been impacted by that. I would hope that the minister would think again and look at the massive costs that has been incurred by businesses across five. I would hope that he would consider the massive impact that that closure had on businesses on jobs in five. I hope that the committee that precedes this committee will pick this issue up and continue to run with that. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. There are many concepts for which there is no word or phrase in the English language. We usually overcome that by borrowing from the French. There is one concept from which we cannot borrow from the French and we have to borrow from the Germans, and that is Chardon Freud. To define that, I will do it my own way, that is what happens when an opposition spokesman takes great pleasure in watching the minister's shadow squirm under pressure. That is exactly what was happening during the first days of the fourth road bridge closure. When the committee decided that it was going to progress an inquiry, it was my ambition to find the smoking gun and blame the minister for the failings. The fact is that the inquiry produced no evidence that that smoking gun existed. It was a much more interesting inquiry than that, a much more educational process, and there are a number of things that really need to be gone through. The fact is that this was a massively disruptive closure, and it happened at a time of year when it was most disruptive to people who lived in the Fife area and quite often worked in Edinburgh. The long alternative routes were an economic imposition, and although I am told that shops in Dunfermlyn and Kirkcaldy had probably their best Christmas or run-up to Christmas in many a long year, most of the impact of this closure was economically negative. The first thing that we have to look at is what happened and whether that could have been foreseen. The trust end links were identified as something that had to be worked on, but it was made clear by engineers giving evidence that the concerns that they had related to the opposite end of the same steel beam. I took the opportunity to question a number of engineers at great length, putting forward the suggestion that if they had gone ahead with this work, the result may have been that they discovered the problem at the other end of the link. I could not get an engineer to agree with that concept. I believe that had the work being done on the top ends of these links, they may have discovered the problem, but there was no evidence to suggest that that could have happened. In fact, it became fairly obvious that the problem that existed at the bottom end of the links—the pins that were seized—had not been foreseen or experienced in any similar circumstance. In fact, the news that the bridge had been closed for this particular reason had a big impact on the economy locally, but it sent engineers around the world scurrying across suspension bridges, looking at the equivalent point in their constructions to see if that problem existed with their bridge. The evidence was that that had not been experienced in any similar bridge anywhere else, although we did hear that, in the Humber bridge, the similar component had experienced excessive wear, but that was exactly the opposite problem from the one that caused that problem on the fourth bridge. We heard during the inquiry about the inspection regime and how those components were inspected regularly, and we heard about the decision-making process about how the bridge closure was decided. There was perhaps a concern as to the fact that it required apparently a cabinet meeting to go ahead with the full closure, but I think that the minister has addressed that in his opening remarks, although I think that it is something that we should take cognisance of going forward. One of the big concerns is that the way that capital funding was decided in the process or in the time leading through this issue. In the days when tolls were charged for the bridge, the bridge had its own income. As the minister pointed out, the spend on the bridge has exceeded the expected toll revenue in the time since the tolls were abolished. However, what he does not recognise or did not recognise in his opening remarks was that that toll income gave the bridge managers the capacity to borrow against that toll income in the longer term. The abolition of the tolls did have an effect on funding, but the one area that concerns me most—I have still got questions that I do not believe whatever adequately answered—is the relationship between FETA and the Scottish Government at the time when the decisions were being taken about prioritising work on the bridge. I believe that both sides believe that they were doing the right thing, but I am not convinced that both sides were actually thinking the same way. I think that the evidence that we got from FETA was that they believed that they were operating under a set of circumstances where funding was limited, while at the same time the Scottish Government believed that it was in a position to fund any work that was necessary. I do not believe that those two views match up 100 per cent. I think that there was some degree of confusion in that relationship. To further reassure the member, as the cable bolts issue knots of some reassurance in 2012, money was requested to address that emerging concern and was given by Transport Scotland, the evidence that the system worked. I believe that the minister is convinced that that is how the system works, and I am quite sure that it is. The problem is that I think that there was a mismatch of expectations on both sides of that relationship. In closing, that was a non-foreseen problem, and it was one that we will have to deal with going forward. There are many people who lost money as a result of that, not least the transport industry, who had their heavy goods vehicles taking long routes to bypass the bridge right through into February. I believe that those issues need to be addressed, but finally, in the future, we will have two bridges and we may have unforeseen problems. It concerns me that the design of the road network that is currently being changed to suit the new bridge may leave us in a position where, if anything went wrong and we had to divert traffic back on to the old bridge to avoid the kind of problems that we have experienced, the road network may not be up to that job. Perhaps the minister considered the layout of roads so that they could divert the traffic between bridges if that kind of problem happened in the future. Thank you so much. I now move to the open debate. I call on Mike McKenzie to be followed by Cara Hylton. I have a confession to make. I expected that the ICI committee's investigation into the fourth bridge closure to be dull as ditch water. I expected us to plod through tiresome technicalities in meaningless minutes. Instead, I found it riveting. My attention has been welded to the wonders of our wonderful bridges. I have become a bridge nerd. I could no longer look at or cross a bridge without pondering the mysteries of its construction. I have discovered that bridge building is neither science nor engineering, but it is in fact a form of art. I want therefore to pay a tribute to all those who were engaged in the very quick and successful repairs to the fourth road bridge, as well as to those involved in the construction of the Queensferry crossing. Those bridges are marvels of construction. They are not just fabrications of concrete and steel, but they are living sculptures with the sublime utility of connecting people and places. Nor are they fixed in sterile edifices, but dynamic systems elegantly swaying under the loads they bear hosts to a whole community of engineers and technicians caring for them and keeping them pliable and supple. I want to pay a tribute to Tarr Clarks and to our technical adviser, who cleverly and carefully guided us through what might have been a complex and confusing maze. Of course, when the decision was taken to quickly close the bridge in December after discovering the crack in the trust end link, the Labour party sensed an electoral opportunity. With all the desperation of a drowning man, there would have been only two delighted to point the finger of blame, especially if that finger could be pointed at the Scottish Government. The committee indulged them, only in so far as we looked for the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Our inquiry, although short and focused, was exhaustive. We looked at every aspect of the bridge. We poured over its plans, we heard about its history, we talked to engineers and experts, board members and bridge masters, we examined the dating, the trusses and the trust end links. We found out a lot about the bridge. We found that the Scottish Government had been unstinting when urgent repairs were called for. It got its checkbook out to pay £3.2 million for anchorage investigations. It got its checkbook out to pay £2 million for cable-bound bolts. It did not get its check out for the truss end links because nobody ever asked. The truss end links were never identified as an urgent priority. The truss end links were never identified as an urgent risk. As the committee report says, the defect that led to the closure of the bridge was unforeseen and unforeseeable. The fact is that it is worth repeating that the truss end links were never identified as an urgent risk. There were at number 5 an fetus list of priorities in its indicative capital plan, with the emphasis on indicative. When the links were looked at by consultants, they identified the bracket welds as the weak point. Even that was not deemed to be an urgent priority. A pilot was instigated to replace those welds, and that was only carried out a few months ago after Amy took over responsibility from FETTA. No one knew that the truss end link pins had seized. They cannot be seen and they cannot be inspected. Truss end links are common in bridges across the world. Never before in any of those bridges across the whole wide world have truss end link pins seized. The committee found that there was no fault and there is no blame. Labour's electoral hopes may have flowed under the bridge and out to sea, but there was no fault on the part of FETTA, or on the part of any of those who look after and operate the bridge, or indeed on the part of the Scottish Government. On the contrary, bridge builders and operators across the world are full of praise at the speed and the technical ability of those who put right the defect in record time. In conclusion, our inquiry fully vindicated the Scottish Government's decision to build the new fourth road bridge replacement crossing. The fourth road bridge is one of the most important transport links in Scotland, and it is crucial to the economy of Fife. More than 70,000 vehicles cross the bridge every single day, and that makes up about £24 million each year. The bridge closure in December had a huge impact on the communities that I represent in Dunfermline, Concardin and West Fife. It impacted on commuters who faced the choice of doubling their journey time by travelling by bus, squeezing onto a train with little prospects of getting parked anywhere nearby or driving the long way round via the Clackmannanshire bridge, doubling or often trebling journey times. It impacted on businesses who experienced significant losses, with some such as the wall garden near Concardin cut off entirely from their customers and virtually all affected detrimentally by the closure, not just of the bridge but by the restrictions on the A9852, paying the price and lost working hours, late deliveries and higher fuel bills. It impacted on workers, some who contacted me to say that hours had been cut back, some who had been laid off entirely, many more who faced a huge unanticipated increase in travel costs, many shift workers unable to get to their workplace at all due to no public transport being available during the night. Others were forced to leave for work at ridiculous hours in the morning, with many more hours a day added to their daily commute, bumping up the childcare costs too. It impacted on residents in villages like Curris, which became a traffic nightmare as roads became jam-packed with vehicles using the village to bypass the A985. Children were left unable to cross the road to get to school due to the continuous flow of traffic. One of my constituents couldn't even leave his house due to large vans passing within inches of his front door in a historic village simply not designed for this type of traffic. Many frustrated too at the constant changing of permitted routes with no notice, causing mayhem on local roads and adding frustration for local communities. I think that all of that highlights the need to develop contingency plans for the future that involve local communities and which use their local knowledge and communication networks to ensure that the traffic plans that are put in place actually work and minimise disruption for local residents. Would Kara Hilton, the member concerned, be found helpful to find more about the travel plans that we put in place if the member had attended any of the briefing sessions that I organised for all parliamentarians? Unfortunately, I was not able to attend the briefing session that Derek Mackay mentioned, because it was out meeting with some of the businesses that have been affected by the closures on that day that the briefing session was offered. In the other event, I was having surgeries with constituents speaking to them about the chaos that the fourth bridge closure had caused. Many five businesses are still paying the price of the closure, and the extra traffic in my constituency has left the roads concerned in a poor state. Riddled with cracks and potholes galore. Five councils are already faced with huge cuts, thanks to the decisions of Tory and SNP ministers. They have now faced a huge bill simply for playing their part and keeping Scotland moving last December. I would ask the minister to come out and look at the state of the roads in Concardin, Coorace, Toryburn, Oakley and along the A985 to see the damage first hand. Indeed, to look at the Concardin bridge itself, which the local community in Concardin tells me is in dire need of structural improvements, too. I hope that the Scottish Government will be willing to act to support five council and five communities in funding the repairs that are urgently needed. Moving on to the inquiry itself, I am disappointed and concerned that much of the evidence that was received is not adequately reflected in the report. The fact remains that the chaos that is faced by commuters, residents and businesses in five could likely have been avoided if the SNP Government had chosen to invest not to cut. I have no doubt that the decision by FETA to reprioritise projects within its capital plan, including the work to replace the trust-end links, was a direct consequence of the decision by the Scottish Government to reduce its funds by a stagger in 58 per cent. Indeed, both Transport Scotland and former FETA officials advised the committee that the withdrawal of the tender exercise for the trust-end links replacement was due to affordability issues. FETA Minutes warned that the deferral would increase the risk to the long-term structural integrity of the bridge. We know, too, that the former bridgemaster advised that a restriction on abnormal vehicles crossing the bridge was needed until all the trust-end links were either strengthened or replaced. It is fair to say that the bridge closer could not have been anticipated. The fact that the FETA board unanimously decided in 2010 that the whole trust-end links should be replaced and indeed allocated £15 million towards this suggests to me that had these cuts not gone ahead, as Alex Rowley has said, there is a good chance that we could have avoided last December's chaos. I am disappointed that the report does not look at the wider economic and transport impact of the closure on Fife and, indeed, of the continued ban on HDVs until mid-Febru. I am disappointed, too, that there has been no compensation for the losses that have been incurred by the businesses and by hauliers who are out of pocket through no fault of their own. I note Adam Ingram's comments that the legacy report will ask the incoming committee to look at the issue, but that is no consolation to my constituents who are struggling to rebuild their businesses right now. There are many lessons, too, which must be learned from this sorry saga. In particular, the case is stronger than ever for a complete review of the transport infrastructure in West Fife to ensure that we are not totally reliant on driving across the forth to get things moving. At the end of the month, Longanna will close. I am glad that the minister will ask, because it is going to be a devastating blow to the local community. It is vital that plans are brought forward to link Cardin into the passenger rail network as quickly as possible. On the opposite side of my constituency, Hal Beath, again, plans must be brought forward to upgrade the park and ride to include a train hall, too. Downfirmans have rapidly expanded area and the closure of the bridge has only exacerbated what is already becoming an unsustainable situation for the West Fife commuters that I represent. It is time for public transport operators to stop competing and to start working together in the interests of people, not profit, and to start creating a transport system that truly works for commuters and works for Scotland. I am running out of time. I am disappointed at the report. This will disappoint businesses and commuters in my constituency who suffer not only significant disruption but also loss of income, loss of business and face spiralling commuting costs. There is no sign of any compensation for their losses. There is plenty of evidence that this chaos could have been avoided if the SNP had not cut the budget for the repairs on the bridge, so I disagree with Mike McKenzie. The fact is that the Scottish Government took their eye off the ball. The SNP took a gamble, and thousands of five commuters residents and businesses have been left to pay the price. Many thanks. Now, Colin Kear, to be followed by Willie Rennie before I do, I would invite members they would wish to note that this is also Colin Kear's valedictory speech. We thank him for his service to the Parliament over the last five years and wish him well in the future. Mr Kear, to be followed by Willie Rennie six months or thereby, please. Thank you very much indeed, Presiding Officer. We do not realise the importance of our bridges, which are part of the trunk road network, until something goes seriously wrong with them. When they are closed, it is normally for repair work, an accident or weather related. In my constituency of Edinburgh, the area around South Queensferry, Delmene, Kirklesson and the Western approaches to the city of Edinburgh are badly affected when a closure of the fourth road bridge occurs. On December 1, when a routine inspection unveiled a failure with the trust end link at the north-west corner of the main span, a chain of events which pushed resilience planning and patience to the limits. It is never a good time to close a bridge, but the middle of winter, just before Christmas, focuses the mind. Could this have been avoided? It was never like this under Feta. Has the muddy mean cut for maintenance and the simple why did this happen? As constituency MSP for the southern half of the fourth bridge, I heard every type of question. At this point, can I thank members of the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee for conducting this inquiry to have those questions answered so that the communities effected understand what happened? Can I also thank those bridge engineers who worked in extremely hazardous life-threatening conditions in order to get the bridge back to safe operating conditions? When I absailed off the fourth rail bridge a couple of years ago, conditions were perfect and it was terrifying. Can I have you repeat that, please? Did you use the word absail? It was a very strong rope and it was not held by Christine Grahame. Those engineers and others did their job in high winds and freezing conditions over several weeks and I thoroughly commend their skill, bravery and commitment. I would also like to thank Minister Derek Mackay. I know the hours he spent at the Transport Scotland Centre at Queensferry as well as providing information on a regular basis. There are some key findings in this report and essentially over the last 10 years, Feta enacted a series of checks which were above the recognised standard of assessment. The same checking regime was subsequently used after responsibility was handed over from Feta to Transport Scotland. The bridge was let down by a seized pin within a link, which is now impossible to check until cracks appear. It seems to be that all experts called before the committee were saying that the problem that caused the disruption last December could not have been foreseen. The issue that appears to be highlighted are the timescales relating to the indicative business plan of Feta. Was that a foreseeable problem? It would appear that there is an acceptance that the work on the trust's end links would need to be done at some point. Indeed, it is mentioned as I believe the fifth item on a to-do list, but it was not seen as an emergency. Page 30 of the official report of the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee of 27 January is quite enlightening. Former bridgemaster Barry Culford talks of acceptance of risks being subjective. His job is an engineer being to prioritise that risk based on, I quote, the philosophies of the safety of the public and staff, the long-term integrity of the bridge and disruption. So was this deemed as an emergency and would money be made available? Witnesses, councillor Chisholm and former Feta convener and Edinburgh councillor Phil Wheeler appeared to settle in the view that the expert advice given to them showed no emergency, but a longer-term process of on-going work. If there had been an emergency, former councillor Wheeler stated, we were told as a result of the spending review that we must make do with what we had unless there was a real emergency. Perhaps the only discord here is councillor Hines, the former convener of Feta, who seems to have said that we could have asked Transport Scotland for more money, and I am sure that the answer would have been no. I am a bit confused as to why councillor Hines believes this without actually asking Transport Scotland. The evidence would suggest that the inspection regime was robust. The management of the fourth bridge has done its job over the years, and it is unfortunate that there was no way of identifying the problem before it was too late. In 2012, a request was made, and the request was granted. Clear evidence that, when asked, if it was critically important to the bridge, extra resources would have been found directly contradicting that candidate for the Labour Party at the forthcoming election, and therefore the record and the fact speak for themselves. I thank the minister for clarifying that position. Certainly in terms of the report, I fully commend it. I think that the item 147, I believe that one of the reports, recommends that its successor committee considers issues surrounding forth road bridge closures and the effects on businesses from travelling public. As the member for Edinburgh western, I can only ask that some of the work is performed. I welcome very much the introduction of extra trains from Fife. I believe that it was the right thing to do. I know that other parts of Scotland were upset by the removal of some of their services to cover that, but I would say that there was a problem. Even with all those extra trains, my constituents tried to use the service at Delmeni, which is the first stop over the bridge heading south. It had difficulty either in parking close to the station or indeed boarding trains, which I saw for myself when I went down one morning. I hope that considering that we have a new rail station about to be built or is being built at the Maveray at Groger, the pressures will obviously be increased. I hope that the minister will take that into consideration and thank you very much indeed once again for his efforts, and I fully support the report of the committee. It is a pleasure to be following Colin Keir on his last contribution to this Parliament. It was a fine speech, and I think that when he looks back on the official report, I think that he will be proud of the contribution that he made. I also agree with him with his remarks about the engineers. I saw all the pictures becoming a bit obsessive, like another member who spoke earlier about this, but the weather was pretty bitter, it was windy, it was cold, so I pay full tribute to the contribution that those engineers made to getting the bridge back open. I also want to compliment the minister. Throughout this episode, despite all the pressure, I admired his approachable manner and the fact that he approached the bridge in a pragmatic way, trying to find solutions. He was very open and allowed me to have two separate briefings with engineers. I thank Derek Mackay for his work in getting the bridge open and handling the crisis, because it was a crisis having the major artery closed for such a long period of time. He had two responsibilities—one to get the bridge reopened safely, but also to get the traffic moving around the temporary routes around West Fife and other parts of central Scotland, because other areas were impacted as well. Transport officials worked well to devise a transport plan, and just a few days after the traditional route for the past 50 years had been disrupted. It was quite clear that no contingency arrangement had been made, despite the possibility that the bridge might close at some point. I urge in future contingency arrangements to be put in place for travel plans. Just to reassure Willie Rennie that there are contingency plans in place for the eventuality of a closure, but what is fair to say is that the scale and duration of the closure is what was more challenging and required further work. I want to reassure Willie Rennie that there are contingency plans in place. I also compliment the minister on organising the extra trains, the buses at the discount rates. The priority route along the A985 was good. I would have rather had greater flexibility opening it up at off-peak periods, but also making sure that other vehicles were able to use it at peak times too. Willie Rennie and I have discussed this endlessly over the past few months. The challenge for the minister was to get the bridge reopened on time. He did that for the cars but not for the HGVs. There is a real issue for many of the businesses through the extended period. We all understand that transport routes get disrupted from time to time, but the extended period beyond what was expected and predicted has had a direct impact on many businesses that had priced jobs based on the guarantee that the bridge was going to be reopened in the new year. Any compensation measure that is introduced should take that into account. I am grateful for the minister, as I said earlier, for the two briefings that he allowed me to have. The questions that I have come from them are following those two meetings. I am no engineer, I am a biologist, so I saw independent advice for those questions. It is more, I think, a question about engineering rather than the politics of that. The political decision making and the budget decision making issues have been explored thoroughly by the committee, but I think that there are engineering questions that remain unanswered. We understand why all that happened. We understand about the pin, the trust in link, the consultancy work that was delayed, the fact that it was a fix ready to be implemented, it was being tested. We understand all those issues. Many members have talked about that. The real issue here, the big question, I think, is around about the pin. The pin couldn't be inspected. It was in an area that was not accessible, but it was clear that it wasn't being lubricated, whereas the pin at the top end of the trust in link was being lubricated. The advice that I have received is that there should have been serious questions as to whether that pin was rotating properly. If there were serious questions about that, what technology was going to be put in place to monitor that? There was no strain gauge monitoring put in place around that pin. I think that there needs to be serious questions asked about why that was not the case. As I say, it is not a political issue, it is not about budgets, it is about engineering. Would it have been possible to lubricate the pin remotely? Those questions do not seem to have been addressed by the committee's report. Yes. First of all, I am not an engineer either, so I think that it is appropriate that the engineering opinion that Willie Rennie has offered that officials in due course will respond in full to that inquiry, which is a consequence of the further meeting that Willie Rennie has. However, in reference to lubrication, my understanding is that even trying it did not work in any event, but I will ensure that there is a full response to the engineer that Willie Rennie sourced on this issue. Willie Rennie? I think that it is quite clear that the… Yes. John Scott. Thank you, Mr Rennie, for taking the intervention, and on that point, on the lack of lubrication with the benefit of hindsight, should the minister be considering that there be lubrication provided in these rotating pins in future, and is that part of the engineer's recommendation? If not, will he consider it to be so, as this was where the obvious failure occurred? Willie Rennie? I am not sure how I quite get the minister to respond to that. Yeah, go on, go on, he is even going to answer this. Minister. I thank Willie Rennie for his indulgence to you too, Presiding Officer. My understanding quite simply is that lubrication does not work, but I am much happier to look into all the details of the engineering report and give a further response, but it just did not work on trial as the answer. Willie Rennie. Anybody else? I do think that there needs to be a proper scrutiny of this area. I know that the engineers were getting particularly interested in the closure of the bridge, but I do not think that the committee inquiry has had a proper thorough examination of all the issues around the technical aspects of that. I take what the minister says about lubrication, but my adviser clearly states that this pin should have been investigated. The fact that we could not get access and to see how it was operating should have raised alarm bells, and I would hope that the Government, and I would look for the minister when he is summing up today, to give a commitment that he will open up the records and access to all the information and evidence so that the engineering community can scrutinise this area properly, because there are many bridges like this across the world, and I am sure that we need to have a proper thorough examination of the engineering community to get those answers. I thank the minister for his work. I accept the committee's report, but I think that a lot more work needs to be done so that the engineering community can thoroughly learn from that experience so that we do not have a repeat of this episode. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. John Scott and your team for your understanding this afternoon. I also thank the convener, Jamedie, the other members of the committee, and the clerks to the committee for being with me for the past few months. Although I am a member of the committee, I am a several of the evidence sessions due to severe morning sickness. I appreciate the patience of the convener and members with my situation. I can honestly say that I would have rather been with them on those mornings instead. As members will know, the inquiry focused on the closure of the fourth road bridge to all traffic on public safety grounds on 4 December, due to the discovery of steelwork defects of a support beam. The inquiry does not look at the effect that the closure has had on commuters across Scotland. That was a difficult decision to take, as it was a significant issue for many. However, given the limited timescale for the inquiry, it was not possible to look at the many aspects that the closure of the bridge resulted in. I do, however, believe that it is important for the next infrastructure and capital investment committee to look into. As a member representing Central Scotland, I know that the impact of the bridge closure was acutely felt in Falkirk, where traffic diversions came through and public transport was diverted from. I also know from constituents travelling from their homes in Lanarkshire by car that it was taken on average two hours to get to work and infirming due to the traffic on all other routes, a journey that should take around an hour. The closure of the bridge was, of course, necessary. However, we should not forget the impact that the decision had on individuals trying to get to their work or to get home. Therefore, a wide-ranging inquiry is needed. Readers of the report already commissioned will see that. Initially, it was not clear why the member had failed. We heard from Amy that the trust-end-link failure had been caused by fatigue failure. When that was confirmed, further analysis was then carried out to try to gain an understanding as to how the member could have been subjected to such fatigue loading. Richard Hornbray, director of ARUP, told the committee how a fatigue failure is likely to occur. He said, initially it would have been a very small crack that would have been undetectable in an inspection. It would have grown gradually at first but then quicker and would probably have taken only a matter of months to grow from a crack that was visually undetectable to something that had totally failed. In evidence, Mr Hornbray commented on the difficulty of seeing the pins of the trust-end-links due to the design used on the fourth road bridge. That caused me a great deal of concern as we were talking about the north side of the bridge at that time. Therefore, I asked for clarification on that matter. I asked that, when the repair was carried out, would it be possible to now see the pin and would others be replaced in order that all of the pins on the bridge were visible from now on? Mr Hornbray replied by saying, my recommendation would be that all the linkages be replaced because one has shown itself to be time-served. All the others are ticking time bombs to a greater or lesser extent. They should all be repaired. The best solution, having been worked out for that one location, should be implemented on all eight corners. We now know that work has had to be carried out to the north and south corners. Therefore, I hope that all the pins are now visible, as was recommended by Mr Hornbray. If there is any lesson to learn from the recent safety concerns of the bridge, it is to listen to the advice that we are given and to act on that advice. The committee also reported our concerns regarding the decision-making process in an emergency. We heard from three bridgemasters for similar bridges in the UK who are full control over whether their bridge closes or not when an emergency occurs. Although I agree that the decision to close the fourth road bridge was the correct one, there was a tindily of five hours between the recommendation by AMA and that the fourth road bridge should close. The decision taken at a meeting with ministers to close it, I am just getting to the point that you made earlier. The committee therefore requested that the Scottish Government confirm who is ultimately responsible for making a decision to close the bridge and provide details of the protocol followed in circumstances where a closure is required. The minister answered some of that question in his opening statement. However, we still need to know why the decision was taken at that time by the minister if he had the full control over the bridge, as the minister suggested in his opening speech. I am happy to clarify that the operator has full responsibility to close that bridge in any event of an emergency. They have that clarity. What they were doing during the incident in December, although they had the ability to do it, was to turn to ministers. They had not made the recommendation yet, but in full knowledge of the scale of the decision and the issues involved, they had a discussion with ministers. However, it is absolutely not the case that a decision was recommended hours earlier. The decision was taken at half-eight, roughly nine o'clock in the evening, and then dispatched to media outlets so that the public knew of the decision. That element of the report is not entirely accurate, but I hope that the content of what I have said reassures the member. The minister's comments do reassure me, however. I am not reassured that the report is, obviously, based on the evidence that we heard. It was by more than one source, so I am not quite sure why there is that. Other people are saying one thing, and the minister is saying another, and maybe that could be clarified. I totally accept what you are saying this afternoon, but that is not what the member has heard in committee. One other concern that I have with regard to the fourth-road bridge is the inspection regime. During evidence, we learned that bridge owners and operators are responsible for carrying out inspections on the bridges to check for any deterioration in the structure. The design manual for roads and bridges is a UK standard that has been adopted by Transport Scotland, and it sets out the normal inspection requirements for motorway and trunk road bridges. There are three main inspection regimes, which are safety inspections, general inspections and principal inspections. However, the committee heard that FETA did not follow the standard approach, as the bridge master and chief engineer did not consider that approach to be sufficiently focused and robust for a major structure such as the fourth-road bridge. As a result, critical components such as the trust end links were inspected every six months. When Transport Scotland took over from FETA, they too adopted the six-month critical component inspections. The most recent of those inspections was taken on 19 May 2015. The question that I have therefore is why was a critical inspection not undertaken in November. Given that six-month regime remains unclear as to why no critical component inspection was taken, when planned and what the reasons were for it not going ahead, I believe that we need further clarity on that, and we need to have confidence that those inspections will now take place when planned. There are many areas of the report that I would have spoken about if I had more time. However, I believe that the inquiry was important and that the remit of the inquiry was met. However, I echo my comments from earlier that the next ICT committee needs to carry out a far-renging inquiry when Parliament resumes later this year. I am particularly grateful to our committee adviser, Alan Simpson. It has been a great pleasure to take part in the inquiry, especially to sit with Adam Ingram on that committee during the process. Someone who I have considered a mentor and friend for a long number of years and also today to speak with Colin Hear on this subject. I can say at the outset that I have found the inquiry fascinating to take part in, not least because of the expertise, the enthusiasm and ingenuity of the engineers and bridge operatives who have worked in the most extreme of weather conditions in the depth of winter to have repaired and resolved the defect that was identified on the Forth Road bridge in December last year. By way of context, I hope to quote from Barry Coalfield from his evidence to the committee, he said, engineering is not science. It is a mixture of science and art and it involves judgment. We have the most powerful analytical tools. Consulting engineers analyse the stresses in the members and the independent checker also carried out an analysis. Those were the best firms in the UK and the world. Analyzing and checking using the best tools, but it is engineering. Engineering is always about judgment and is not an exact science. I use that quote because I think it is very important that we understand that decisions about bridge maintenance, decisions about how to go forward are taken in the context of the immediate information available to engineers, including the financial situation. I believe that our inquiry, which has been comprehensive and robust, has brought out these details. I hope that the public will be reassured by the report conclusions and agree, as many will, with the unanimous views of the expert witnesses, that this defect was unforeseen and unforeseeable. If I look a little bit back in the history of indicative capital plans over the time of the fourth road bridge, if I look back to 2004, when FETA presented a statement of case for the proposed toll increase at that time, it included an indicative capital plan at that time and it indeed indicated that there may have been work on the trust end links in 2004 to be completed in 2009-10. I do not believe that that work was done. The trust end linkages in the indicative plan of 2008 had moved to a different scale of work on the trust end links, but I do not think that that work was carried out not through any fault or any mismanagement by FETA, but simply because other priorities were invented at that time. Indeed, the minutes of the FETA board at that time says the principal reasons for the amendment to the proposed capital planner as follows, and for trust end linkages it says that the extent of the work, including the project, has increased. By way of showing that this has been, as always, in the bridge in examining this, a movable and changing environment for all the engineers to work on. In 2015, in one of the final minutes from the fourth road bridge, in its own words, they say that the capital plan is kept under continual review in order to monitor changes to the budget and the level of reserves. As reported previously, key structural risks that have been presented in the fourth road bridge for some years were identified as the condition of the main cables and the main cable anchorages. The main issue for them at that time was not the trust end link. That is to be worn out by the reprioritisation, which had that as the fifth in the list of priorities that became fifth in the capital indicative plan. In the main report, in those minutes, they said that, during the latter stages of 2014 and into 2015, the priority with regard to the capital plan has been to ensure completion of committed projects prior to the abolition of the authority, expected to be 31 May 2015, and additional efforts are being directed at preparing a number of specific uncommitted projects to either design or tender stage to enable the projects to be carried out post abolition. Those projects are considered vital, but projects that FETA cannot commit to completing prior to May 2015. The detail of the report regards the trust end linkages—I think that the minister has already mentioned this—that, given the cost and difficulty in replacing the elements and the potential disruption to bridge users, further examination of the probability of certain combinations of load occurring and further structure analysis was carried out to try and determine the most realistic levels of stress that the members have after the Queensferry crossing opens, the fourth road bridge will carry only light traffic under normal operating conditions. I think that that is a bit of the elephant in the room, Presiding Officer, but there are 150,000 tonnes of concrete and 335,000 tonnes of steel and 23,000 miles of cabling. I do not think that the Queensferry crossing would fit in the room at all, but that is a £1.3 billion investment in the infrastructure for the road bridge. The information that we have is that it has a bearing on the decisions that are taken by FETA regarding their priorities regarding their capital plan. It is interesting to note, Presiding Officer, that their solution to their concerns was a saving of £14,590,000 to the public purse had it been successful. We can all look to hindsight, but what hindsight will tell us on this one is that everyone, all the engineers are congratulated on facing the most difficult situation and finding a solution for the Scottish people. I am pleased to speak today as a representative of Mid Scotland on Fife, where residents and businesses suffered inconvenience, stress and financial hardship as a result of the closure of the fourth road bridge in December 2015. As a resident of Dunferman, I was able to adjust my travel routine to meet the challenges of travelling to and from Edinburgh by train during that period. The stations near the bridge could not meet the extra demand for parking, resulting in areas around stations up the line becoming extended car parks with subsequent localised disruption. Travelling early proved effective for me personally, but many constituents could not be flexible, whilst others found it difficult to meet the additional expense of train travel. I know that similar impacts were felt in communities and businesses in the West Fife villages, with Concardin and Cutmanisher bridges becoming extremely congested and long delays encountered. I was pleased that the committee acknowledged that the closure of the fourth road bridge brought frustration to travellers and had a significant impact on many businesses, not least transport companies and HGV operators. The committee concluded that those related and hugely important issues might be investigated at a later stage. Moving on, I want to add my support to the committee's commendation of all those staff involved in dealing with the defect that led to the closure of the fourth road bridge. That was a remarkable engineering achievement carried out during a period of adverse weather conditions. Again, based on my own experience of travelling by train to Edinburgh and looking across at the eerie site of the huge structure that is the fourth road bridge suspended over the water in darkness, except for the lights of the repair work, I have to say that this site put into context the scale of the challenge. I would just like to quote from the evidence of Mark Arnt of Amy, who said, lighting was used so that the work could progress day and night. The teams had to stand down regularly because the winds got so high that it was unsafe to work, but they just got off the scaffolding and waited until the control room indicated that the wind speed had dropped sufficiently to allow them to return. Amazing. The Minister for Transport and Islands hosted a technical briefing on Monday 14 December, which I attended. Members of the infrastructure and capital investment committee were also at that briefing and followed it up by seeking views from witnesses as to whether the specific defect could have been identified at an earlier stage. The former bridgemaster Barry Colford was clear in his view that it could not have been, explaining to the committee, and I quote, I have obviously thought about that for quite some time and my answer is no. I do not think that it could have been foreseen. We carried out our inspections and the problem was not foreseeable. Although I note that the committee's conclusion on the defect that caused the closure could not have been foreseen, I also note that the committee sought to present that view in the context of the previous inspection and maintenance regimes carried out by FETTA and the details of FETTA's indicative capital plan proposals and in particular any works that are related to the trust end link and related components. The impact of the removal of bridge tolls in 2008 was highlighted in evidence to the ICI committee by Councillor Leslie Hynes, former convener of FETTA, who indicated that that had resulted in a loss of up to £12 million revenue per annum. With the result that FETTA either had to apply for capital funding from Transport Scotland or use its reserves and that that introduced an element of uncertainty into the capital planning process. An acknowledgement of the change in the funding regime and the effect that it had on FETTA's financial management was provided by Barry Calford, who said again a quote, FETTA was in a position whereby we had the governance but not the funding, which is quite a difficult position for any organisation to be in. It was our responsibility to manage and maintain the fourth road bridge, but we had to rely on funding from the Scottish Government via Transport Scotland. Did the Labour Party or any member of this Parliament suggest any other form of management or control to the fourth road bridge following the decision to replace the tolls? In all honesty, minister, I am not in a position to say so, but I am not aware of there being any alternative proposals, but I do not have an encyclopaedic knowledge of everything the Labour Party has proposed over the years. Moving on, the committee also explored with witnesses whether carrying out work on the trust-end links as originally proposed by FETTA in 2010 might have avoided the failure. Barry Calford told the committee, as an engineer, I do not want to answer hypothetical questions. All that I can say is that at that point we had intended to replace the trust-end links. The capital programme included what we considered needed to be done on the fourth road bridge. However, setting at the Scottish Government's position, Scott Lees of Transport Scotland said, FETTA's indicative forward capital programme was considered and funding provided to meet its contractual requirements and deliver capital maintenance on a prioritised needs basis. Transport Scotland made grant offers in line with the outcome of discussions with FETTA officials and those were accepted by the FETTA board. The committee's conclusions state that FETTA's decision in December 2011 to re-prioritise projects within its capital plan was a direct consequence of a decision by the Scottish Government and Transport Scotland to reduce its capital grant allocation. No, I need to make progress. While it is hard, as the minister told the cabinet to answer the what-if questions, it could be argued that the post-trial regime changed FETTA's role from having a self-contained incongeneration that could be spent on maintenance to one of governance where capital spend was a matter for the Scottish Government. The fact is that there was a clear statement of intent by FETTA to replace the trust-end links. The authority's robust maintenance inspection regimes had identified that work was required to the trust-end link mechanisms. Had that work been carried out, it may have had a bearing on the closure of the bridge in December 2015, it is impossible to say. That said, it is a huge relief to have the bridge back in operation and it is a great pleasure to see the new crossing emerging. I am sure that no-one wants to repeat of what happened in December and it is good to know that new companies are in place to assess the stress on individual components. I will conclude by once again commending the achievement of the engineers and to ask again that the Government consider the economic impact of the closure and whether some compensation might be provided. Many thanks and we now turn to closing speeches. Before I call Cameron Buchanan, can I just say members will wish to note that this is Cameron Buchanan's valedictory speech and we thank him for his service over the past five years to Parliament and wish him well for the future. I am glad to have the chance today to be able to contribute to the debate today. I would also like to thank the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee for their enquiring to the circumstances surrounding the closure of the fourth bridge and the report to which they produced. As we already heard on 1 December, whilst conducting routine maintenance, Amy Staff identified the failure of one of the trust end links on the north-west corner of the main span of the fourth bridge. This decision was subsequently taken to close the bridge to all-traffic midnight. The closure of the fourth bridge caused massive inconvenience for many and had huge negative impact on many businesses that relied on the bridge for vital transport links. However, I would like to focus most of my remarks primarily on two aspects of the committee's report, the inspection regime under both FETA and Amy and the issue of funding. The committee was rightly keen to examine the inspection regimes under both FETA and Amy, who took over the day-to-day management and maintenance of the bridge after FETA was formally wound up on 1 June. This report is a great deal of encouraging things to say regarding the inspection of the fourth bridge under both FETA and Amy. The committee's report makes it clear that robust and innovative approach to inspection, which is a risk-based inspection regime. I was glad to hear that this same inspection regime was carried on under Transport Scotland and when they took over the day-to-day responsibility for the fourth bridge with the chief bridges engineer at Transport Scotland setting the standard for inspection, which is carried out by Amy. I was also glad to hear that under both Amy and FETA, the respective bridge masters communicated with many different industries forums within the UK and internationally to share best practice. This is very heartening. The committee's report also makes it clear the extreme difficulty in checking the trust end links and in particular examining whether the pins are operating correctly. Furthermore, all expert witnesses who appeared before the committee were in agreement in their belief that everything reasonable had been done to inspect the trust end links and the pins at the fourth road bridge and that the failure which caused the bridges closure was unforeseen and unforeseeable. This brings me to the second issue, which I like to consider my speech today, and that is the issue of funding. The abolition of tolls, which had been levied on users since the bridge was first opened in 1964, was a huge change in the funding arrangement on the maintenance and operation of the fourth bridge. At the time, FETA expressed profound concerns regarding the change in funding. In particular, concerns were expressed about the irregular and subject to unpredictable and significant fluctuations in funding from Transport Scotland. Indeed, the committee heard from Councillor Leslie Hines, the former convener of FETA, who suggested that the change in funding arrangements had resulted in a loss of up to £12 million per annum. That meant that FETA either had to apply for capital funding from Transport Scotland or to use its reserves, and that surely brought an element of uncertainty into the capital planning process. Why or why were the tolls abolished? We can all remember the expensive automatic toll gates that went up one day and came down the next, of course. I take an intervention, especially on his last speech in the Parliament. During the time that the tolls were in place, FETA were running reserves of a high point of £18.6 million, which is about half of what the toll collection was bringing in. Does he really think that the idea that they were dependent on the toll money and that it was a change in their funding that they were not able to cope and apply for capital funding from the Government at that time? I think that it was more perception rather than reality. The fact that the tolls were in place meant that the bridge was funding probably itself. It might not have funded it completely, but it was more perception. I think that this is significant as the change in funding arrangements for the fourth bridge had an impact on FETA's indicative capital plan. The committee report does make it clear that the volume of traffic using the fourth bridge has increased beyond the expectations of its original designers. As such, it was necessary for continuous programme of works to be carried out. FETA dropped a long-term programme of works for 15 years from 2010 and 2011 to 2024-25, which they considered needed to be carried out. Importantly, £3.1 million of the total of £120.3 million was provided for the Tracen links. However, because of a reduction in the capital funding, the committee heard how FETA was forced to reprioritise its long-term programme of works. The work on the Tracen links was judged to be non-critical, as we have heard, for the safety of commuters or the long-term integrity of the bridge. As a result, the replacement of the Tracen links was ranked fifth on the list against other priority projects and subsequently delayed. I think that it is clear that the decision was entirely reasonable and a pragmatic response to budgetary constraints on the part of FETA. However, it is equally clear that FETA's decision was a direct consequence of the decision by the Scottish Government and Transport Scotland to reduce its capital funding. FETA should not have been in a position to have been in a position to prioritise important maintenance due to the Scottish Government's decision to reduce its funding. As this is my valedictory speech in this chamber, I would just like to thank everyone, both in and out of the chamber and particularly the security staff, Clarks, David Cullum, and the Presiding Officer, Trish and the Deputy P.O.'s Elaine and John, of course, our own PRU for all their tolerance and forbearance during my short momentous tenure in this Parliament, which I have richly enjoyed. Coming in in the back of my friend David McCletchies' demise and having suffered from the same affliction but fortunately recovered, it has been a particularly poignant that I have been able to stand here and sound off about the issues that matter to my constituency and the public at large. I have also had to watch my language many times as I have been tempted to give here two words concerning sex and travel, but I have managed to revoid it. I realise that sometimes I have tried your patience, both of my perambulations and my maverick ways, but it has been a great experience and it is onwards and up from here. I shall not be retiring as I do not smoke a pipe and I do not possess any slippers, so you will be hearing from me again, which, with my voice, will not be difficult. My final thanks to my staff, with whom I was lucky enough to be inherit from David, my two researchers, Martin Donald and Latterly Frederick Pride, and, of course, the power behind all conservative thrones, not game of thrones, and men's ears. Finally, to our prize-winning buddy, Esther Kersti, rapidly from my daily caffeine fix. Thank you all and all, Anna-Riva Dafty. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I think that this has been an excellent debate with thoughtful, well-informed and incisive speeches from all sides of the chamber, and this reflects, of course, the importance of the debate. The closure of the most strategically crucial road bridge in Scotland hit the headlines, not just in the UK but in Europe as well. It might not have not trumped off the Washington Post, but the Polish-express news had it as the lead headline. As speaker after speaker has testified an evidence today, the bridge closure badly affected Scotland's haulage industry and caused headaches and frustration for a commuter's challenge between Fife, Edinburgh and beyond. However, I believe that the decision to have an inquiry was the right one, the right thing to do, and I want to thank all members of the ICI committee for supporting my call to have a full and comprehensive investigation into the bridge closure. I am a strong supporter, Presiding Officer, of the Parliament's committee system, and the founding fathers of our Parliament, the Constitutional Convention, were quite clear that committees were to keep the Government in check, irrespective of which party is in power. I would also like to praise Jim Eadie, the ICI convener, for his excellent chairing of the inquiry, and I hope that that does not ruin his political career. I would also echo the convener's thanks to all our committee clerks and our adviser, who did a first-class job. I will ask that I do not have time to mention all the speakers today, but I would just like to have a quick run through the summary of the debate. I would particularly like to thank Adam Ingram, who is the vice convener of the committee, who made his last contribution as a member. Adam is well-known, and Adam Ingram is well-known as an ex-minister, and I would like to thank him for all that he has done as being a first-class parliamentarian over the past 17 years. I would also like to thank the other members, who are leaving us in terms of last speeches today, in Camden, Buchanan and Cullincare, and I wish them both well in the future. Alex Rowley spoke very well about the scale of disruption across Scotland, particularly in Fife. He, like many members, thanked the workforce, but also the police and local authorities, and I echo the points that he has made. Alex Johnston has always relied on to make a very amusing but very intelligent speech when he described the inquiry being an educational process. I would perhaps ask Mr Johnston to get out a little bit more often and say a bit more of the world. He was right to talk about the scale of the problem in terms of the massive disruption in haulage companies and commuters. He also took us on a geographic tour around the bridges of the world that he was familiar with, and I think that that was very useful. He also talked about the allocation of capital funding. A point that few raised was what was the relationship right between FETA and the Scottish Government. We know what the evidence said, but was there something deeper there? I think that that is a very interesting and useful point. That brings me to Mike McKenzie, and no inquiry or debate would be the same without Mike McKenzie. His comments were very amusing, and he described himself—in his words, I say this very carefully—as a bridge nerd. I was not very sure whether that was unparliamentary language, but, since it is your own words, I think that I could probably get away with that and how the bridge was a form of art, which I think was a very insightful comment. Kara Hilton made some very useful points about the effect on business and commuters, and she gave a good example of where children were unable to cross the road because of the volume of traffic. She made a plea to the minister, which I am sure the minister will echo, about looking at repair work within Fife and Pradilton trunk roads and reviewing transfer infrastructure. I thought that Willie Rennie made a very good and insightful speech, again thanking engineers and all those who worked on the bridge. She also thanked the minister, as I would do, for the technical brief that I was given and the two around the bridge. She also really made the point about the effect of the extended closure in the HGVs and the fact that we should perhaps have some more technical aspects to the inquiry. In the very brief few seconds left, many members have mentioned Barry Colford, who worked, as you know, on the bridgemaster for 19 years and was a key witness for the inquiry. I asked him during the evidence session, as many members have echoed my words, if the trust end works had been carried out, would it have avoided the closure of the fourth road bridge in December 2015? I can quote his answer. All I can say is that, at that point, we have intended to replace the trust end links. While I accept that we do not know what the consultants would have recommended or the scale of the works proposed, that was the one area of the inquiry that was inconclusive and led to division in the committee. However, the general commentary in the report was accepted by all members, and I would particularly stress the thanks to all staff who worked through poor weather conditions and long hours to get the bridge reopened as quickly as possible. In conclusion, cannot the inquiry found the closure of the fourth road bridge was the right thing to do and the recommendation to provide the Scottish Government with food for thought in the new Parliament? It is no more or no less than was demanded by the haulage industry, frustrated commuters and anyone in Scotland who is interested in our infrastructure. It is now for the Scottish Government to respond to the committee's recommendation. I hope that the successor to the infrastructure and capital investment committee in the new Parliament will look very carefully at the Scottish Government's responses and, without fear or favour, will do what is best for Scottish transport users. Thank you very much. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I think that that has indeed been a very useful and largely well-informed debate, but I have to say that I do want to remind some colleagues of what they have said over the course of the last few months that it has not always been quite as consensual and fair to the SNP Government as it seems to have been today. That is because it is this Government that ensured that the job was done to completion, that the fourth road bridge was opened and that we ensured that it was supported during that period of disruption. I am very content that the committee, which represents a number of parties, did find that the fourth road bridge defect could not have been foreseen. That is what exactly I had been saying from the start. Not all members took that position early on. My own integrity was challenged in the early days when I came back to the chamber to outline the full position at the time. Bearing in mind the debate and the inquiry and all the expert opinion that we have had and all the media commentary, I want to remind the Labour Party of what its leader said in terms of my contribution that I either lied to Parliament or lied to the BBC. While this inquiry and this debate is vindication for me and the Scottish Government that we were truthful throughout this issue, I look forward to the apology from the Labour Party on questioning my integrity as transport minister of this country. I am sure that the teams had our support to get traffic over the bridge as quickly as possible. There was that graduated return of traffic in terms of over 90 per cent of traffic and then all traffic. There is the answer to the naysayers that said that we would never open this bridge to HGVs. HGVs have returned over the fourth road bridge. To those who have said what were your contingency plans, as well as upscaling the plans that we had in the event of a closure and delivering a very effective travel action plan, more trains and more buses to support the community at a very difficult time. There is a very substantial contingency measure right beside the fourth road bridge and it is called the Queensferry crossing. To those who say that we are not investing in the area £1.35 billion for a new bridge that is on time and substantially under budget. Of course it was not always the case that the Labour Party supported the new Queensferry crossing. Elaine Murray, a spokesperson, said that it was sucking a great deal of money out of transport or that Kezia Dugdale said that it was just a bridge, of course a very necessary bridge for the transport infrastructure for our country. I suppose that the best quote from the Labour Party comes from Lord George Foukes, who said that when I was an MSP I argued strongly that the second fourth crossing was an unnecessary waste of money, just another vanity project. I say to Lord George Foukes that we are building a replacement crossing and we are doing it deliberately. He was not the only one. No, I want to continue, Mr Rowley. James Kelly, of course, said that it was a vanity project as well. We have invested in the maintenance of the fourth road bridge. We have transferred all the good practice from Feta to Amy. We have put in an installation of new monitoring equipment and we have enhanced that support. What happened to all the Labour accusations about the hemorrhaging of staff, about privatisation and about all the other criticisms that they have disappeared as through this inquiry we have shone a light upon the facts on the fourth road bridge. Exposing the Labour Party, not the Government that acted competently and effectively, but exposing the Labour Party for the political opportunists that they are, who would rather have had in the depths of the issue of the fourth road bridge, wanted to drag the engineers from fixing the bridge to this Parliament. I always said that I would welcome an inquiry, I would welcome independent experts' views, I would welcome Transport Scotland being held to account because I knew that the Government's interventions were the right one. Throughout that period of closure, my focus was 100 per cent on fixing the bridge and that is exactly what this Government and our operators have done. Alex Johnstone has said in fairness to the Conservatives that he was looking for a smoking gun and did not find one. I think that that is a very fair assessment from one part of the opposition. Willie Rennie has been equally challenging but constructive. The only thing that is smoldering to me is the electoral opportunity of the Labour Party, which has been found wanting on this issue and so many other issues, of course. Thank you, Minister for giving way. Somebody who was campaigning for the bridge in Fife when Derek Mackay was probably still at school, I would have to say that what we saw with the closure was how important the crossing is for Fife. However, if Derek Mackay can get over his cell, will he address the fundamental question that has still been asked, which is will you look at compensation for all those companies that have massively lost money and some that are at risk of being able to proceed? I am not surprised that Alex Rowley wants to change the subject. Throughout this issue, I can tell you what businesses and communities demanded of me. It was immediate support and we did that through the travel action plan. That was more trains and more buses. It was support for the hollied industry in terms of prioritisation that was delivered. It was support through the relaxation of drivers hours but principally it was to reopen the bridges quickly as possible and that is what we have achieved. That was the number one priority of everyone concerned and we will continue to have dialogue with the industry and the sector. Cara Hylton said that she was disappointed with the report. Many of the other members of the Labour Party said that they welcomed this very fair report. The only reason that I think Cara Hylton is disappointed by the report is because it is a vindication for this Government and our actions throughout. I can say in conclusion that we have managed our infrastructure well, continued to invest in it in very challenging financial circumstances, made the right interventions, never put public safety at risk and deliver for this country in contrast to the ineffective winding of the Labour Party, whose electoral chances, as Mike McKenzie said, are floating up the forth because of their incompetence in the face of this Government's competence. Thank you Minister. I now call on Jim Eadie to wind up the debate on behalf of the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee. Nine minutes please, Mr Dede. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am pleased to wind up this debate on the Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee's inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the closure of the fourth road bridge. I thank all members who have contributed to what has been an interesting and, at times, combative and even entertaining debate. In particular, I commend Colin Kear, Cameron Buchanan and Adam Ingram on their excellent valedictory speeches. I also echo the thanks given by the committee's deputy convener during his opening remarks to all our witnesses and those who made written submissions. I also acknowledge the invaluable contribution that was made by the committee's adviser, Alan Simpson, whose expertise and professionalism were greatly valued by all members of the committee. As I said at the committee's first evidence session on the inquiry, I feel that this has been one of the most significant and important pieces of work that it has undertaken in this parliamentary session. The committee was only too aware that people in Fife, Lothians and, indeed, across Scotland were subject to disruption due to the closure, and that they would want to be assured that the appropriate action was taken in the lead-up to and discovery of the structural defect and that all necessary precautions have been and will be taken to prevent the situation from recurring in the future. As convener, I was therefore very keen to ensure that the committee was thorough and robust in its investigations and in all its deliberations in order to get beneath the surface of the reasons behind the closure. It is my view that the committee has fulfilled its role appropriately, utilising the considerable expertise of our witnesses to ensure that we understood the technical issues involved, as well as asking challenging questions on the complexities surrounding previous maintenance proposals and capital funding issues. Now that there have been a range of views expressed in the course of this afternoon, so perhaps I can begin with a point of agreement. A number of members—the minister, Alex Rowley, Jane Baxter and Mike McKenzie—have all quite rightly referred to the professionalism of the staff who worked on the design and installation of the repairs to the 4th Road bridge. As our report makes clear, those repairs were carried out in an exemplary fashion during a period of very poor weather conditions with regular bouts of exceptionally high winds. It is worth restating that point again, and again, and again. The staff were able to ensure that the public safety of members of the public was fully protected and that the structural integrity of the bridge was not compromised in any way. A number of issues have been touched on this afternoon. Alex Johnson told us about the smoking gun, which never was. Siobhan McMahon talked about the ticking time bomb, which perhaps is inherent in all the structures that we have been looking at, of which the 4th Road bridge is one. Adam Ingram quite rightly reminded us of the focused nature of the inquiry, which inevitably meant that we were not able to look at the disruption to passengers and the economic disruption to businesses as that was outwith our remit. Alex Rowley mentioned the personal cost to people and businesses as a result of the closure of the 4th Road bridge and Cara Hilton talked about the impact on one village in her constituency and of the need to ensure that contingency and traffic plans are always fit for purpose. Adam Ingram talked about structural health monitoring. That was also a point alluded to in the contribution by Willie Rennie about the nature of the pin that seized and whether or not the bridge was being properly monitored in order to detect that failure when it happened. There is some good news for the future, as Barry Colford, the former bridge master, told us in evidence to the committee, when he told us that structural health monitoring is developing on large bridges. It is being installed in the new Queensferry crossing, which will have a significant number of sensors and on the Sing Ma bridge in Hong Kong, among other bridges. That will perhaps provide the better solution to those issues in the future. I happily give way to Willie Rennie. Willie Rennie briefly. That technology has been available for some time. Does he think that he agrees with me that we need to have a wider engineering examination of all those issues? I think that we have dealt with the political and budget decision making issues today, but we need a further inquiry, so the Government should open up its records to allow that to happen. Does he agree with that? I do not think that there is any lack of willingness from the part of any of our witnesses, including the Government, to make as much information available. We certainly benefited from that in the course of the inquiry. However, yes, the wider engineering issues and issues around the inspection regime are certainly ones that need to be looked at in order that we do learn all of the lessons for the future. It was interesting that Barry Colford, the former bridgemaster, said that the pin in terms of its movement was not perceptible, not imperceptible, but not easily something that could be examined from a distance. The structural health monitoring and the changes to that is something that has come out of this whole process. There was reference in the debate to the decision making process on the closure of the fourth road bridge. Much has been said about the supposed five-hour delay in closing the bridge on the afternoon and evening of 3 December. Essentially, the question that we posed was who has the authority to close the bridge, engineers or ministers. I am grateful to the minister for confirming this afternoon in this debate that the engineers at AME have full authority and power to close the bridge. I therefore look forward to reading the minister's response to the report, which asked whether a clearer and more immediate decision making process is in fact required to deal with such emergency events. Much of the debate in our debate this afternoon has focused on FETA's indicative capital plan and funding issues. Alec Rowley quoted the former bridgemaster Barry Colford in evidence to the committee stating that the indicative capital plan outlined what, and I quote, needed to be done. Clare Adamson intervened to point out that the inclusion of a proposed work in the indicative plan did not mean that there was a worked-up proposal that was then capable of immediate implementation. I would only observe on this point that, in evidence from Barry Colford, he made the point that there had been a proposal from 2006 to replace the trust end links, but it was not, in fact, until 2010-11 before that was actually included in the indicative capital plan. I will leave that point on the record for people to reflect on. The committee was clear in its view, and it was a unanimous view not just of witnesses, including former FETA engineers, but also of all the members of the committee that the failure could not have been foreseen and was not foreseeable. That is a point that has been made repeatedly in this afternoon's debate. However, what the committee also agreed, and here it was by majority of the committee, with one member dissenting, was that the reprioritisation of works by FETA was an appropriate course of action, given the prevailing financial circumstances of the time and in view of the engineering advice that was available to them. It is important to remember that the evidence that we received as a committee made it clear that at no time was the safety of the travelling public or the structural integrity of the bridge undermined in any way by any of the decisions that were taken by FETA to reprioritise the capital projects within FETA's indicative capital plan. I am of the view that, in its report, the committee reached reasonable and fair conclusions. The key issue to emerge is that, although it is extremely unfortunate that the structural defect that caused the closure of the fourth road bridge occurred, it could not have been foreseen. The majority of the committee found that, in view of that and in the light of prevailing financial circumstances, the decision by FETA to defer the earlier proposed work on the trust end links was an appropriate course of action. I acknowledge that there may be a case for further work to be done on the management of the travel disruption caused by the closure and possibly to consider any economic impact it may have caused. It will, of course, be for the committee's successor committees to consider early in the new session of Parliament whether such work should be undertaken, but I, for one, and I believe that I speak for all of the committee, would urge them to do so. In conclusion, the inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the closure of the fourth road bridge is one that has been thorough, robust, balanced and which clearly reflects the evidence that we received as a committee. Its findings will be examined not just by the Parliament and all those who gave evidence to us but by members of the bridge community across the world as making an important contribution to our understanding of the issues around the repair and maintenance of bridge structures. Of course, it was Mike McKenzie who rose to the heights of eloquence in his contribution, which climaxed with the phrase that bridges were marvellous structures, elegantly swaying under the loads they bear. Perhaps, on that point, it would be advisable for me to bring my remarks to a close, but can I, in conclusion, thank my excellent clerking team, Steve Farrell, Andrew Proud, Jason Nairn and Maria Ockredge for their fantastic work over the past five years? Thank you very much indeed. Many thanks, convener. That concludes the infrastructure and capital investment committee's debate on its inquiry into circumstances surrounding the closure of the fourth road bridge, and it is now time to move on to the next item of business, which is consideration of motion 15868, in the name of Stuart Stevenson on standing order rule changes legislation. I call on Stuart Stevenson to move the motion on behalf of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee in maximum four minutes, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. The Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee is proposing two sets of rule changes relating to legislation procedures. The first is to implement some of the recommendations that committees inquiry into legislation procedures. Many of our recommendations do not require changes to the Parliament's rules, but we think that there could be better information about legislation procedures to encourage the public to engage with us. We will monitor, as a committee, how those recommendations have been implemented before progress is made. Certain other recommendations do require standing order changes. First, we recommend a rule change to bring forward the deadline for lodging amendments at stage 2 by one day, making it four sitting days. We also recommend a similar change at stage 3 to bring forward the deadline from four to five days. The purpose of the change is to allow more time for MSPs and others to understand the amendments before the decision is taken on them. We are also proposing a rule change to require a wider range of delegated powers to be explained in the delegated powers memorandum. We also recommend changing the rules to require all public bills containing delegated powers to be accompanied by a delegated powers memorandum, not simply Scottish Government bills. We are proposing to change the deadlines for producing revised or supplementary delegated powers memorandums and revised or supplementary financial memoranda. Those proposed new rule changes mean that more time will be protected for committees to scrutinise revised documents. Crucially, neither the member in charge of the bill nor committees will be any worse off under the new rules. The rule changes will help to improve the accessibility of legislation process and protect more time for scrutiny. We recommend that our successor committee monitors how the rules work in practice to ensure that they are operating as intended. We are also recommending rule changes for hybrid and private bills that affect third parties. Current rules state that any amendment to a hybrid bill that affects a private interest is not admissible if the holder of that interest has not had the opportunity to comment on it. It is based on identifying the need to consult new effective parties when an individual amendment is lodged and its admissibility is being determined. That simply is not always practical within the time available for lodging amendments. We now propose that there be a single deadline for all amendments at stage 2 of hybrid or private bills. The committee will reach a view on whether any amendments lodged adversely affect private interests. If the hybrid or private bill committee decides that one or more amendments do adversely affect private interests, the committee will decide whether the amendments have merit. If they decide that they have merit, the process of debating and deciding on amendments will be put on hold until those affected have had the opportunity to lodge objections to and give evidence on those amendments. If the committee decides that an amendment does not have merit, the amendment will fall at that point. The advantage of this approach would be that, if there are several amendments that adversely affect private interests, they would all be identified at one point and consulted on at the same time, thus minimising the delay in the progress of the bill. I am pleased to move motion S4M-15868 that stands in my name. The Scottish Government supports the principles of periodically reviewing the Scottish Parliament's working practices and procedures to ensure that they remain fit for purpose. I would like to acknowledge the committee's thorough and measured assessment of current legislative procedures used by the Parliament and the helpful improvements that it has identified. To be clear, I support the changes proposed by the committee as proportionate and practical ways of ensuring that we maintain an appropriate balance between efficiency and effectiveness in the scrutiny of bills. The Government will play its part in ensuring that they are implemented in full in the next parliamentary session. It will be important to monitor the practical impact of those changes to ensure that they do not give rise to any unintended consequences, and I encourage the committee's successor to keep that under review. The next item of business is consideration of motion S5M-15867, in the name of Stuart Stevenson, on standing order rule changes, admissibility of petitions and minor rule changes. I call on Stuart Stevenson to move the motion on behalf of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee three minutes, Mr Stevenson. The Public Petitions Committee recently wrote to the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee about the rules on admissibility of petitions. The petitions committee wished to formalise in standing orders certain long-standing practices adopted by the committee, which are currently set out in guidance. First, the petitions committee proposed new rules that a petition should not breach any law or refer to any matter in relation to which legal proceedings are active, and a petition making a request that is clearly frivolous should be inadmissible. We noted that those proposed changes would be relatively technical. They are designed to rule as inadmissible petitions that breach the law or are clearly frivolous. Those changes seem to us on the SPPA to be sensible and appropriate. The petitions committee also proposed that a petition calling for the same or substantially similar action within a year of closure of a previous petition on the issue should be inadmissible. A petition that fails to raise an issue of national policy or practice should be inadmissible. We noted that those rules would restrict certain types of petitions from being considered by the petitions committee. However, in practice, the petitions committee already does not consider those types of petitions. The rule simply translates into standing orders—the long-standing working habits of the committee. We proposed some rule changes in our report to give effect to those changes. We think that changing standing orders should make the rules clearer and more transparent for people wishing to lodge petitions. The report also covered some other minor rule changes. First, we proposed that a cross-reference in the rules on consolidation bills should be tidied up. Secondly, we are proposing some minor rule changes arising from the interests of the Scottish Parliament amendment act 2016. The act introduces some new sanctions for breaching the act, including exclusion of a member from the Parliament, withdrawal of a member's right to use the facilities and services of the Parliament and withdrawal of salaries and allowances. The procedure for imposing such sanctions is the lodging of a motion by the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee followed by a debate and vote in the chamber. The procedure is provided for in the proposed new rules. We are proposing a rule to allow for the new sanction also of motion absentia. I am pleased to move motion S4M-15867, which stands in my name. I now call Mike McMahon to speak on behalf of the Public Petitions Committee. One of the rules of the Public Petitions Committee is to keep under review the operations of the Parliament's petition process. I would like to say a little bit about the effect of the rule changes on that process. The change to rule as an admissible petition that breaches the rule of law reflects a similar requirement in relation to motions. As has been indicated, the proposed rule change in relation to a petition being on a matter of national policy or practice is the formalisation of a long-standing practice. Petitions can and frequently do derive from personal or local issues, and that will continue to be the case. Far in a way, the majority of petition proposals that are received are serious on the subject matter that they raise. However, on occasion, proposals are received that are technically admissible but clearly frivolous. Changing the admissibility rules in the way proposed will make responding to such proposals a clearer and easier task. At present, the rules say that the petition cannot be brought in the same or similar terms as a petition that was brought by the same person and was closed less than 12 months previously during the same session. The changes to standing orders proposed would remove the same person element from the rules. That strikes the balance between the opportunity to petition being open to all and the effective use of parliamentary time. Overall, those changes are intended to assist in providing additional clarity in the operation of the petition's process. The revised standing orders would complement the determination on the proper form of petitions and new guidance for petitioners that will be developed. Together, those would support the on-going delivery of a robust and transparent system that allows the public to put issues directly to the Parliament's agenda. The question this motion will be put at decision time. The next item of business is consideration of motion number 15911, in the name of Liam McArthur on the reimbursement of members' expenses scheme. I call on Liam McArthur to move the motion on behalf of the Scottish parliamentary corporate body. The question this motion will be put at decision time to which we now come. There are four questions to be put as a result of today's business. The first question is at motion number 15904, in the name of Jim Eadie, on the inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the closure of the Porthlord bridge, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed to. The next question is at motion number 15868, in the name of Stuart Stevenson on standing order rule changes legislation, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The next question is at motion number 15867, in the name of Stuart Stevenson on standing order rule changes, admissibility of petitions and minor rule changes, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The next question is at motion number 15911, in the name of Liam McArthur, on the reimbursement of members' expenses scheme, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed to. That concludes decision time. We now move to members' business. Members who leave the chamber should do so quickly and quietly.