 The next item of business is a debate on motion 17660 in the name of Mark Ruskell on the restricted rose 20 miles per hour speed limit. Scotland Bill can ask those members who wish to speak in the debate to press the request to speak buttons. I call on Mark Ruskell to speak to and move the motion. Mr Ruskell, please. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Since devolution, there have been choices for this Parliament to make to break from the status quo to be bold and lead the change. From the smoking ban to alcohol minimum pricing, this Parliament has led the way in making small changes, which will have a big impact on the health of our nation for generations to come. Today, I am asking Parliament to take another step forward to make our streets and communities permanently safer. 21 hour speed limits make a big contribution to the safety of everyone on the streets where we live and especially to children. They reduce speed, prevent deaths and injuries, encourage choices to walk and cycle, while public support for them continues to grow year on year. Yet they remain exceptions to a blanket 30-mile-an-hour rule set nearly 90 years ago, expensive to introduce and inconsistently applied, a postcode lottery as to whether a community is protected, with our most deprived communities often left behind. I am asking Parliament to consider the fundamental question here. What should the default speed limit be on the streets where we live? If the answer to that question is 20 miles an hour, then this bill is the only credible approach that delivers that goal in a way that is nationally consistent, timely and cost-effective. Presiding Officer, I have been delighted over the last three years to have worked with a wide range of organisations, from councils to public health bodies, road safety organisations, schools and many thousands of individuals who backed this bill. Public support has been strong and countless studies have shown the majority of the public support 20 limits and that that support goes up once they are introduced. Over 1,900 people responded to the initial consultation on the bill. Well over 6,500 people responded to the consultation that the committee ran, showing 62 per cent support. In building the case for the bill, I would like to thank in particular Rod King and the team at 20s Plenty for providing support to their extensive networks across the UK. I was delighted to be invited to address meetings in Wales last year, including in the Senate, where there is now a strong cross-party consensus, with the First Minister recently announcing that Wales will be switching to a 20-mile-an-hour default national limit. Their proposal to allow councils to retain 30 limits on a minority of roads that they are choosing exactly mirrors of my own bill here. It will make Wales the first 20-mile-an-hour nation in the UK. I would also like to thank councils for their active support. Orkney, Shetland, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Angus, East Renfrewshire, Dumfries and Galloway, Midlothian, Renfrewshire, Stirling, East Dunbartonshire, Highlands, Angus, Aberdeen and South Lanarkshire councils have all been strong supporters. Glasgow City Council recently passed a motion in support, while City of Edinburgh have said that this bill would have halved the cost of their 20-mile-an-hour roll-out had it been in place at the time. Councils that want to make the streets where we live safer want a default 20 limit. It is only a small minority of councils, most notably the Borders, who are out of step in wanting to choose whether to implement 20 limits or not. However, why should a child growing up on a street in Galloway Shields deserve any less protection than a child living on a street in Edinburgh? Throughout the development of the bill, my team has also worked closely with the Society of Chief Officers of Transportation Scotland, who are the representative body of all our roads authorities. Those are the people who would be directly responsible for implementing the bill. I would like to thank them for their input into the costings and their continued support, which was reaffirmed again last night in their formal response to the committee's report. Many councils are now awaiting the introduction of the bill to make the full roll-out of 20 cheaper and easier across all their communities. On the public health case, I have been delighted to work with organisations, including the Royal College of Child and Pediatric Health, the Glasgow Centre for Population and Health, the Faculty of Public Health, the British Heart Foundation, the British Lung Foundation and NHS Scotland, who are again all back this bill. The Glasgow Centre were instrumental in helping us to understand the impact this bill would have on protecting and saving lives. Their studies show that, even with a modest reduction in average speeds, the bill would save five lives, 750 casualties and £39 million every year. Those are real people whose lives would be saved and transformed and real savings that will keep coming each and every year for decades to come, simply for the cost of changing the road signs. If I can get the time back, Presiding Officer. Yes, you can. There is time in hand in this debate, so I can be very flexible. It is good for everybody. Mr Kerr. I thank the member for taking the intervention. It is just a question on all that he has just been saying about the impact of reducing the speed limits, but does he not concede that that only happens if the impact of the bill is to actually reduce in practice the speed limit as he wishes? Mark Ruskell. Yes, that is quite a basic question. I would point the member to the extensive policy memorandum that details all the studies that show what kind of speed reduction we would be looking at if we implemented 20 across the nation. The bill is predicated on the existing roll-out of 20 miles an hour across cities across the UK, so we are not starting with some kind of rocket science here. We know the impact of 20 mile an hour zones already. We know what the impact will be if we go for a national default. We also know the devastating impact, Presiding Officer, that a fatality can bring to families, to whole communities. Even minor incidents can destroy a person's confidence, leaving them unable to cycle or be fearful of traffic for the rest of their lives. The Royal College of Child Pediatric Health said that the bill would have an immediate beneficial impact on the health of children and young people, creating safer places to walk, cycle and play, reducing fatal and non-fatal injuries. I have also been pleased to work with a huge range of other organisations that know this bill will make a transformation in the livability of our communities. Sustrans, Living Streets, Cycling UK, British Cycling, Scottish Cycling, Transform Scotland, Pedal on Parliament, The Ramblers, Friends of the Earth, Paths for All, Break, Spokes, Go-Bike, Guide Dogs and dozens and dozens of community councils and parent councils all back the bill. A joint letter from over 20 national bodies and the newly appointed active nation commissioner Lee Craigie was clear and unequivocal in its support, saying that a Scotland-wide reduction speed limits will save lives every year not only through reduced casualties but as more people choose active forms of travel and the air quality in our communities improves. We cannot wait for individual local authorities to implement this in a few limited areas, as and when they have the resources. We cannot wait for more studies. The Royal Economy, Fair Work and Culture Committee heard many of these arguments. Indeed, they were highlighted in their report, which concluded that sign-only 20-mile-hour limits deliver important increases in walking cycling and agreed that 20-mile-hour zones can contribute social inclusion, quality of life and the livability of neighbourhoods and streets. It went on further to say that it supports the development of 20-mile-hour zones in Scotland, especially where pedestrians are present and acknowledges the road safety benefits that they would deliver. How is it that both the committee and the Government could then conclude that there should be discretion given to councils to do nothing on 20 miles an hour? It is quite unfathomable, because we know that the current blanket 30-mile-hour limit will continue to kill, to maim and to destroy lives. That is a fact that every MSP must think on when they choose which way to vote on the bill. If the Government wants Scotland to be the best place for children to grow up, then prove it. Make their streets safer places to play, walk and cycle. If the Government backs 20 miles an hour as the safe speed limit in those streets, please do not leave it to a postcode lottery. Leave the change in Parliament and back the bill for the sake of all future generations. I move the motion in my name. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and I am pleased to contribute to the debate as convener of the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee. The committee's stage 1 report was published on 31 May. Our report is clear in that the committee supports the policy aim behind the bill of seeking to widening the implementation of 20-mile-hour zones in Scotland with the objective of reducing death and serious injury on roads. I thank the member in charge for promoting that important objective and for his recent response to our report. I thank the Cabinet Secretary for Helpfully Responding to the report before today's debate. I also thank all those who submitted evidence to the committee and to the clerks for their help and support during that process. It is important to highlight that the committee heard very mixed views on the bill. Furthermore, the available research was often mixed and its conclusions were often very inconclusive. That has shaped the committee's conclusion on the bill, which I will now turn to. Indeed, I am prepared if there is time back. I have already said that there is time in hand for everybody, so do not be feared. I would ask the member to remember that I am reflecting the views of the committee and will do so carefully. Well, you have been told, Mr Finnie. I am grateful for the member taking the intervention. I absolutely accept that the convener will do that. I was just going to ask whether the convener is going to come on to the fact that, although we did hear mixed views, it is also the case that members made different interpretations of the same evidence that we heard. Mr Mountain. Indeed, and as I make progress through my speech, I will try to reflect that the fact that there was a difference of opinion of members, of course. On the issue of public health outcomes and social benefits, the committee concluded that the 20 million hours sign-only zones contribute a small but important increase in active travel modes, such as walking and cycling, due to an increased perception of safety. We also acknowledged that reducing the speed limit might improve air quality, although the evidence on the issue was inconclusive. We also felt that the 20 million hours speed limit zones might contribute to social inclusion, quality of life and the livability of neighbourhoods and streets, but only effectively if they were part of wider urban placemaking. When it comes to journey times and congestion, again, the committee heard mixed views on whether 20 million hours speed limits would have an impact on either journey times or traffic congestion. The available research suggested that 20 million hours speed limits do not generally have significant impact on either of those. Turning to the practicalities of implementing the bill, I would like to highlight the following points on behalf of the committee. The bill proposes that its provisions be commenced at the end of a period of 18 months after the enactment of the bill. However, the public agencies who would implement the bill's provisions called for a longer period, given existing and forthcoming commitments. When it comes to compliance and enforcement, the committee found that the current compliance with 20-mile-an-hour speed limits is poor, and a combination of measures such as traffic calming and speed limits is more effective than a speed limit by itself. I am prepared on the same basis. I thank the member for taking intervention. The two points that he has made about compliance—I apologise for what I just missed—are both issues that can be addressed as a bill that proceeds through Parliament. They are not germane to the principle of the idea about what the default speed limit in Scotland should be. Would you agree? I am sure that other members of the committee will comment on that, but we did hear from Police Scotland that it does not prioritise enforcement of 30-mile-an-hour or 20-mile-an-hour zones. Police Scotland confirmed that it is focusing on enforcing speed limits on higher speed roads, where serious accidents were more likely to occur. I am afraid that I have taken two interventions and that it is fair. It is fair to allow the convener to try to put the committee's view across without questioning him on the committee's view, which we will have an opportunity to do to each committee member. Police Scotland, as I said, is focused on enforcing limits on higher speed roads. That might not be viewed as an impediment to compliance with 20-mile-an-hour speed limits. However, the committee was of the view that the proposals in the bill would be unlikely to result in a change to the approach taken by the police in enforcing speed limits. On the issue of public awareness, the committee heard that a detailed, concerted campaign would be required to raise awareness of the proposed reduced speed limit should the bill be passed. We learned that this campaign would need to be more extensive and sustained than the bill proposes. Overall, it would need to contain a major shift in cultural understanding of why the speed limits exist, with the aim of increasing compliance rates. The committee also found that the existing process for local authorities to implement 20-mile-an-hour speed limits are cumbersome and resource intensive. We are of the view that those should be more straightforward to make the process easily and easier. Consequently, we welcome the Scottish Government's current exercise with COSLA and the Society of Chief Officers of Transportation in Scotland to consider ways in which those processes can be simplified and improved. I note that the cabinet secretary to the response to the committee does not provide any further information on that exercise. However, I would ask him on behalf of the committee to ensure that the committee is kept updated on the progress and outcomes of the review. On COSLA, the committee also heard about wide-ranging uncertainties on the estimated costs and savings of the bill, leading it to conclude that the financial memorandum is not robust. Costs that were not fully recognised include the following assessment of effective roads, local authorities wishing to retain some roads at 30-mile-an-hour zones, establishing total numbers of restricted roads that would be subject to the bill's proposals, given that that number of roads is not known, no estimation of staff or resources in the police force and criminal justice system, and also the Scottish Government cost for the trunk roads network. The cabinet secretary has clarified in his response that the Scottish Government would have to provide additional financial support to local authorities if this bill were passed. However, that financial support would have to come from existing transport budgets, potentially diverting resources away from existing activities. Finally, the committee also made a very clear message given by the Scottish Government through the stage 1 process that a great deal of further consideration to the process, impact and consequences of a nationwide default 20-mile-an-hour speed limit would be required before it would be in a position to fully support the bill. Presiding Officer, the key points of the committee has had to be is to determine whether the bill's proposal to introduce a 20-mile-an-hour speed limit on all restricted roads in Scotland by default is the most effective way to deliver a significant increase in 20-mile-an-hour zones. Our majority view is that the default approach in the bill is not appropriate, as it does not give local authorities the flexibility to devise 20-mile-an-hour limits that they consider appropriate for their areas. As a result, the committee is unable to recommend the general principles of the restricted roads 20-mile-an-hour speed limit Scotland bill to the Parliament. I look forward to hearing the contribution from other members of the Parliament and the committee during this debate. I thank Mark Ruskell for bringing forward his bill, which has generated a wide-ranging national debate on 20-mile-an-hour speed limits. I follow the committee's consideration of the bill closely, and I thank its members for their diligent but comprehensive scrutiny of the proposal that was set out in the bill. I note the findings of the committee, and although I am sure that this was a difficult decision to reach, it highlights the complex nature of this very matter. I would like to briefly explain why the Scottish Government is not in a position to support the bill. We are committed through Scotland's road safety framework to 2020 to reduce road risk. Scotland's has well-established casualty reduction targets, and we have been successful in making progress on those targets in recent years. The Government is also committed to an active travel vision, where communities are shaped around people with walking and cycling, the most popular choice for shorter everyday journeys. The bill brings together two different issues that we need to ensure are not conflated. The first is whether 20-mile-an-hour speed limits are beneficial. The Scottish Government's view is very clear that we support 20-mile-an-hour limits that are implemented in the right environment because they have real potential to encourage more active travel and increase people's perception of feeling safe. The second is whether the blanket approach is the best way of achieving this desired benefit. I am happy to give way. Minister mentioned a blanket approach, and that reflects the language of the committees. One size fits all. Surely, as a matter of principle all around the world, a default speed limit is a default speed limit. It is a one-default speed limit. It is a one-size-fits-all. The only question is whether it should be 30 or 20. Let's go back to the point that the committee was making, Mr Wightman. That is about compliance with it and making sure that it effectively operates. We also make sure that the default speed limit is one that we can get greater levels of compliance with. The evidence shows that, if we do not provide the additional measures alongside that reduction speed limit, compliance is not of a good standard. I am of the view that further consideration needs to be given to the process, impact and consequences of a nationwide default 20mph speed limit, including an assessment of Scotland's road network, before we can be sure that the proposed bill will achieve its aim. We need to ensure that there are no unintended consequences from the bill, such as whether reducing speed limits on restricted roads, where a 20mph limit could have detrimental effects, or whether not reducing the speed limit on non-restricted roads, where a 20mph speed limit would be decidable and inhibit consistency across the country. The minister suggested that we do not pass laws unless we are absolutely sure that they are going to be enforced. Did the minister take that view when Scotland decided to ban smoking in public places? You have to have a vision minister. You do not like presumed liability. You will not pay for infrastructure. You are not interested in reducing the speeds on our roads. Just exactly what are you going to do to make Scotland's streets safer for people? Michael Matheson, as I have made very clear, the Scottish Government supports the introduction of 20mph zones. What we do not support is a one-size-fits-all, blanket approach to all-restricted roads, which is what exactly the bill proposes to do. In order to achieve the benefits that 20mph speed limits bring, particularly on road safety, we need to ensure their compliance. Police Scotland was clear in advising the committee that speed limits should be effectively self-enforcing and seem to be appropriate by a significant majority of motorists. By implementing speed limits that are appropriate to the road design and conditions, rather than applying a blanket 20mph sign-only speed limit, it ensures that other speed limits are not brought into dispute. I note the committee's conclusion. The approach proposed in the bill is making all-restricted roads default to 20mph before carrying out an assessment of those roads to examine whether the cump speed limit profile and road design would mind themselves to sign only 20mph speed limits is not appropriate, as it restricts local authorities' flexibility in devising 20mph limits that they consider appropriate in their areas. Daniel Johnson I am grateful for the minister for giving way, but could he please explain to me that if a road is designed and acceptable to drive at 30mph, what on earth would mean that it is not appropriate to drive at 20mph on the same road? I do not understand that. I would appreciate an explanation. If you consider the committee's report, it highlights the fact that design features are key factors that influence the speed at which people drive on roads. That is why, for many 20mph zones in local authorities just now, they have additional traffic calming measures in order to achieve compliance. Sign-only 20mph speed limits do not achieve that type of compliance, and the evidence from cities that have taken that approach has demonstrated that. That is why I remain convinced that local authorities are best placed to make local decisions based on their local knowledge and evidence on where 20mph speed limits should be implemented. Both the Government and COSLA have always recognised the ambition of this bill and understand the rationale. However, the practical challenges of a one-size-fits-all approach are significant. Both the Government and COSLA remain supportive of creating safer roads for all road users, but that must be achieved through identifying alternative, more flexible ways of widening the implementation of 20mph zones and speed limits in Scotland. Therefore, we are taking forward a range of work with our partners to identify more straightforward, efficient and effective procedures for local authorities in order to encourage wider use of 20mph speed limits. One example of the work being undertaken is a review of the current traffic regulation order process that will determine whether that creates a barrier to the implementation of 20mph speed limits. We have sought the views of local authorities on the TRO process and provided an opportunity for them to detail their concerns and to consider whether the process could be streamlined. Once the analysis is complete, we will share the results with stakeholders and outline what options can be taken forward to improve that process. I want to make progress, and I am about to finish here as well. Those solutions can be taken forward through collaborative working with our partners within local authorities. I consider the blanket sign-only approach proposed within the bill without the identification of the roads that would be affected will not achieve its aims. The road assessment is required in order to examine where the current speed profile and road design would mind themselves to sign only 20mph speed limits and will achieve the benefits that we all wish to see. Given all of the above, I support the conclusions and recommendations from the committee, but I can assure the chamber that we will continue to take forward measures to assist our colleagues and local government to introduce a wider range of 20mph speed limits in urban areas. I thank Mark Ruskell and his staff and team for bringing forward that piece of legislation. We appreciate the hard work that goes into a member's bill. I can only imagine the workload that it has added to his office. To give credit to the member, he took a great deal of time and effort in the very early days to meet Opposition members, share his thoughts and listen to our views and concerns from day 1. I was equally happy to welcome the 20s plenty group into my office and have a very frank and productive conversation with them, such as and was my goodwill to approach the bill logically and indeed respectfully. I should also say that, even though the majority view of the committee was not to recommend the general principles of the bill, that does not mean that on these benches we do not support the concept of Lord's speed limits or zones. Nor do I think that it is the end of the road in terms of how we as a Parliament and politicians hold the Government to account on this issue. When the bill was originally announced, I won't lie, I was quite skeptical about it. However, as a member of the committee, as my party's spokesman on transport, as a pedestrian, a cyclist and indeed a driver, I approached this debate with an openness to listen and to learn. What struck me the most about the evidence sessions that we had in stage 1 was the sheer inconsistency of evidence, data that was presented to us and the conflicting and, to be honest, at times confusing views presented. I see members nodding their head, but I sat there for every evidence session. The committee found it genuinely difficult when we met in private after the evidence sessions to agree the outcomes and sum up the veracity of the evidence received. There was a bit of me hoping that such would be the strength of that evidence, that it would be profoundly helpful one way or the other, but it wasn't. I appreciate that the recommendations of this report will not please everyone. It must be deeply disappointing and frustrating to the lobby who support the bill. However, I can assure members that we approached this and we considered this issue diligently in the way that committees of this Parliament should. We gave the member and the bill the respect that it was due, but we did come to the conclusion that we could not support it. It didn't feel in any way like a victory to those who weren't keen on the bill from day one. I'll be honest, is the status quo on how 20-mile per hour zones roll out in this country working perfectly? Does every community who wants a reduced speed limit zone in their area able to do so easily or efficiently? If the answer is no to that question, then I would suggest that today's debate is not the end of the conversation, but should be the beginning. Any suggestion that the committee did not approve the principles of the bill because we do not care about public safety or about children or cyclists or pedestrians or we do not care about the environment, those criticisms are misguided and indeed unhelpful. On one hand, I appreciate that he would like to go further on 20-mile per hour zones. Can he enlighten the chamber as to how the Conservative Party will be bringing forward proposals on 20-mile per hour limits in the next manifesto? As I said, we were happy to support the roll-out of further 20-mile per hour zones, two things on that. I was going to come on to it, but I'm happy to address it now. Is that the current TRO process, as the committee suggested, is cumbersome, it is onerous and it is difficult for local authorities who want to introduce those zones, that must and should improve. That's the first thing that will be in my view on that. Secondly, as others have mentioned, I think that it's up to local authorities to make those decisions. I do not think that the approach that the bill took gave sufficient flexibility for local authorities to do what is right in their areas. What is right for urban Scotland may not be right for parts of rural Scotland. I appreciate lots of people. Please let me make some progress. If I have a lot of other points to make, I will make some progress and then I'll happily let some members in. We heard from a wide range of stakeholders and I won't go into some of the issues. I think that lots of other members who either sit in the committee or have an interest in this will go in to the evidence that we got. However, I do think that we need to look at the practicalities of what a nationwide change from 30 to 20 miles per hour would look like. I appreciate the convener who talked about some of the perhaps controversial comments that were made by Police Scotland, who, as far back as March, said that catching people who break the 20-mile per hour zone limit would not be a priority for them. I think that they acknowledged that that was not an easy or popular thing to say. They came back subsequently and said that many people, and I quote, may not understand the evidence-based decisions behind our current deployment priorities, nor accept that resources are finite. Of course, it's right that they should tackle all rule-breaking on our roads. In a perfect world, they probably would, but it's equally logical that they have to deploy their resource in the hotspots where the highest levels of RTAs and fatalities take place, dangerous and high-speed driving on the A909 or the A809, not somebody driving down Broughton Street in Edinburgh's new town at 25 miles per hour at 2 in the morning. We have to be realistic about this, and we have to legislate sensibly. We consider the bill in every way possible. If I have some time, I'm happy to. Mark Ruskell, I wanted Mr Greene to engage with the evidence that he had from Professor Adrian Davis, which showed that although there are high numbers of people killed on rural roads, there are far greater numbers of people who are seriously injured, life-changing injuries on residential streets. We're talking about residential streets here where people are dying. That's where my friend at school died. He didn't die on an A9 road. He died on a residential street where he lived, and that's where the police need to take greater enforcement action. Jamie Greene. I think that the member has made his point, and I hope that the police are listening to that point and reflect on that. I don't think that this has been an easy thing to consider. I do think that the committee gave it its all, though. There was nothing in the bill that we did not look at. We looked at the finances of it, and I know that it's not all about money. We looked at the impact on average speeds, and I think that the result was negligible. We looked at congestion, we looked at air quality, we looked at the accident reduction levels, we looked at the issue of adherence and, indeed, enforcement. Nothing was left out. But just because the bill did not garner sufficient support or, indeed, raised many questions and answering some, I would like to close on a mixed note. As I said in my opening, I don't think that the Government has been let off the hook on this issue. I would like to see the current process improved. I think that the member was laudable in his aims and ambitions, and I hope that he will command the respect of the chamber for bringing this forward. My view is that the bill was the wrong answer to the right question. If the Government does not react to the member's concerns or to the committee's concerns, then, rest assured, Mr Ruskell, that those benches will work with him and anybody else to ensure that, if there are on-going barriers to establishing 20-mile per hour zones where they are wanted, he will have our support for that. I am pleased to open the debate on behalf of Labour and, to make it clear, we will be voting to put children's safety first today by supporting the bill. It is also important to place on record that, when some members referred to the view of the committee, that was not the view of all of the committee. It was almost a third of members dissenting very clearly from that view. I want to thank Matt Ruskell for bringing the bill forward. It has put the issue of lower speed limits on the political agenda and forced a long overdue discussion on the failures of the current approach to 20-mile per hour and delivering the benefits for far more communities. The benefits are clear and evidence. Research by the Glasgow Centre for Population Health showed that the introduction of a 20-mile per hour speed limit in Scotland could result in up to 755 fewer casualties a year and five fewer fatalities. Multiple studies have shown a reduction in emissions with research in Wales suggesting that transport emissions are reduced by 12 per cent, where there are 20-mile per hour limits. The benefits in reducing air pollution is why the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommends the introduction of 20-mile per hour limits. Research by the Department for Transport reported a statistically significant increase in active travel in response to the introduction of 20-mile per hour speed limits. The pilot of Edinburgh's own 20-mile per hour limit showed a 7 per cent increase in journeys taken on foot, a 5 per cent increase in journeys taken by bike, and a 3 per cent decrease in journeys taken by car. During stage 1, the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee heard the social, environmental and safety benefits of 20-mile per hour speed limits for improved road safety to reduce emissions to increased levels of active travel. The case for 20-mile per hour limits and built-up areas was clear. This is not a rural versus urban issue. It is about residential areas, whether they are in a village or in a city, gaining from those benefits. That is why the bill has strong public support. Indeed, the backing of more than 80 per cent of respondents in the bill's consultation. Given the strength of evidence and support, I am disappointed that the majority of committee members decided not to recommend the general principles of the bill. One of the myths against the bill are claims that it will not work because in existing 20-mile per hour areas, many people do not stick to that speed limit. It is a point that the cabinet secretary made, but that is an argument against the current ad hoc policy. It is a reason to support the bill not to oppose it. Drivers are used to driving at 30-mile per hour, and only by making 20-mile per hour the norm will we change that culture and habit so that we become used to driving at 20-mile per hour. A national approach would help to ensure that that happens and the benefits are also shared more equally in communities. The Faculty of Public Health in Scotland raised this issue at the committee, stating that, allowing each local council to pick and choose the areas that implement 20-mile per hour limits or zones risks widening health inequalities. The introduction of 20-mile per hour limits has been proven to deliver significant health benefits from safer roads to reduce pollution and to increase active travel. A postcode lottery should not determine whether people get those benefits or not, and only a new national default will deliver those benefits for all. Its recommendations, the committee stated that it supports the aim of seeking to widen the implementation of 20-mile per hour zones in Scotland, with the objective of reducing death and serious injuries in roads. Applying to my question at the committee, the cabinet secretary also said that there is good evidence that 20-mile per hour should be introduced, but the reality is that that will not happen under the current system. While councils may choose to introduce 20-mile per hour zones in the areas, many choose not to, even where there is clear demand and clear evidence. The piecemeal ad hoc approach has not, will not and cannot deliver the long-term cultural change that we need. The Society of Chief Officers of Transportation in Scotland told the committee in a quote that there is a reluctance to roll out 20-mile per hour limits more widely in some local authorities. Scots also stated that local councils are made clear that simply tweaking the TRO process to reduce the financial and administrative burden of introducing a new speed limit street by street welcome, as that might be, will not deliver the change needed. We need national action and we need national leadership. Moving beyond stage 1 and agreeing the general principles would allow us to start to have that debate about what that national action should be. It would also be an opportunity to test the myths against the bill. For example, the claim that it implements a one-size-fits-all approach across the country, even when such a speed limit is not appropriate. That is simply not true. The bill would change the default speed limit for built-up areas and local authorities would still have the power to exempt roads from the default speed limit, just as it is able to introduce higher limits in some of the 30-mile per hour zones at the moment. The bill is no more a one-size-fits-all approach than the current policy of 30 miles per hour is a one-size-fits-all approach. What is being dismissed as that one-size-fits-all approach is actually a call for consistency to avoid confusion, encourage long-term behavioural change and ensure the benefits of 20-mile per hour are felt equally across the country. Those who claim that local authorities should have to do the work to deliver 20-mile per hour street by street because that is what they want ignore the fact that many local authorities support the bill, often because it would be less onerous and less expensive than the current system. City of Edinburgh council told the committee that implementing the new speed limit in this way, as opposed to doing it independently street by street, would have more than half the cost. Another myth that would increase speed limit enforcement problems is simply not true. There is no evidence to suggest that the enforcement problems are any different from the ones that we face in existing 30-mile per hour zones. That is an issue about police resources and priorities. If the Government is truly convinced that the approach that is set out in the bill is not the best way to achieve the aim of moving towards a speed limit of 20-mile per hour in residential areas, it needs to start to come up with alternatives because the current system is failing our communities. It needs to show the same leadership in Scotland as we have seen recently in Wales. The Welsh Government has set up a task and finish group to look at how we can achieve its aim of implementing a default speed of 20-mile per hour. In London, transport for London is also rolling out 20-mile per hour, and London's Mayor Sadiq Khan wants that expanded beyond the centre of London. It is time for Scotland to catch up with other parts of the UK. My challenge to the Scottish Government today is to make clear that Scotland will show the ambition other parts of the UK are shown. Make clear that when a child walks into school or to the local play part benefits from doing so on streets with lower speed limits, they should not be determined which part of Scotland they live in as to whether they get those benefits. The Government should establish a task force with a very clear aim of delivering 20-mile per hour in Scotland's residential areas and make clear that Scotland will become a safer place to live. I thank all my colleagues in the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee for their diligent attention to the matter. At the end of the day, we take up different conclusions. I am disappointed at that, but I absolutely accept that views are held in good faith. My intervention to the convener was not to question his role or, but it was to say that what we did was that we all heard the same thing. We drew different conclusions from it. It is maybe to think why we might have drawn different conclusions from it. We are all shaped by our experience. If it is others, you have had the misfortune to deal with a child casualty, for instance, that might take your perception of the relative importance of road signs and put it in a different category. My word, any cursory check of the official report will show the inordinate and ridiculous length of time that we spent discussing road signs. Road signs are a factor. What causes people is irresponsible driver behaviour, and one of the worst causes of casualty is speed. We know from people like the Royal College of Pediatricians that, when they say very simply, slower traffic makes for safer streets, which means fewer children are cold than are roads. That is a briefing that we have all had, and we have had a number of briefings. This bill was scrutinised. People make their different views on and on the different track, but it is also about different priorities. In an awful lot of our views and a lot of the language, anyone analysing the language will see that it is shaped in a presumption that the motor car is king. You need to only walk about anywhere and whether you are going to cross a road with someone emerging from a junction. The presumption that they will have, if it is an uncontrolled crossing, is that the motor car is important. I might or may not have mentioned this in the committee before, or maybe informally in the private section, but there was a great Walt Disney cartoon that epitomises what a lot of underplays is. It was called Mr Walker, Mr Driver. I think that Mr Walker was a dog, and Mr Walker was a lovely dog. He was very friendly and he walked everywhere and spoke to everyone. He came up in the world and Mr Walker got a car, and he became Mr Driver. What a horrible piece of work he was. He was shaking his fist out there. Not everyone, not everyone, of course, reacts like that, but first and foremost we must consider human beings. I would hope that human beings would be at the forefront of our considerations with the 755 casualties per year and the five deaths per year. Those are hugely important figures. There is another issue that has been germane to this debate, and it is one that peppers a lot of discussions we have in our conscious, particularly that Government ministers use it, and I absolutely understand why. It is the issue of central election versus local autonomy, and I absolutely get that. The people on this bench are like local government. We like local a lot. I wonder when we will come next week to discuss amendments to another piece of legend if people are going to say, absolutely, absolutely, stick to the idea that central determination is inappropriate in what we need to make this local decision. I fear not, and of course I fear not. We can take different decisions in different things. I want to talk about the issue of enforcement and say that I was bitterly disappointed from what I heard from Police Scotland. It is a former police officer. If there is a danger that—this manifests itself in people, my constituents and your constituents phoning the police in the first thing that they are told is that we are very busy—well, we are all very busy. However, if you tell someone that you are very busy, you say that you are not a priority. Human beings are a priority, and we must direct resources to protect life and property. That is a key function. What we heard from the police was that they have a system for prioritising, and the system relates to deaths. As someone who represents a largely rural consistency, of course there is not a village, a small town in the Highlands that has not been blighted by deaths of excessive speed on rural roads. However, if you do not, if what shapes your priority is detecting offenders in 20-mile-an-hour areas and you do not seek to detect, that will skew the basis in which you formalise your priority. Therefore, it was deeply disappointing—never mind some of the contradicted evidence that we have heard. The issue of—I will leave it to her—yes, indeed. I am very grateful. On that point, the member presumably will recognise that, for whatever reason, the police have limited resources and have limited time, and therefore must make prioritisation decisions accordingly. John Freed? Yes, absolutely. I will tell you what my priority would be, and I imagine if you are to say to the public what their priority would be. It would be 755 casualties a year and five lives a year that could be saved. Of course, I have said that our responsible drive behaviour is the main factor in those. The minister is entirely right to say that, of course, he can design out things and that some roads are more amenable between 20-mile-an-hour. However, there are roads that have designed that way—Easter Road, which I walk every other day—people go at excessive speed in that. There must be enforcement of the existing arrangements. The idea that cost is a factor is absolutely about priorities. My colleague Mark Ruskell laid out a considerable number of the organisations that support the situation. However, are we really saying that it is the number of signs that are in a rural village that is more important than taking steps to address? You assess her risk and you put in place steps to ameliate that risk. The most obvious step that everyone says is that the road professionals and the police accept is speed. The idea that we are not concentrating on addressing a situation means that five children's lives would be safe if we put this legislation in place. I find deeply disappointing. One could be against a bill that is designed to reduce death and serious injury on our roads, and who in particular could be against measures that would increase child safety? On the face of it, the bill before us purports to be just such a bill. Indeed, when the bill's author, Mark Ruskell, responded to the committee's report on his bill, he said that the report puts the motoring lobby ahead of child safety. I have to say that his approach and response to the committee's findings about the inadequacies of his bill seem to me to have been designed to try to deflect the criticism of his bill and pretend that some kind of motoring lobby to use his words has captured committee members. I'm pleased to see that he didn't today in the chamber repeat that ridiculous charge and I contrast his response with the measured response that we've just heard from my fellow committee member John Finnie. Members of the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee have given this bill a fair hearing. I and my Liberal Democrat colleagues want to see less accidents and we want to see safer roads across the country, but, according to the evidence, the evidence that I heard, this bill would deliver neither. Firstly, it is a myth that this bill would deliver a standard 20-mile-an-hour speed limit to replace the 30-mile-an-hour speed limit across the country. It doesn't. It is designed to reduce the speed limit only on sea-class and unclassified roads. That's the name of the bill. In our rural communities, many people want to see the speed limits on our A and B-class roads running through our villages, reduced to 20 miles an hour. That bill does not do that. To be fair to Mark Ruskell, he doesn't pretend that it does. What it does, though, is force every single road and track in our villages that are covered by street lighting to have 20-mile-an-hour signs erected at the junctions where they meet those through-village roads. No, it misses the road safety target spectacularly. Members have had their chance. We've had two speeches from the Greens already. You've made your points. Let me make the points from my perspective, and then I'll might take an intervention later. The evidence from rural local authorities like the boarders, and we've heard the criticism of the boarders, repeatedly said that speed in the areas that would be affected by this bill are not the major cause of death and serious injury. Slow-moving vehicles, reversing, and the like, were far more of a danger. They were concerned about the need to spend scarce resources on safety measures on their rural 60-mile-an-hour roads, where death and serious injury were far too common. I can vouch for that in Aberdeenshire. They were concerned that money that they would have to spend as a result of this bill would be taken away from their road safety focus. Yes, addressing the issue of money head-on, the Transport Secretary in a letter to our convener said, and I quote him, that costs associated with this bill have been significantly underestimated, and if this bill was passed, would divert resources away from existing road safety and active travel activity, potentially undermining work that would be more effective, more effective at reducing casualties. When the committee said in its report, and again, I quote, it is the view that the estimated costs and savings associated with the bill proposals are not robust. We were being polite. When in committee I asked Mark Ruskell how he estimated his costs in the financial memorandum accompanying the bill, he said that he looked at Angus Council and simply extrapolated from there. Well, that simply isn't good enough, and many of us, and many, sorry, who gave us evidence, estimated the costs of his bill at many millions more than he did. No. Now, Edinburgh Council—I have only got six minutes—now Edinburgh Council have achieved all that they wish to achieve with their 20-mile-an-hour zones, and they've done this under the current legislation. However, if this bill is passed, they would have to spend another million—you don't like hearing this, but I'm going to say it—it's the evidence that we received. They would spend another million pounds taking down 20-mile-an-hour repeater signs. Yes, it would be better if you listened, actually, to take down 20-mile-an-hour signs to comply with the law. Perversely, in my view, they are in favour of the bill because they think—and we heard that from them—that, if it were passed, they would get this funding from the Scottish Government. What a waste of public money this would be, and every local authority who has already pursued 20-mile-an-hour zones would be faced with a bill in taking down their 20-mile-an-hour repeater signs, too. If I had more time, I would love to take interventions. I have heard the evidence. Many people in this chamber did not sit through all the evidence sessions that we sat through in committee. What has convinced me, however, that this bill is not necessary is the evidence from the transport secretary when he told the committee that he already had the power to change the speed limits through regulations. He does. If he thought that this was the right thing to do, he would do it. He does not think that this is the right thing to do, and I agree with him. I'll say that again. I agree with the transport minister, and I believe that, for road safety, this bill is counterproductive. Lastly, I would gently say to Mark Ruskell that what we have all done on the committee is listen carefully—and I would like other people to listen carefully—to all the evidence presented to us and to use an advertising slogan. We found that this bill doesn't do what it says on the tin, and it should not be supported at decision time. In that concluding opening speeches, we turn to the open part of the debate, and I call Stewart Stevenson to be followed by Liam Kerr. I rise to speak as someone who signed support for the proposal for this bill, but having heard the evidence has come to a disappointing conclusion. Disappointing for me, as it will be disappointing for others. However, let's start about the fundamental thesis behind all this and the matter on which we will undoubtedly agree. There is EU research that says that a human car collision at 20 miles an hour has a 10 per cent probability of fatality. At 30 miles an hour, it rises to 40 per cent probability. You get to 50 miles an hour, but it is 100 per cent probability. You can draw the line. Increasing speed in a collision causes deaths. Those figures are for an adult being hit by a vehicle. A child being hit by a vehicle does not have equivalent numbers, but I do not think that we should doubt for a single second that the effects will be substantially more severe. We will have a shared view—I am sure that Mike Rumbles will agree with that—that speed kills. The question is not so much as to whether there is a problem waiting to be solved, which we should turn our attention to. The question is really just much more about how we should do it. I will give some other numbers—by the way, a 1 per cent increase in speed results in a 4 per cent increase in fatal accidents, that is from other research. The relationship between speed and the outcome from accidents is clear and unambiguous, and I think that the committee's work absolutely recognises that. We have to be careful about what the bill does. I think that there is a danger of our misleading ourselves about what the bill does. I have not, I confess, looked at the detail of what the Welsh are proposing to do. I heard the member in charge whose every effort on this I utterly commend, without reservation, I have to say, that they are changing the national speed limit. However, of course, the bill does not do that. What it does do is address simply restricted roads. I must say that I have never really heard of restricted roads, what they were, it was not a distinction, despite being the transport minister previously of which I was aware. Mike Rumbles referred to it essentially as a road that is not an A road or a B road and has lamp posts no more than 185 metres apart. That is a restricted road. Of course, that properly covers most of the roads in most of our towns and villages where pedestrians and young pedestrians, in particular, are likely to be found. I am very grateful to the member for taking a brief intervention at this point. Would he say that it is there for, given that the description is given, it is astonishing that people say that they do not know the total length of those roads, including the cabinet secretary? Mr Stewart Stevenson? Well, if I can just find the, oh, here we are, a paragraph 140 in the committee's report said that 21 per cent of local authorities have identified the roads that they wish to attend to and those in which they would wish to retain 30, 29 per cent they have the asset darted to allow roads to be identified. There's certainly a lot of ignorance out there about the rate of our roads and I absolutely accept that that is a driver to do something about that. Absolutely and unambiguously accept. It is disappointing that the percentage is there as low as we report at paragraph 140 in the committee's report, because ignorance is not a good basis for policymaking and action on the ground. I congratulate urban areas in particular like Edinburgh who've invested the time, the effort and made the difference. It is worth, of course, reminding ourselves about the evidence that we got that the introduction of a 20-mile zone where previously it was 30 only appears to give us about a one-mile-an-hour reduction in average speeds, but averages are not the whole story, of course. The real problem, I have to say, is the problem of what those who are breaking the law are doing in a 20 compared to a 30. I don't think that we got evidence that answered that question, but I think that we probably instinctively, and I instinctively, believe that someone who's going to break the law will break the law anyway. The question of enforcement is one which we shouldn't put simply to one side. I will, yes, if the member… Jamie Greene I'm listening with careful interest to my colleague on the committee. For my benefit, you started off saying that you were a proposer and a proponent of the concept of the bill. For me, I'd be really interested in learning from your point of view what was the primary thing that made you change your mind to the position that you resulted in, because I think that that would be quite helpful. Gerstin Wilson I was just about to come to that, because it's a perfectly proper question that I should be asked, given my starting point in the debate and my ending point. It's worth saying that my political colleagues who speak from these benches will give different views on the subject, which I think is in the interests of balance. Ultimately, I think that I came at the conclusion driven by the evidence that this wasn't the most straightforward way of achieving the objectives that the bill set out for itself. It might be easier to do it simply by changing the speed limit, because there are many villages, first of all, let's say, who have streets, which actually don't have street lighting. Strictly speaking, they are not caught by the restricted road. Mr Chapman and myself could probably identify if I wanted to… The First Minister Members in his last minute. Jamie Greene I appreciate the members in his last minute. Gerstin Wilson All right. Sorry, Presiding Officer. I did want to be helpful. Equally, there are many towns and villages where there is an A or B road that goes through, and it would be appropriate to consider that for a 20. I think that this is a worthy attempt to address this particular issue, but it falls short in terms of its capability of implementation and its cost of implementation. I went through a little village close to me, and I counted that you would need 80 signs in that village. We have got to not take the pressure off Government and the minister to find a way. I am just not persuaded by the evidence that this is the way. I do so with very grave disappointment because I support the objectives that the member sought. Liam Kerr I am pleased to be given the opportunity to speak today, not as a committee member but as an advanced driver of 26 years who used to put in around 40,000 road miles a year through most UK towns and cities and also as a commuting and road and racing cyclist who believes strongly in active travel and the need to get more people cycling, particularly on urban roads. I say that at the outset because I want to recognise the work that Mark Ruskell has put into it. I believe that he is asking the right questions and seeking practical measures that could improve air quality, encourage active travel, reduce pollution and reduce accidents. That is the right thing to be doing, but I do not think that the bill will achieve it. For example, if you have everybody driving at 20mph, then yes, of course, the accidents that will still happen are less serious than at greater speeds. Despite the member's response to my intervention, I do not think that that will not happen. I saw the committee's conclusion that compliance with 20mph limits is poor. That supports some evidence from a transport research laboratory from several years ago, which found that 20mph limits reduce average speed by 0.9mph. The first area to introduce a blanket 20mph limit was Islington, and it cut the speed of 85 per cent, not even all of the traffic, by 1mph on average. The evidence suggests that a mandatory 20mph speed limit would not significantly reduce speed, and I am not convinced that it is right to mandate a cost of £10 million on to our local authorities for a possible return of 1mph. Mark Ruskell? A million across the whole of Scotland. Will the member not recognise, because there has been a lot of confusion in the committee, that an average speed is an average and that there has been much greater reduction of speed, particularly on higher speed roads, when 20mph has been introduced? You might be looking at 8, 9, 10mph reduction in speed on those higher speed roads. That is what the evidence is showing. Liam Kerr? I do not accept that that will happen across the board, but I point the member to Stuart Stevenson's point about the average speed, which I think was well made, in terms of when you average it out, you get a certain answer, but we need to understand what is happening to the people who are not compliant. It is a point that I will come back to shortly, if I may. I am not convinced that a 20mph and hour limit materially impacts safety, either. There is a Department for Transport study that would suggest that. Ironically, there is a study from York that suggests that a 20mph and hour limit could be increasing rather than reducing the risk, because it lulls pedestrians into a false sense of security. That understanding of behaviour is an important one, because it applies equally to drivers. If you remove the need for people to consciously drive, you reduce their attention. If you impose an arbitrary limit on a straight, clear urban artery on a sunny day with minimal traffic, drivers glaze over or, as happens now with blanket prohibitions that take no account of prevailing conditions, they simply ignore it. Mark Ruskell. It is just incredible that the member has not engaged with the evidence. The four-year DFT report found no evidence for the claims that he is making. Liam Kerr. I absolutely do engage with the evidence. I say this as a driver. The problem is that we cannot divorce this from the reality of what is going on outside and what will happen. Research suggests, Mr Ruskell, that drivers are using clues from the environment around them to judge appropriate speeds. Good drivers know that a limit is just that. It is a limit, not a target. We should be ensuring, as a practical solution, that drivers are trained to judge the appropriate speed, not delegate responsibility to an arbitrary, yet mandated limit. Similarly, where limits do not match the environment or prevailing conditions uncertainty and confusion are generated, which will distract from appropriate decision making. On the contrary, a speed limit that matches the road environment, promotes self-compliance and confidence in the system, removes the need for enforcement. Would it be enforced? Well, no. I found the evidence of Chief Superintendent Carl to the committee persuasive when he said that he would target limited resources towards where the majority of casualties take place. The committee heard that mobile camera units are not even calibrated for 20-mile-an-hour. John Finnie is right that what causes casualties is very short on time. That was initially told to the committee and was subsequently corrected. Liam Kerr, I can allow you some extra time. John Finnie is right that what causes casualties, to use his words, is irresponsible driver behaviour. However, the point going back to Stuart Stevenson's presentation is that it is irresponsible. A speed limit will be breached by those drivers whatever happens. Will there be an increase in the safety of cyclists? I just do not believe there will be. Even if you put a 20-mile-an-hour limit on the Great Western road in Aberdeen, you still will not get my wife and kid on it. Spend the £10 million that the committee heard about on segregated bike lanes and then we will start talking. The solution, the way to increase road safety, to remove decisions on adherence to road laws and to the issue of enforcement, is targeted 20-mile-an-hour zones, enforced by appropriate measures such as speed bumps and road designs, determined by those who know a community's roads best, the people living there, key stakeholders, the local authority and restricted to locations and times where the need for a 20-mile-an-hour zone is obvious. Any 20-mile-an-hour zone must be self enforcing by ensuring that the signposting, the features and the traffic calming measures make sense to the road users. Instead of imposing restrictions on all drivers to catch the careless, the uncaring, the irresponsible, building segregated design features for enhanced pedestrian and cycling safety. The bill's fundamental premise of a blanket 20-mile-an-hour limit would fail to achieve its stated aims, in my view, and there are better ways to achieve that behaviour change. For that reason, I will not be supporting the principles of the bill at decision time. John Mason, followed by Daniel Johnson. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I'm very pleased to speak in this debate, having been on the REC committee, as we took evidence from Mark Ruskell, from the Government and from many others. The first thing that I want to stress is that there was widespread agreement, as others have said, that 20 miles per hour is better than 30 miles per hour in residential areas. Clearly, a child or an elderly person being hit by a vehicle at 20 is going to be much less seriously hurt than if it had been at 30. That is particularly important to me, as there are more accidents in deprived areas such as parts of my constituency. The Glasgow Centre for Population Health, which is based in Bridgeston in my constituency, argues that there would be a significant positive health impact, specifically in reducing the number and severity of road traffic casualties. In referring to South Central Edinburgh and the permanent scheme in Bristol, a significant reduction in road traffic casualties and accidents are potentially possible. Nevertheless, the introduction of 20 miles per hour limits in South Central Edinburgh and Bristol led to reductions in average speed and, in the case of Bristol, significant casualty reductions. The disagreement on the committee was not where we wanted to get to, but how to get there. Edinburgh already has 80 per cent of its roads at 20, so clearly it can be done under the present system. However, Edinburgh itself said that the bill would be helpful, as it would save other councils having to go through the lengthy and expensive route that they had had to go down. In Glasgow, the city council is supporting the bill, but it sees it as simpler and a less expensive way of achieving a wider roll-out of 20 miles per hour zones. I think that there is a strong argument that having a national approach would provide consistency and is more likely to change public perception. It is in people's minds now that 30 is the norm or the default, and we need to change that thinking so that 20 becomes the norm. However, I accept that there are arguments against the bill, including, for example, that there is some uncertainty as to exactly which roads are restricted and which are not. Personally, I question whether that uncertainty really affects a huge volume of roads. Another argument against is the questions over the robustness of the financial memorandum. However, having been in this place for about eight years, I think that, frankly, you could say that about most financial memorandum. Again, I do not think that this is a killer point for the bill. Perhaps more of a real challenge as I see it is the potential multiplication of road signs. If every A and B road was to remain at 30 while every restricted road was to be 20, it would mean speed signs on virtually every street corner. However, again, the counterargument to that is that Edinburgh has avoided that to some extent by making wider areas 20, so not just the restricted roads but, in fact, part of the A1 is 20 as well. Therefore, councils would still have the power to reduce A and B roads to 20, thus giving more of a zonal approach and building on the bill's focus on the exact classification of certain roads. On the subject of signage and cost, one big uncertainty has been around repeater signs. Currently, repeater 30 signs are not allowed in a 30 zone, although they are required for 20 and 40 sections within cities. If the bill went through and the rules were not changed, then it would switch to 20 repeater signs not being allowed while 30 and 40 would be required. The cost in the financial memorandum includes something between £1 million and £2 million to remove existing 20 repeater signs. There was quite a lot of agreement on the committee that the system might need to be reviewed. The cabinet secretary said that he would be prepared to do that. I have certainly got roads at 30 in my constituency. Some members may know Clyde Gateway, which is a relatively new joe carriageway, which, by Liam Kerr's argument, should probably be a 40 road. It feels like a 40 road, but it is a 30. There are complaints about speeding and the council is not allowed to put up repeater signs, so I think that there is an issue there quite apart from the bill. On the environmental impact of the bill, I reckon that the jury is still out. We heard evidence that slowing traffic down could cause some engines to perform less efficiently, whereas we also heard evidence that some engines perform well at lower speeds, and if traffic flow becomes smoother, that would be very positive, too. The Glasgow Centre for Population Health said that the health impacts on air pollution of this type of speed limit reduction has not been estimated due to data constraints. Enforcement is another key issue, and there did appear to be some misreporting in the media of evidence that we had received. I think that Liam Kerr again had picked up on that. The police seem clear that they feel that their emphasis should be on faster roads outside towns where there is a 60-mile per hour limit and that any crash is more likely to lead to deaths. Already, there may be a question over whether more emphasis should be on tackling speed in residential areas, whether the speed limit is 30 or 20. I do not think that that affects the actual argument. One slightly ironic part of the bill is that we often think of the Greens as the party of localism and decentralisation. However, in this case, they appear to be the party of centralisation, while the Government is arguing for local authority responsibility to remain unchanged. In conclusion, I was one of the three who voted to support the bill. As the committee prepared its report, I am still not persuaded to oppose the bill despite the strong Government arguments against it. As I have said, I recognise their arguments on both sides. There is broad agreement that we should be moving towards a wider use of 20-mile per hour limits, so I will be abstaining at decision time today, which will probably keep a few people entirely happy. However, hopefully over time, as things progress, we will see something else happening in the future. I thank Mark Ruskell for bringing the bill forward and for doing the hard and diligent work that I know has gone into this. It is no mean feat to bring forward a member's bills. I know that, as I am attempting to do the same thing, this is undoubtedly a worthy and important issue. One that, unfortunately, looks like will not prevail today, and we are losing the opportunity for Scotland to be again at the forefront of leading change. In the end of the day, I fear that we will be re-returning to this issue as a laggard. That is the reality of this, because it is important. I speak as much as an MSP for Edinburgh Southern, which was where the initial trial in Edinburgh took place, but also as an apparent as an Edinburgh resident, because it is unequivocal. If we reduce traffic speeds, we will save injuries and we will save lives. Approximately 900 children were injured on our roads in 2017. The reality is that 20mph makes them seven times less likely to be injured if they are hit. Indeed, where we have seen 20mph limits introduced in places such as Hull and London, we have seen drops by as much as a half. That has changed. I think that it is worth having and making the effort. No, it is not going to be easy. Yes, there are costs, but if it saves lives and injuries, it is worth doing. That is the decision that members will have to contemplate at decision time, whether those lives and injuries are worth saving. My experience here in Edinburgh is that it is achievable. I have had to defend this. It is something where, personally, I have had to take some small amount of leadership and defend this policy, which was introduced by the Labour SNP coalition in the last council. People said that it is unnecessary and inconvenient. I do not like driving at 20mph or my favourite was that my car does not go at 20mph. All cars go at 10mph. I have had to stop myself from giving them driving instructions. I have not gone that far, but that is something that is worth having. Indeed, it is something that is enforced. I have been out with the local police as we have stopped cars going in excess of the 20mph and just one rode over to the one that I live in. What we have experienced in Edinburgh is that average speed is down. Indeed, local support for this initiative is up. We have already seen a drop in casualties as a result of that. That is something that I think the whole of Scotland should enjoy. Even my personal experience as a driver, I know that my car is more fuel-efficient since the introduction of that. I have seen that on the trip computer. I find driving calmer, frankly, because traffic speeds are down, but above all else are roads that I believe in Edinburgh are a better place for all road users, whether they are walking, cycling or indeed driving. I believe that that is a good proposal. Indeed, it is notable that the Edinburgh Council says that the costs that it incurred from introducing would have been halved under that. Yes, there are costs, and perhaps the financial memorandum is not 100 per cent accurate. As Mr Mason points out, what financial memorandums are, but it would make it cheaper to introduce. There has been a degree of inconsistency, I believe, in some of the arguments that have been made against that. On the one hand, we have heard arguments about compliance. On the other hand, we have had arguments about one-size-fits-all, but surely a consistent approach to the application of our road rules would drive up adherence to them. Are people really arguing that we should have localised highway codes in our different towns and villages? That is a nonsense. We have a single highway code on our roads because, by having a single consistent set of rules, it is how we make sure that people follow them because they know what the expectations are. After all, in 1861, when the first speed limit was introduced, it was 10 miles an hour. You do not hear people arguing for that now, nor the red flag bearer that had to proceed the drivers that he drove down the road. Those things are a matter of habit and culture. Habits and culture can be changed. Indeed, it is our responsibility to seek to change those habits and those cultures when we believe that there are benefits for doing so. I think that that is one of those situations. On the enforcement point, greater consistency will not only make it easier, but, frankly, if that is a priority, we will enforce it. I will make one small point. It is a matter that is difficult for a place, but if you remove 700 officers from local divisions, what do you expect? Not just enforcing this speed limit but, frankly, the existing ones? If that is a priority, we will make it happen, because, frankly, that comes down to leadership. I understand that there are mixed views. There are always cautious voices when it comes to change and people can be incredibly defensive when it comes to the way that they use their cars and they go about their local communities. I understand that, but I believe that there is a need for change and I believe that it is incumbent on us to stand up and make the arguments for change. Ultimately, I believe that this is a proposal that would make people saver, safer and would save lives. For those reasons, I urge all members to think on their consciences and ultimately vote for this at decision time tonight. The last speaker in the open debate is Clare Adamson. I would like to put on record my support. I thank Sir Mark Ruskell for bringing this very important issue to the four in the member's bill. I would also like to thank the committee members of the rural economy and connectivity committee for their diligence and deliberations as they went through the stage 1 process. As a former North Lanarkshire councillor and as such, a member of the Scottish Action Revenson Council and convener of the cross-party group on accident prevention and safety awareness, I am and continue to be a full supporter of appropriate 20 million error limits in Scotland. I was very keen to support and be a signatory to the proposed bill when Mark Ruskell first brought it to our attention. I have listened and read the evidence and the stage 1 report. I accept that it is unlikely that the bill will progress today, but I wish to make comment on a number of key areas. I have in front of me a notice of the North Lanarkshire Council entry and award-winning entry in the Prince Michael international awards on road safety. I will just read out the entry, which explains it also. North Lanarkshire council is 20 plenty. Highway engineering improvement 2005 winner. North Lanarkshire council believes that speed reduction will result in casualty reduction. It introduced a 20 million round speed limit in every residential area in North Lanarkshire in 2001-2002 at a cost of £360,000. North Lanarkshire council is still the only authority to have introduced an advisory 20 million error measure throughout its full area as part of an integrated programme of public education, 20 plenty's campaign and increased public accessibility of this speed reduction measure. I have in front of me the statistics on road traffic accidents since 1995 to the present day 2017. The year following that introduction, North Lanarkshire saw its biggest percentage reduction in road traffic accidents on record in that period. 15 per cent reduction, 144 fewer road traffic accidents in that time. It has continued to improve in line with the other road traffic accident statistics across Scotland. I commend the Government for the work that it has done in encouraging safer roads. However, that brought home to me just how much of an impact 20 plenty can have in a community. While it appreciates, that was a local decision, made for local reasons, I still believe that that could benefit to the whole of Scotland. What I have in front of me is a book—I know that we are not supposed to use props, but this is Rospus, Scotland's big book of accident prevention. I want to read it a couple of facts from this book, the first one, because we have talked about money and the cost of this quite a lot today. However, in Scotland, accidents cost society more than £12.4 billion per annum of which A&E attendances cost the NHS £1.48 billion per year. That book, as well as looking at the cost of a road, of an accident or a fatality in Scotland, also looks at the wider societal cost, the loss of income, the loss of the economy and what might happen when someone has a debilitating injury that will lead to intervention for the rest of their lives. That is really important. The other one that I want to read out is that children of parents who have never worked or are long-term unemployed are 20 times more likely to die as pedestrians than children of parents in higher managerial or professional occupations—20 times more likely to die as pedestrians. That issue for me is absolutely a social justice issue. Reducing accidents and making society safer for children is as much to do with tackling poverty and societal inequality as peff funding in schools and other early years interventions that we are doing. It is absolutely crucial. We often say—and it has been mentioned today—that we want Scotland to be the best place in the world to grow up. If we do, we have to take accident prevention more seriously. As I said in the chamber already, on several occasions in the past few weeks, I am delighted that the Government is looking to embed the UNCRC into our legislation, which is a specific area on accident prevention. For me, that is always and will continue to be a social justice issue that we cannot ignore. As I said, it is unlikely that the bill will go forward today, but I have to say that North Lanarkshire introduced the bill in 2021, nearly as long as the life of this Parliament. However, some local authorities are dragging their heels. I am putting my faith in the Government today, in our colleagues in COSLA, on everyone who has supported the principle of 20 million-hour zones, to work with them to encourage our local authorities to look to what they can do in their local areas and to make real progress in that area, because we have had warm words for far too long. It is time that we do this. My final moments, Presiding Officer, can we just think about—it is not just about the signage. There are lots of things coming our way in terms of the fourth industrial revolution, about black box technology, modified signs, reporting back of what can happen. At one point, there was going to be a digital map of Scotland on all of our streets and what the limits would be in those areas that could be linked to that. It is not just about police enforcement. Our insurance companies will surely be interested in that, too. I will now move to the closing speeches. Yesterday, I went outside our Parliament to meet demonstrators from across the country who understand the significance of the bill. A friend of the earth cycling UK, a peddwl on Parliament, spoke Slothian, go bike and 20s plenty have joined forces to organise that demonstration outside. After the committee failed to recommend its passage claiming that one size fits all is not appropriate, dissenting MSPs, John Finnie, Colin Smyth and John Mason, as we have heard, rejected that conclusion, pointing out that the current patchwork of different speed limits was confusing to motorists. Today, Daniel Johnson has stated that he has seen the effects of 20 miles an hour in his constituency and believes that it is achievable. It is something that he thinks that all of Scotland should enjoy. Why does not the Scottish Government transport minister, or indeed the majority of the Wreck Committee, grasp the importance of this change, of which so many councils are in support, as we heard from Mark Ruskell earlier? I sat in on two of the committee sessions and found the evidence for Mark Ruskell's bill compelling. The consistency of the approach would be similar for a 20-mile-an-hour speed limit, surely, as for a 30-mile-an-hour default. However, that is actually about residential living streets. As Colin Smyth said, only a national default will bring the benefits to all. It is sad that there weren't more MSPs out of the demonstration to listen yesterday. To see 60 demonstrators place chairs outside our Parliament, one for every life that could have been saved, each one representing, as they said, a life interrupted. For this reason alone, we should be supporting the bill at stage 1 as a Parliament. Sally Hinchcliff of Peadleham Parliament, a resident of Dumfries, stated that this bill would succeed in, I quote, eliminating the postcode lottery of safer streets for children walking or cycling. I agree that, as a city cyclist myself, I am keenly aware of the speed of cars, vans and lorries and I am clear that the evidence of 20 miles an hour as a default would encourage more citizens to take up active travel, whether walking or cycling, and it is frankly a no-brainer. A shift to active travel would, of course, mean less vehicles on our roads and slower traffic makes for safer streets, as John Finnie said, the Royal College of Pediatricians in Scotland stated. Is the car still king? Do the desires of motorists to go that bit faster still count for more than the increased risk of 30-mile-an-hour limit, causing more serious injury and death to vulnerable road users? Surely not. What of air quality? It is frankly shameful that Scotland has been in contravention of the EU air pollution standards and air pollution causes about 2,500 early deaths a year here. It is not only the actual deaths, but the effects of air pollution on vulnerable people with chronic lung conditions, and there is increasing evidence also about the effects on children's health and our research into cancer on mental health as well in children, and also evidence about the contribution of air pollution to the development of Alzheimer's in older people. Surely any measure that is proven to lower air pollution should be given serious further consideration and not rejected at stage 1. There is also evidence that more deprived communities are more affected by road traffic accidents. Analysis by Sustrans found that children in Scotland's poorest areas are nearly three times more likely to be injured by road traffic. Surely it cannot be right that we fail to address this when we have this opportunity. It is clear that 20 miles an hour around our schools is not enough, because many injuries, as I heard in the committee, occur in the residential streets beyond these limits. Daniel Johnson stressed that habits and culture of drivers can be changed. Those concerns, as Colin Smyth said, are not only restricted to our cities. Large villages and small towns are impacted by the range of issues that Mark Ruskell's bill would contribute to addressing. Tony Hancock—not the Tony Hancock, but another Tony Hancock—vice-chair of the Royal Borough of Loch Mabon District Council told me recently that we have been trying to get a 20-mile-an-hour limit restriction on Loch Mabon High Street for the past 10 years. Speed monitoring by the council has shown that up to 800 vehicles per day are exceeding the 30-mile-an-hour limit. Loch Mabon has an unusually wide high street, and an ageing population for whom crossing the road can be hazardous. I do not think that I have got time. I am sorry. I want to make a few points in summing up. I am sorry. Do I have time? Yes, I can allow you the time. I do not know how much I have got to say. Can the member confirm that the road through Loch Mabon is an A road and therefore not covered by this bill? Claudia Beamish Not all of them are. No, by any means, in Loch Mabon. It has an unusually wide high street. As I say, there is a primary school nearby that is accessed from the high street. That is the point that I am making. Excuse me, Ms Beamish. Will Mr Rumbles and Mr Stevenson stop yelling at each other along the chairs, please? It is important that the other parts of Loch Mabon, where the primary school is and other places, want the 20-mile-an-hour limit as well. I have said that I would vote for this today, which I certainly will. Yes, Loch Mabon and other villages can rely on the support of Scottish Labour for Mark's Bill. As friends of the earth have reminded us, the measures in the bill would contribute to tackling the climate emergency as well by tackling the transport emissions. That is a very important issue as well. Very recently, I hear from the city of London that the corporation will reduce the speed limit on the square mile to 15 miles an hour, subject to Government approval. It follows notable reductions in deaths and serious injuries on the roads in the region after the 20-mile-an-hour limit was introduced. That is seen as a good reason to bring it down further. I quote from the corporation that it will make the streets more attractive places to walk, cycle and spend time. How depressing that we appear to be falling behind and having to fall back on a default task force, if that is agreed by the minister today, or some vague and frankly rather weak waffle by the Scottish Government minister. London has been consulting on the 20-mile-an-hour default, Wales is doing the same and Europe has 30 kilometres an hour, which is well below our 30 miles an hour already as a default. Making roads and living areas safer and more agreeable is what this bill would make a significant contribution to, along with a whole range of other issues. Scottish Labour says that it will support Mark Ruskell's bill even at this late stage. We need national action and national leadership. Can I remind all members to always refer to fellow members with their full names, please? I call Peter Chapman for round sevens. I thank the committee clerks for helping us to draft this report and all those who provided evidence to the committee and, of course, to Mark Ruskell for bringing the bill forward. We have had a good debate today, I would say, and I want to open my statement today by saying that safer roads are obviously something that we all support, both on the committee and I'm sure right across Parliament. That has never been in question. We want everyone to be as safe as possible when they get in their car, jump on their bike or walk to school or work. As a committee, that is why we supported the aim of seeking to widen the implementation of 20-mile-an-hour zones in Scotland where appropriate, with the objective of reducing deaths and serious injuries on our roads and encouraging more people to cycle and walk. However, the committee had to decide, if we agreed with the bill's proposal, of introducing a default 20-mile-an-hour speed limit on all restricted roads in Scotland, and that we could not accept. I believe that it was a bold decision, but the right decision by the committee to vote against the proposal, but the evidence to support it was simply not there. That is clearly reflected in the report. It became obvious throughout our productive and informative evidence sessions that a blanket one-size-fits-all approach is not appropriate for Scotland. During that evidence and during this debate, we have heard that a simple 20-mile-an-hour speed limit has a very limited impact on the actual speeds on the ground. Design features on the road are equally or maybe even more important to lowering speeds. Self-enforcing roads are what we need. We also heard that Police Scotland do not monitor or prioritise the enforcing of 20-mile-an-hour limits. As a result, real-time speed reductions are only around one-miles-per-hour lower as a result of a 20-mile-an-hour limit. I would argue that that is not very significant, I will. I am grateful for the member taking an intervention on that point. I know that there was conflicting evidence about speed limits, but we do acknowledge that there was unequivocal evidence about the implications of a child being hit by a vehicle and any potential to reduce the speed limit at impact. However modest is to be welcome. I agree that it is to be welcome. I have already said that it is to be welcome, but we need to do that in the right places. I think that the problem that we or I have is that it is proposed right across Scotland, and I do not agree with that. We also heard today that, as Mike Rumbles said, I agree with him that where resources are limited—let's be honest, resources are always limited—this bill could and would divert resources away from other measures, which could have a far bigger impact on road safety. That is very relevant, certainly in rural areas in my part of Aberdeenshire. Some say that that would be good for air quality. John Mason rightly said that the evidence that we heard would be very limited, and some say that it would be slightly better, others gave us evidence to say that it would be slightly worse. It is very much inconclusive. I do not agree with Claudia Beamish when she says that there will be a big impact and a big improvement on air quality. As a committee, we were able to agree that the existing legislative processes that enable local authorities to implement 20mph speed limits should be more straightforward and easier to implement. We therefore welcome the Scottish Government's current exercise to consider ways that this can be done, and I would ask the cabinet secretary in closing to make comment on how this work is progressing. A case-by-case approach, I believe, is the best way to implement changes to the speed limit. Local authorities should be able to decide where a 20mph limit is appropriate and let the local councillors decide rather than be dictated to from above. What is abundantly clear and has been for many years to me as an Aberdeenshire MSP, that in my part of the world, by far the most accidents causing fatalities or serious injury, happen on rural roads. A prime example is the A947 from Aberdeen to Banff, where serious and fatal accidents are 60 per cent higher than the national average. The A952 from Elin to Fraserborough and the A90 Aberdeen to Peterhead both have similar horrendously bad rates. The sad fact is that there are serious accidents on those roads almost every week. I want to see infrastructure, police time and resources invested into those sorts of roads. The message from the Scottish Borders Council was very much the same, saying that the bill would have a detrimental financial impact and it was unlikely to have any impact on the accidents in its largely rural areas. I therefore disagree with Colin Smyth. There is indeed a difference between rural and urban areas, as far as this argument is concerned. During Aberdeen's sessions, the financial impact of implementing a blanket 20 million hour limit was unclear and we considered that the financial memorandum was not robust. It is clear that, although there is merit in what this bill is trying to achieve, its general principles of a one-size-fits-all top-down approach is not the way forward and I will not be supporting this bill. I call Michael Matheson. I can allow you around nine minutes. I have listened very carefully to the contributions this afternoon. I am very grateful to all members who have made contributions on this important issue. I again want to reiterate my recognition of the work that has been undertaken by Mark Ruskell on this issue and the debate that has stimulated the whole issue of 20 million hour zones and the 20 million hour limit. There are two important issues that I set out in my opening remarks. One is that our 20 million hour zones and limits—the right thing to do and the right place—is what is set out in this bill, the right way to go about it. I do not believe that they are. John Mason, I believe, summed up the debate very well when he stated that it is not so much about where we want to get to, but about how we want to actually get there, which I think is particularly important. I also think that it is important from my perspective to put on the record that those of us who might not agree with the proposals that are set out in this bill should in no way be interpreted as though we do not care about the safety of children, that we do not care about speeding in our local streets and that we do not care about safety on our roads. Nothing could be further from the truth. In particular, Mark Ruskell and his contribution suggested that if we are not supporting his bill in some way, we are doing nothing about this particular issue, which again is factually incorrect and, I am afraid, is not a reflection of what is happening. I will give way to Alison Johnstone. The latest Transport Scotland statistics tell us that serious accidents involving children walking and cycling have increased, adult pedestrian deaths have increased, and there has been a marked increase in adult cyclists involved in serious accidents. Things are going in the wrong direction. What I am trying to understand, cabinet secretary, is that your investment in walking and cycling is really pitiful—3 per cent of a huge budget. You have never suggested that you are interested in presumed liability. You do not like my colleague's proposal, so are you suggesting that you are just going to leave this to chance? What is it that you are going to do? Michael Matheson Is that type of contribution that does not take this debate forward in trying to have a serious or rational discussion about what is the best way in which to go about it? I set out the very fact that we have the road safety framework 2020 that has taken forward a whole suite of measures to tackle issues around road safety. That is why we will continue to pursue that with the funding that we are investing in it as well. As an aside, on the issue of the pitiful amount that we are apparently putting into active travel, the budget that we have doubled from £39 million to some £80 million, I do not think, is a reflection of a Government that is not committed to this agenda. I take exception for anyone to suggest that, because I do not happen to support the approach that is set out in this bill, I do not care about my children's safety when they walk to school than anyone else in this chamber. I do care about it, but I want to make sure that we take appropriate measures in order to address those things as well. That is why I think that it is also important that we challenge ourselves to think about either further measures that we can take forward in order to address the issues around compliance and the greater use of 20 million hour zones in the right location. The committee in Edward Mountain set out in his contribution that there is a number of things that the Government should look at taking forward and should explore as part of their recommendations. For example, one of the issues is about the traffic regulation orders and the way in which they operate at the present time. It has been highlighted by local authorities that they act as an inhibitor, a barrier to them in looking at pursuing 20 million hour zones within their areas, for a variety of reasons, in part because of the onerous nature of the consultation exercise that has to be undertaken and also because of the advertising that has to be undertaken within the local press to make the public aware of those matters. We have been consulting with local authorities, the survey results have been returned to us and are presently being analysed in order to identify what actions we can then take in order to remove some of the inhibitors that they have identified in that particular process to reduce the time frame but also to make it a much more flexible amenable system for them to be able to utilise as they see appropriate. I will give way to the member. Jamie Greene I appreciate the update from the Government on improving the processes, but one of the things that we have discussed a lot today is about shifting driver behaviour and the culture around how we drive around our towns and cities. What will the Government do to address that issue in terms of education and making that behavioural change that we need to see? It is not just about technical processes at legislative levels. Michael Matheson That is a key part of the road safety framework that goes up until next year, which we will now have to look at refreshing in order to target. There are resources that are associated with that around driver education programmes that we support. Some of the programmes are school initiatives in order to promote road safety and cycle safety initiatives. There are a variety of different measures that all play a contributing part to tackling the issue, but clearly, with the framework up until next year, one will have to refresh and look at going forward. It sets out the range of measures. For anyone—I hear the statistics that Alison Johnstone made reference to—we should never ever think that one death in our roads is acceptable. We should have an aspiration, as we have in the framework, to see zero deaths in injuries on our roads. That is the focus that we have in taking this forward. We will remain our focus in seeking to address the matter. As I mentioned, the actions that we are taking alongside that would be engaging with COSR to look at what we can do because we have extensive guidance and information in place for local authorities in looking at taking forward 20mph zones in order to encourage them to do so, to look at how we can add to that and take a much more strategic approach to seeing the introduction of 20mph zones in urban areas in local authority areas. That is what we are now taking forward with COSR as well. However, I thought that it was very well demonstrated by how it can be achieved at a local level by Clare Adamson in the work that was undertaken by North Lanarkshire Council back in 2001. In fact, it was prepared to take forward the 20-plenty initiative in its local area because it wanted to make that a priority and it applied it in a way that was consistent within its local area in the roads that it thought it was most appropriate in which to do. There is nothing to stop at other local authorities from doing that. That is what I am determined to do in the work that we are doing with COSR to make sure that we see local authorities driving that forward on a much more consistent basis in order to allow local authorities to identify those areas that can deliver the benefits that we know that can be achieved by having 20mph zones in some of our residential areas where that is right. I also say that the most comprehensive study that has been undertaken into this whole idea of having a sign-only 20mph speed limit approach was the work that was undertaken by the Department of Transport, which was published in November last year. It is worth recognising the findings from what was a three-year study that indicated that sign-only 20mph speed limits have little impact on actual vehicle speed. We cannot ignore that evidence. We have to recognise that if we are to tackle the issue, we have to be informed by evidence and do so in a way that delivers the real change that people would expect from any change in the speed limit, otherwise you undermine the integrity of the speed limit process in itself, which is why it is important that, as some of the local authorities have given evidence to the committee highlighted, if you do not get it right, you bring the speed limit process into disrepute by simply lowering it to 20mph and having it only sign only, thinking that that will simply address the issue. I am conscious of time. That is a complex issue and one that I recognise that there are many strongly held views across the chamber. Everyone in this chamber, I believe, has a shared interest in making our communities safer for ourselves and for our children. Nobody in this chamber holds a moral high ground on that issue. As a Government, we will continue to do everything that we can in order to address issues of road safety. We do not happen to believe that this bill is the best way to go about doing it, but we will continue to take forward measures that we believe will make a difference and make our communities safer for everyone who lives in our communities in Scotland. Mark Ruskell and up to 10 minutes will take us to decision time. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. In closing, it would be remiss of me not to thank many others who have given me assistance in bringing this bill forward to stage 1. I would like to thank in particular the non-Government bills unit, the Parliament's legal team, my researcher, Maliki Clark and many members. I have had constructive conversations with, over the last two years, particularly John Mason, John Finnie and Claudia Beamish. I would also like to thank the 25 members who signed the original bill proposal, which enabled it to get to this point. I would like to thank the members of the Wreck Committee and the Clarks who have given the bill some scrutiny. I would also like to thank many of the members who, in this debate this afternoon, have offered many kind words to myself as well. I appreciate that. If I could turn to the contributions, I think that one of the most disappointing things that I have heard in this debate this afternoon has been the absolute myth, the absolute myth that this bill is somehow a top-down blanket one-size-fits-all approach. It is not and that is a fundamental misunderstanding of what this bill is about. It is very disappointing to hear that coming, particularly from Mr Rumbles, because I have sat in Mr Rumbles' office over the last two years explaining to him what this bill is about. I am sorry, but I draw the conclusion, Deputy Presiding Officer, that Mr Rumbles is an advocate for the motoring lobby first in this chamber rather than child safety. Mr Rumbles would not take an intervention with me, and I need to make progress, Deputy Presiding Officer. If Mr Rumbles sees that comment as an insult, he can reflect on it. Can I say from the chair that I think that Mr Rumbles is entitled to an intervention after what was said? That is for me to decide. It is for you to decide, Mr Ruskell. I will take an intervention at that point, then. It is a point of order. Mike Rumbles, or apologies, I have not heard you, it is a point of order. I do not wish to intervene on Mr Ruskell, because he is absolutely casting a slur on my motivation to apply that I am some sort of representative of the motor industry. I do not believe that that is consistent with the approach and our code of conduct, and I would like Mr Ruskell to withdraw that allegation. It is not a point of order, but Mr Rumbles' point has been made. I would ask Mr Ruskell to reflect on what Mr Rumbles has said, and Mr Rumbles can take whatever action is appropriate under the circumstances following this meeting. I am reflecting on it. I am reflecting that Mr Rumbles is using arguments that have been put to the committee by the motoring lobby, which he is advocating. I stand by those comments. If we can get back to the debate, I would like to quote the Society of Chief Officers of Transportation Scotland. To be honest, I know a little bit more about road signs and the roll-outs of 20mph than Mr Rumbles does. In their response to the committee, and I quote from their letter, they say that there appears to be a view expressed in the report that such a default is not appropriate as it does not give local authorities the flexibility to devise 20mph limits that they consider appropriate for their areas. Excuse me, I stop here there, Mr Ruskell. Can we have a bit of quiet please? I understand that people are wanting to discuss things. This is not the appropriate time, it can be discussed when this session of Parliament has concluded. I will read out the quote again. There appears to be a view expressed in the report that such a default is not appropriate as it does not give local authorities the flexibility to devise 20mph limits that they consider appropriate for their areas. This is not factually correct. Those are the people who are actually implementing 20mph, who are saying that this is not a one-size-fits-all approach, that this is proportionate, that this allows us to select those roads that we wish to retain as 30mph, those arterial routes and do that. I need to make progress now, because I have been intervened on a number of times. I need to make progress. I am disappointed in the cabinet secretary's view on this. This is the second cabinet secretary that I have worked with under the bill. I hope that I am wrong, but it appears that the Government is going in reverse on its own policy on 20mph, because the arguments that have been put forward by the cabinet secretary this afternoon go against the roll-out of 20mph that has been done under Scottish Government guidance in Edinburgh, in Clackmannanshire, in Glasgow. It also goes against the advice of the Government's own active travel task force. Those local authorities are rolling out sign-only 20mph speed limits. They are not investing in infrastructure on every single road. Indeed, the cabinet secretary's own guidance on 20mph is moved away from infrastructure, putting in lumps and bumps whenever we want to create 20mph. I think that that makes a lot of sense, because we do not do that for 30mph roads, we do not do that for 40mph roads, we do not create a design speed for every single road. Excuse me again, Mr Ruskell. Can I say to everyone that please stop the rudeness that is happening during this? Mr Ruskell is actually quite soft-spoken. I would like to hear him, and I think that everyone else should give some respect to the conclusion of this debate. Maybe I should raise my voice a bit then, Deputy Presiding Officer, and we will get this debate going then. We do not design every single road in Scotland to be the speed limit that it is at. We do rely on signage, we do rely on other compliance measures and education to get that, and there is no evidence. The cabinet secretary quotes the DFT report. There is no evidence that setting 20mph on a road undermines the speed limit compliance on other surrounding faster roads. That was the opposite conclusion that the DFT report came to. When they looked at the wide area roll-out of 20mph in Brighton, they found that compliance went up on the surrounding roads, the surrounding faster A and B roads. It is simply not an issue. There are misunderstandings here. If I can turn to costings, I think that John Mason made the very astute point that not every financial memorandum is 100 per cent accurate. I take some criticism on that, but I again believe that the core costs, the substantive costs in this bill, are accurate. Again, they have been worked with those who will be tasked with implementing this bill, the organisation that represents all the roads authorities in Scotland. Let's look at the cost, because this measure is 0.75 per cent of the transport budget over two years. Once 20mph is rolled out on a nationwide basis, we get the benefits then, year after year after year. Scots tell me the life of a road sign is 30 years. We get five lives saved, 750 casualties reduced every single year, year on year. This is not a matter of competing active travel interventions and investment against 20mph. The experience in Europe is that you need both. The experience of European cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam is that you set the speed limits at a sensible level 20mph and you also invest in the infrastructure. To get this change, to get the change in walking and cycling that we desperately need, we need to start by changing the speed limit. Of course, the cheapest thing for local authorities to do is nothing, but that is simply unacceptable, and that is the problem that we have at the moment. We have a postcode lottery and we have this local discretion. It is interesting to note that the cabinet secretary argues for national consistency when it comes to the transport bill and payment parking, but there is no acknowledgement of the fact that we need national consistency when it comes to 20mph, which I think is disappointing. Given that the Welsh Government has now adopted that principle, it wants to see every single community in Wales 20mph and an appropriate roll-out. It does not matter whether it is rural or urban, it does not make any difference to the children to the vulnerable road users living in those streets in Wales. It needs to see that protection. Jamie Greene asked what is the alternative to that. I do not have an answer to that. I do not have an answer to what is the alternative to this bill. I have been engaging with the Scottish Government here for the last two and a half years. He says that he is happy to work with me on an alternative. I have been working with his Welsh Tory colleagues who back a national default for Wales, so maybe he should get in touch with them, get in touch with David Melding and he will tell you why this is the most effective approach and why we need to move towards it. I do not know how much time I have got left, Presiding Officer. I have got another couple of minutes perhaps, or I have had a lot of interventions. You can take another minute or two if you wish, but I will draw your mark to a conclusion. One alternative that has been put forward by the Cabinet Secretary is to change the traffic regulation order process to make things simpler. Again, I would point to the people who are going to have to implement this measure. Scots say that the TRO procedure simplifying it would be welcome, but it is not the fundamental cause of the low uptake to date of 20 mile an hour speed limits. We are therefore cautious on what the actual difference any changes would make to a wider 20 mile an hour roll-up. The Cabinet Secretary can write as many letters as he likes to Scots and local authorities. I fear that we are just going to be back in the same place in the autumn, which is local authorities turning around and saying, you know what, the cheapest, most effective way to get national consistency is to have a national default 20. We are going to be back at this same place, and I am going to be up on my feet asking the same questions all over again. Every child, every person living on every street in Scotland deserves their freedom, their rights to play, to walk, to cycle, to live without fear. Every country, every city that values those rights and freedoms across Europe is setting a safer speed limit, a 20 mile an hour speed limit. That is Scotland's moment to put our values first, to put the lives first and to vote for safer streets for everyone. Thank you very much colleagues, and that concludes our debate on the restricted roads 20 mile an hour speed limit Scotland bill. The next item of business is consideration of a legislative consent motion. Can I ask Mairi Gougeon to move motion 17690 on the wild animals in Circus's number 2 bill, UK legislation bill? Thank you very much. The question will be put at decision time to which we now come. Point of order, Patrick Harvie. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am sorry that I have not had a chance to give advance notice to this point of order on two specific issues. First of all, under rule 7 to 4 of our standing orders, a member is allowed to give way to another member for an intervention. Can you confirm that there is no part of our standing orders that requires a member to give way, nor should they be instructed by the chair that another member is entitled to an intervention? On the second point, would you remind the chamber once again of your regular requests that members who have taken part in a debate should be present for closing speeches, rather than walking out in the middle of a closing speech because they do not like the fact that they are being criticised? Can I thank Mr Harvie for the point of order? I would remind all members that to treat each other with respect, and that is an important point of order, that all members treat each other with respect. I did hear the interventions that I was watching in exchange that took place earlier. The Presiding Officer did not instruct the member to take an intervention. The Presiding Officer did not instruct him, but he did suggest that when you name a member, it is a very good practice to take an intervention. I believe that Mr Ruskell responded very appropriately and did take an intervention at that point. I have to say that I thought that the incident was handled absolutely right. I could see that temperatures were running a little bit heated at that stage. This is a contentious bill and people feel very strongly about it, but I would ask all members to reflect and not to recognise that they are members who care passionately about the matter, and to treat each other the way that they would like each other to be treated. I thank you for that point of order, Mr Harvie. We can now move on to the first question. Motion 17660, in the name of Mark Ruskell, on the restricted roads 20-mile narrow speed limit Scotland Bill, shall the bill be agreed? Are we agreed? We are not agreed. We will move to a vote and members may cast their votes now. The result of the vote on motion 17660, in the name of Mark Ruskell, is yes, 26, no, 83. There were four abstentions. The motion is therefore not agreed. The final question is that motion 17690, in the name of Mary Gougeon, on wild animals in circuses, number two will be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. That concludes decision time. I close this meeting.