Scottish Affairs Committee 

Oral evidence: Cost of living: impact on rural communities in Scotland, HC 982

Monday 3 July 2023

Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 3 July 2023.

Watch the meeting 

Members present: Pete Wishart (Chair); Wendy Chamberlain; David Duguid; Sally-Ann Hart; Douglas Ross; and Andrew Western.

Questions 127 to 189

Witnesses

I: Councillor Uisdean Robertson, Chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (Western Isles Council); Ranald Robertson, Partnership Director, HITRANS (Highlands and Islands Transport Partnership); Dr Andy Cope, Director of Evidence and Insight at Sustrans Scotland.

Examination of witnesses

Witnesses: Councillor Uisdean Robertson, Dr Andy Cope and Ranald Robertson.

Q127       Chair: Good morning and welcome to the Scottish Affairs Committee and our ongoing inquiry into the consequences of the coronavirus outbreak in Scotland. We are joined by some colleagues who will help us with some of the transport issues that we have been confronting since the pandemic. I will let them introduce themselves, starting with Mr Robertson.

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: I am the Chair of Transportation and Infrastructure, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (Western Isles Council). I have been an elected member for four terms, that is 16 years—six years as Chair of Transportation of the Comhairle. Over the last year, I have been Chair of HITRANS as well.

Chair: So it is Councillor Robertson. Apologies for that. Thank you.

Ranald Robertson: I am Partnership Director with HITRANS. HITRANS is the regional transport partnership covering most of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. In the context of the inquiry, the region that we cover amounts to about 30% of Scotland’s land mass but is only home to less than 10% of the population; of that population, about 50% are considered as living in remote rural and rural areas.

Dr Cope: I am from Sustrans, a charity making it easier for people to walk, wheel and cycle. Our vision is of a society where the way we travel creates healthier places and happier lives for everyone. We are perhaps best known as the custodians of the national cycle network.

In the context of our work in Scotland, Sustrans receives an annual grant from Transport Scotland to deliver a series of grant-funded programmes, mainly working in partnership with local authorities and many other partners.

My role at Sustrans, my job title, is Director of Evidence and Insight, which means that I look after the evidence inside the work that Sustrans does.

Q128       Chair: Thank you all ever so much for those very concise introductions. Let’s get stuck into this. We are here today to look at some of the issues around the transport network in Scotland and their impact on everyday lives during this cost of living crisis. Tell us your views about where we are just now. What are the major issues, what are the major pressure and push factors when it comes to transport and how are they impacting the communities that we all represent?

Dr Cope: I think the basis for our being here today is some work that we did a few years ago now on the pressures that people in Scotland face. We did a bit of modelling that suggested that 466,000 households—one million people—in Scotland are exposed to transport poverty. Part of our premise is that walking and cycling can help to address transport poverty. The modelling also showed that for 61% of the areas that we measured as being particularly exposed to transport poverty—

Q129       Chair: Excuse me, Dr Cope. For the benefit of those watching these proceedings, could you define transport poverty?

Dr Cope: There is no formal definition. The variables that we talk about are the availability of transport, access to transport—making sure that people can use the available transport—affordability, of course, the amount of time that people have to spend travelling to get to their destinations, and the adequacy of conditions, whether that be the infrastructure or, in the case of walking and cycling, safety. Unless my colleagues know otherwise, I do not think there is a formal definition of transport poverty but there is a lot of work going on trying to better understand it. I have mentioned the key variables. Our modelling tried to address some of the variables and we coloured in a map of Scotland according to degrees of exposure to what we saw as transport poverty.

Very high numbers of people are exposed to transport poverty. We hope walking and cycling could make a mitigating contribution. What transport poverty means practically for people is that their opportunities are more limited. Transport costs take up a greater part of household budgets and that presents a range of problems that impact household budgets more widely.

Q130       Chair: Looking around the table here, most of our Scottish colleagues anyway represent constituencies that are rural to some degree. There is rural and rural, is there not? Is any particular part of Scotland especially hit by transport poverty and the range of issues that you have identified? Councillor Robertson, as you are a representative of the Western Isles, is there anything that you can point out to us as being specific to some areas of Scotland and their rural settings?

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: Our big issue at the moment, which is very well documented, is with the ferries. Some people say there is too much said about them now, but the ferries affect every part of our lives—the goods that come into shops, feedstuffs for animals and the tourism that is a big part of our economy.

Another big issue that sometimes goes under the radar is travel for patients who have to travel to mainland hospitals by plane or ferry, which impacts our community quite heavily. As we see it, the ferry adds a cost to everything where we live. Unless you live it, you cannot understand it.

Q131       Chair: To you, Mr Robertson, how effective have the UK and Scottish Governments been in addressing some of these issues? Please do answer every question but I am particularly interested to know about anything you have seen by way of intervention from either Government that has made a difference to any of the issues that Dr Cope so eloquently outlined.

Ranald Robertson: Councillor Robertson mentioned ferry services. On the positive side—perhaps belatedly—we are now seeing an emphasis on investment although there have been challenges. However, we do believe that once the six ferries that are in build at the moment are in service, there will be a significant improvement to the resilience of our island communities.

Challenges include the Highlands and Islands region sitting somewhat apart from the rest of the UK in terms of its degree of low population density and that probably asks questions about policy interventions compared with what might be said to be centrally set, whether in Edinburgh or London. Take the Levelling Up Fund and the UK Government’s interventions to start with. In the Scottish context, population density was less recognised than we might have liked. Different approaches to including and weighting transport and its role have been taken in England compared with Scotland and Wales, and opportunities might have been missed.

Q132       Chair: What have you observed about the weighting?

Ranald Robertson: I do not profess to be an expert but a study by the Fraser of Allander Institute that compared the Levelling Up Fund and the Community Renewal Fund set out how priorities were calculated and rural Scottish local authorities were not in a Priority 1 position in the Levelling Up Fund. I think that was because the factors that were considered included levels of home ownership and the proportion of the population in work. The factors did not reflect average household incomes, which were reflected in the Community Renewal Fund and saw some of our local authorities such as Comhairle nan Eilean Siar rise to level 1.

Trying to recognise differences, we noted that the Highlands and Islands enjoyed Objective 1 status in the European structural funding in the past. That changed with the accession of the Eastern bloc to the European Union but if you have an outlier—and I think the nature of the Highlands and Islands region represents an outlier within the UK—you have challenges with linking our communities and distances travelled. We have relatively low average household incomes but high levels of car ownership. That is a direct consequence of transport services not operating over the same length of the day as they do in urban areas.

Chair: Before we lose your train of thought, Douglas Ross wants to come in on something he has heard.

Q133       Douglas Ross: A point of clarification: do you represent Shetland as part of HITRANS?

Ranald Robertson: Yes.

Q134       Douglas Ross: But you do not do that for the islands?

Ranald Robertson: We cover Orkney, Eilean Siar (Western Isles) and the Argyll Islands. We do not cover Shetland or Arran and Cumbrae. We cover the rest of the Scottish islands.

Douglas Ross: You will be aware that the single biggest award in Levelling Up 2 was to Shetland and the Fair Isles, for a ferry in an area of very low population. It was a transport project affecting a very small number of people. Surely that counters some of what you have just said.

Ranald Robertson: No.

Q135       Douglas Ross: Why not?

Ranald Robertson: I take the award to Shetland and the Fair Isles on board. It was, I think, the second submission for that project. The Fair Isle ferry is a super example of what the Levelling Up Fund can do. I would urge finding a model that can address similar issues. Looking at Orkney and thinking about our own area, there are parallels with Shetland but the average age of Orkney’s internal ferries is 32 years.

Douglas Ross: I understand all that. I just wonder why you think that award, the largest award in Scotland for a ferry for Fair Isle, which has one of the lowest population densities, is not counter to your argument.

Ranald Robertson: You make a good point, Mr Ross. I want to highlight the Fair Isle ferry as a positive example of what can happen. I was talking about the metrics that primarily set out the prioritisation levels and I think Shetland sits at level 2, if not level 3. That is what I was talking about. I was talking about generalities rather than the specifics.

Q136       Chair: Moving away from the specifics of Shetland—and you have quoted the Fair Isle ferry as an example of what could be done, the type of assistance that the Government could give to remote communities—what else do you think that either the UK Government or Scottish Government could and should be doing to ensure that some of the issues you have identified are tackled?

Ranald Robertson: Staying with ferry services—probably a favourite subject of mine—HITRANS works with ZetTrans, the regional transport partnership that covers Shetland, the Orkney Islands Council and Shetland Islands Council to develop the case for investing in local authority ferry services. There had been a significant backlog. The local government block grant was not covering the full operating costs or the capital investment requirements of the services.

The Fair Isle ferry is a good example of making good on the capital investment in our ferry services. We have a huge bill that also needs to be paid for Orkney to catch up. Typically, Orkney ferry services do not operate as frequently or for as long a day and fares are often higher than, say, comparable CalMac services. Take the Fair Isle example as a good one. We have lots of other islands that need improved connectivity.

Q137       Chair: Let us come to Dr Cope with that same question. What do you feel the UK and Scottish Governments could be doing? We have heard from Mr Robertson about the example of the Levelling Up Fund. What do observe about the challenges and pressures facing serving rural communities? What could and should the Governments be doing?

Dr Cope: My impression is that the Scottish Government is doing a lot of investment in walking and cycling, which is my specialist area. A reasonable amount of money is being invested. We are seeing much higher levels of investment in Scotland compared with elsewhere in the UK. However, we would probably argue that it is still not quite enough and that we need a better network to allow people to feel safer, less exposed to traffic and a network that is more conveniently laid out.

Beyond the parochial issues around walking and cycling, the challenge is about getting the planning system right. Access to hospitals has been mentioned. We need to make sure that people have a reasonable opportunity to access a hospital and that we are not just building sites that people need to access every day out of town where people cannot get to them.

Even I, who work in travel, forget the staggeringly high levels of non-access to cars. In Scotland, 29% of households do not have access to a car. I know we are not talking about big cities today but the proportion of households in cities without access to a car is well over 40%. Even in some relatively rural areas, the proportion of households without access to a car is still quite high.

We have just been talking about Shetland and Orkney where the percentage of households without access to a car is something-teen per cent but in places such as North Ayrshire, it is 32%. I am leading up to the point that while rural areas are remote and their transport needs must be addressed and understood, less remote areas are also an important part of the equation.

Q138       Chair: There was something to think about in the news today so I will ask you folk who are transport experts about it. I am talking about the CMA findings about what is happening to fuel prices at supermarkets—that prices are possibly artificially high and anti-competitive. Could the Government be looking at what is happening here to ensure that the people we represent and that your organisations look after have access to the cheapest fuel possible? Any one of you?

Ranald Robertson: In the past, interventions on rural fuel prices have made a difference, making comparisons fairer. Some work on fuel costs that we did around 2010 suggested that sales volume often dictated the best price. I think the intervention duty has helped people. I noted prices in rural Lewis recently. A filling station in Lewis does a very good job on prices.

Q139       Chair: I represent a constituency that starts in one of Scotland’s cities and works its way to the highlands. The further north you go, the more expensive the fuel becomes. We have what I think is a very helpful intervention today but fuel prices must still be a huge issue for your organisations. Councillor Robertson?

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: When I go from Inverness back home to Uist, the difference is 20 pence per litre, which is a significant amount.

Q140       Andrew Western: I want to come back to what Dr Cope was saying about the welcome increase in the Scottish Government’s sustainable travel funding and the breakdown between cities and more rural areas. I am an MP for Greater Manchester. I find that whenever significant transport funding becomes available in my area, it is focused on the major towns and the urban core. Do you have any idea of the breakdown of the funding and how much it is stimulating improvements in the more rural and isolated areas?

Dr Cope: Thank you for asking but no, I cannot answer your question very definitively. We could answer that question if I went away and asked my colleagues to dig into the urban/rural split. I do not have it at my fingertips.

You are right about the proposition that the spending is mostly concentrated in the more urban areas. That is what happens; that is where most of the people are. Sustrans’s position is that we want to make sure that we invest more widely than just in the urban areas and we have some nice examples of schemes that we are working on and have worked on recently in rural areas.

I have a couple of examples, the Loch Kindar Way on Isla and Kinloch Rannoch in Perthshire and Kinross. We have put in what we perceive to be, and what I think the community perceives to be, very useful routes providing connections that people need to get to the services that they need to go to.

Though not exactly answering the question about fuel prices, part of our proposition about walking and cycling is that if we make it easier for people to walk and cycle, they can worry a little bit less about fuel prices. Excuse me for skipping back a little bit and not answering you properly.

Q141       David Duguid: A question about walking and cycling for Dr Cope. What do you consider to be a reasonable distance to expect somebody to walk and/or cycle?

Dr Cope: It is variable, isn’t it? I like to think that we do not have unreasonable expectations of what people can manage with their full spectrum of abilities for all sorts of different reasons. Our broad premise and part of the model is about how far people could reasonably cycle within 10 minutes if they are in reasonable health. There are all the other factors, too, such as whether they have access to a bike and can afford to maintain a bike—all that side of the dynamic.

In other modelling work we have done on 20-minute neighbourhoods, and 20-minute communities, we have used a radius of 800 yards, 800 metres, in some of our calculations as a 10-minute out-trip and 10 minutes back again so that sort of territory and that metric can be universally applied. In modelling work, we can apply any level of course, but it needs to be more refined. We would need to articulate our thinking to make the provision as appropriate as possible for as large a part of the population as possible, which is much more easily said than done.

Q142       David Duguid: I agree with your last comment. I grew up on a farm, two miles from the nearest bus route. I am trying to remember how long that might have taken on a bike but I always used to walk it, at least when I was between the ages of 15 and 18 until I got a car and passed the driving test. So that was when I was between 15 and 18, but my elderly grandmother who lived nearby at the time would not have managed that. Do you recognise that there will always be a need for some kind of mechanised transport in rural areas even if people live within a few miles of the nearest bus route? What is the balance? How much mechanised transport do you think should remain once you have sorted out all the walkers and cyclists?

Dr Cope: I cannot quantify an answer. I can accept the points you are making. We appreciate that walking and cycling will not work for everyone in every location by any stretch of the imagination, but we do think that it can work for a lot of people—and a lot more people than it currently works for, which is still a reasonable number.

Yes, your example of two miles to get to the bus route does beg a question about properly integrated transport. I do not want to stray into areas that I have no technical expertise in, but your example does invite a question about demand-responsive transport, community transport, and how we could make that work in the context of more flexible provision in rural areas.

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: We have a very popular cycling route, the Hebridean Way. People can come into Castlebay on the island of Barra and cycle all the way to Stornoway. Our problem, of course, is that we have a lot of single-track roads with passing places, which I feel can be quite dangerous for cyclists and that is a shame. We also have the Hebridean walkway, which is quite popular, but a lot of that is over hilly ground and can be quite difficult unless you are quite fit. I do a six-mile stretch every day with my Border Collies.

We put a bid in to the Levelling Up Fund, of course, through the local council for the North-South Spinal Route, which runs the length from Ness down to Vatersay, but it was not successful. That road needs major improvements and the UK Government could help with the right level of funding for it. We used to get quite a lot of European funding in our area but that has stopped, of course, so any government help would be much appreciated.

Q143       Wendy Chamberlain: Councillor Robertson, you said in your opening remarks that if you have not lived it, you cannot know what it is like. How did you manage to get here today? What transport options did you have?

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: I flew from Benbecula to Glasgow with Loganair and then from Glasgow to Heathrow. Then I took two trains to get to my hotel.

Q144       Wendy Chamberlain: Would you have had other options?

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: Yes, I could have gone by ferry but it would have taken about three days and that would depend, of course, on whether it was running.

Q145       Wendy Chamberlain: When did you leave Benbecula?

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: Unfortunately, Loganair had a sickness issue so the plane went from Benbecula to Stornoway to Glasgow and I was a bit worried about time. I always tend to leave myself quite a bit of time between flights because something always happens. That is how we manage. We know that something is going to go wrong and we tend to be ready for it. I have to say that the arrangements the Clerks here made were very good.

Q146       Wendy Chamberlain: Thank you for that. The reason I asked is that my questions are about costs and their impact, given that we are looking at the cost of living, as well as the availability and reliability of public transport. Do you think it is reasonable to say that your constituents feel that the costs of public transport have risen but potentially services have declined?

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: Services have certainly declined. Out of interest, I looked at the cost from Benbecula to Glasgow paying full fare and it was nearly £300 for a single journey. Living on the island, we have a discount scheme that helps us and that is much appreciated. RET has been a huge success, of course, and costs on the ferries are pretty reasonable if you are taking your car and your family but the cost of fuel is quite high.

We have had a quite significant amount of disruption to ferries, which can add expense if you have to stay overnight, and that happens all the time. I mentioned patient travel earlier. The sum allocated for travel to patients by the health board only meets about one-third of what it costs to stay in accommodation overnight. I think it is about £50 and most hotels now cost about £150 and up so huge costs are involved if your transport is disrupted, which happens quite a lot because of the lack of ferries.

Q147       Wendy Chamberlain: What is the general policy around refunds or offering alternatives? Are people generally out of pocket when there are disruptions to services?

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: It is very easy to get refunds from Loganair for disrupted flights. It is next to impossible to get a refund from CalMac. It is a very onerous journey to get your money back from CalMac.

Q148       Wendy Chamberlain: My sister is a radiographer. She was supposed to go to the Western Isles for a week to provide cover but could not get there because of ferry cancellations, which also meant the poor person on the Western Isles did not get their holiday.

Moving to Mr Ranald Robertson, do you see that costs for public transport have increased and that services have declined? That must be frustrating for you.

Ranald Robertson: Yes, I think there has been a decline in the availability of public transport services. There are some positive aspects of the emphasis on active travel. In rural areas, we need to reflect on whether a 20-minute neighbourhood should involve good-quality levels of public transport and whether that should be on demand at a fixed rate or otherwise.

I do think that some costs have risen but the problem is more about the decline in services. Even pre-pandemic, in the five years before 2019, we saw a reduction of around 20% in the numbers of subsidised bus routes in Scotland and of course that burden falls mainly on rural areas. Problems are more to do with the quality of services not being as good as we would like them to be. There have been some positives around costs—for example, the intervention on bus travel for the under-23s and the cost for the over-60s continues, of course, but if the services are not there, the value of the interventions and subsidies is reduced.

Q149       Wendy Chamberlain: What do you feel are the reasons for the reduction in the quality of services? My own constituency, North East Fife, is not rural-rural, but there have been a number of reductions. Stagecoach removed the number 77 bus service, which reached a number of my rural north villages. Yes, free bus travel is available but costs seem to have increased for those in the middle and, as you say, services are no longer there. Why do you think services are declining if we are looking to get people out of their cars?

Ranald Robertson: There are some post-pandemic aspects in play. Bus companies are struggling with staff recruitment and retention. Quite a lot of drivers of a certain age did not return post the pandemic, and that has been a factor. Also, the availability of staff has probably been a bit of an issue and there is probably a bit of Brexit impact there.

I also think, though, that there is an opportunity cost from the positives of free bus travel. If you are taking somebody paying 100% of the fare in the under-22 bracket and giving the bus company maybe 58% of the fare in reimbursement, you are losing something on the fare books and if that is happening on a relatively rural commercial service, the service is likely to be marginal.

In my area, we have some commercial services, for example around Elgin and good services around Inverness and we have some commercial services around Oban but even in Fort William, there is no longer a commercial network. It is very difficult to make the numbers work.

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: You might know that I have argued that the under-22 travel scheme should be extended to ferry travel for those based in the islands, who, of course, do not get the same advantage as their mainland counterparts in bus travel. We have had that argument for some time—without success, at the moment.

Q150       Wendy Chamberlain: Is there a desire among young people to use that based on your conversations?

Ranald Robertson: Yes, because it impacts our young people going away to sports events, pipe band competitions and so on.

Q151       David Duguid: I want to come back on something Mr Robertson said in response to Wendy Chamberlain, whose line of questioning was echoing inside my head because I could have asked the same questions about bus services in the north Aberdeenshire area, with Banff and Buchan, where I represent. You said that some of that could have been down to Covid. How do you explain that local councils and other organisations were encouraging people to not drive cars at the same time as cutting back bus services before Covid?

Ranald Robertson: Clearly, the public health advice during the pandemic was to discourage shared transport. There will have been an impact from that. There may well be a legacy of people remembering that. There has been good work. Transport Scotland and the bus industry have recently had a campaign to try to promote getting people back on buses.

From what we hear from the bus companies that we deal with, some driving staff benefited from the introduction of furlough but, when it was time to return post-furlough, if they were maybe early retired—we had impacts around Inverness where it might be some retired forces personnel—they opted not to return. Then, filling those vacancies has proven challenging.

Q152       David Duguid: My question was about why before Covid when everyone was encouraged to get out of their cars and go onto public transport, bus services, particularly in those most rural areas—I cannot remember the numbers off the top of my head but Fraserburgh to Macduff, New Pitsligo to Fraserburgh and these sorts of services. I know you are not responsible for these areas, but these services were cut back in precisely the areas where people need that public transport the most because they suffer fuel poverty or car poverty or whatever kind of poverty it is.

Speaking more generally across rural Scotland, maybe it is unfair to ask you why that is happening, but what needs to be done to make sure that everyone who needs transportation, particularly in rural areas, can get it fairly?

Ranald Robertson: That is kind of you to let me answer from that perspective. There has been a decline in the funding available to local authorities to support public transport. Whatever that looks like in the global local authority budget I will not comment on, but that decline needs to be reversed. We need to show confidence and invest in public transport services.

In the past, we have had rural transport funding as a direct intervention. We have also had rural community transport funding as well. If that funding is not as readily available as it was in the past, then—the cost drivers of public transport have continued to grow. Fuel costs, as we have already mentioned, have continued to grow. Driving staff costs have continued to grow. Buses are getting more expensive, and we want to move to electric.

Q153       Wendy Chamberlain: I echo David’s comments. I have Ukrainian refugees living on the East Neuk who want to work in St Andrews but cannot because there is no bus on a Sunday that will allow them to do that. That is a community aspect, but it is also an aspect of the economy. How do we attract new people into rural communities to work when there is no provision?

Dr Cope, you know Sustrans well. You know the work it does in my constituency. What work are we doing to encourage people to use active travel for work? Sometimes a lot of it is about leisure. Part of that for me is around not just active travel, walking and cycling, but whether we can encourage our grants around electric bikes, for example.

Getting people there more efficiently might be a way to do it. Indeed, Giffordtown Community Council in my constituency has got funding for two bikes that you can hire. Willie Rennie and I may go out on them over recess as part of our constituency work. How do we get people to use active travel for work rather than just for leisure, which often is the focus?

Dr Cope: First, make sure that we have safe routes to the destinations that people need to get to. You made that point yourself. It is an important part of the equation.

You are quite right that e-bikes offer such possibilities in extending ranges and being more inclusive of more people. People who are perhaps mobility limited might be able to use an e-bike.

In terms of working directly with workplaces, Sustrans has recently had some funding withdrawn from Transport Scotland that would fund behaviour-change work in workplaces. We worked with a number of NHS sites in Scotland and one or two other sites as well. It is difficult because it is such an important part of the equation—as well as to have the infrastructure to be able to make those journeys to encourage people to make those decisions as well, to give them the information they need, to give them the confidence they need to be able to think about walking and cycling in those sorts of contexts. The capital-revenue argument seems to be at the heart of—

Q154       Wendy Chamberlain: Do we want the UK Government to continue the cycle-to-work schemes and so on? Do they have the impact that you want them to have alongside your work?

Dr Cope: Yes, the cycle-to-work scheme is an important contributor to cycling in particular. It does not create a lot for walking. We have talked a lot about cycling today. I am conscious and I want to make sure that walking and wheeling are a big part of the debate as well. Yes, certainly the cycle-to-work scheme is an important contributor and helps with the cost. The cost of electric bikes is still high and so it can make a useful contribution there as well.

Q155       Sally-Ann Hart: Thank you, Chair. I want to look at connectivity and rural communities and the impact the provision has on accessibility, particularly for children getting to school or college, and workplaces. We know that connectivity is essential in levelling up, particularly in rural and coastal communities. Poor public transport provision means that young people cannot get to school. They cannot get to college. They cannot get to work.

What effect do you think poor transport provision and high costs have on access to education, educational attainment and productivity? Councillor Robertson, I will go to you first.

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: In the Western Isles, we provide school transport to all our primary and secondary schools. The problem comes in the events after school, which has been a huge problem for us. Quite a lot of that is undertaken at the moment by some community transport providers. They bid for funding for them and they get funding, but it is quite limited.

In some of our centres, community councils have their own buses, which are used for after-school events but a big problem for us is not so much during the school day itself as for extracurricular events and so on.

Sally-Ann Hart: After-school clubs and things like that?

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: Yes, that is where we have a major problem. Quite a lot of it at the moment is supported by third-sector groups, which have to bid for funding at the time. The local authority does not have the finance to run buses in the evening at all.

Ranald Robertson: As Councillor Robertson has mentioned, attendance at school tends to be secured one way or the other. The travel distances are fairly set out. Often it can happen more as you move into further education, where times may vary and you do not have the same statutory wraparound. It does happen.

In the case of the Highlands and Islands, a lot of our main employment patterns are quite self-contained in our regional centre, which is probably a positive. But we recognise that if you think about Inverness as a large regional centre serving a big area, trying to access Inverness can be challenging if you are in rural Badenoch and Strathspey for access to the Inverness campus or in parts of Moray as well. That becomes a bit more challenging. There often is better nine-to-five access to your main regional centre. It is where you have to look to a bigger centre again and that becomes more challenging.

We have good interventions such as concessionary travel making it affordable but, if the services are not there, it becomes challenging. It is probably more of an issue not so much for travel to education in the school sense, but that further education seems to be a greater challenge. Then the burden is passed on to somebody with a car.

Q156       Sally-Ann Hart: Yes. What about productivity work in workplaces? Do you want to comment on that or does Mr Cope want to make a comment?

Ranald Robertson: If I may make a quick comment, typically, transport services might be more limited in the operational areas than in rural areas. That does not lend itself well to shift work. There is an impact on lots of the sorts of jobs that younger people might start off in.

We have some good examples and maybe it is worth highlighting a good example of the Scottish and UK Governments working together. The Moray growth deal includes a bus revolution that will build on a longstanding and successful demand-responsive transport service. I am conscious that Mr Ross will be familiar with that service. That will see our service decarbonised.

As part of the programme board that supports that work, we try to work with major employers in Moray as well to ensure that they feed in and help shape the service that will be available to their staff and their future staff.

Dr Cope: I will talk briefly about a large research project that we were involved in. We do a lot of work with the health foundation at the moment, particularly its young people’s future health inquiry, which looked at the determinants of future health for young people.

One finding that emerged from the initial session was that transport is such a big determinant of how young people can plot their futures. In practical terms, that means it is about access to opportunity. Can young people get to the places that they want to go?

Empirical research now shows that some young people select not necessarily the college course that they want to do at a college that they cannot get to but the course that they are not that interested in at a college that is more accessible to them. That opportunity-limiting potential there probably plays out—although we cannot demonstrate this—in later life in terms of workplace productivity if people have chosen a course that does not suit them quite so well.

The other part of your question was about access to school. It is a well-rehearsed argument about all the benefits to children of being able to travel to school actively. Again, it will not be possible for all children all of the time, but the broad premise that we work to is that we want infrastructure to be suitable for—fairly arbitrarily—12-year-olds to be able to use independently and safely to get to the destinations that they want to go.

I mentioned before that we had had some funding cuts in our behaviour change work in workplaces. We do still get behaviour change investment from Transport Scotland for our work in schools, which is a reflection of how important it sees our work as well.

Q157       Sally-Ann Hart: Thank you. In terms of demographics, coastal and rural communities are quite used to seeing young people leave to access opportunities.

How far does transport provision in remote rural Scotland affect the demographics in the area? Who is most likely to leave? What issues does that cause?

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: It is clearly a huge problem for us. We have come across a lot of it recently in the job opportunities we have in maybe the local hospital, the local authority, schools and so on. People have noticed the difficulty that they have coming and going from the mainland.

A lot of young people like to go away for the weekend and so on. That is bad for us at the moment and it likely will be for the next year or year and a half as well until ferry provision improves. That definitely puts a lot of people off coming in for jobs in the hospital, in the schools, with the local authority, fish farming, well-paid jobs. They all have difficulty at the moment. It does not matter what area you work in; it is difficult to find people to fill these positions in the islands now.

Q158       Sally-Ann Hart: You have employment there. You cannot get people to go and work there because of transport problems?

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: Yes, because they cannot come and go at will. That seems apparent over the last year particularly, and disappointing.

Ranald Robertson: To build on what has already been said, it seems most clear in terms of island areas and ferry services that the HITRANS region has a higher proportion of older age groups and a lower proportion of working-age households as well. That will bring with it a service delivery challenge for our health service and other services.

In the past, pre-pandemic, we had some positive examples of inward migration in Moray with a rising population in Orkney, where the overall island population rose, although, pointing back to transport as an issue, the outer isles of Orkney saw a falling population. It was a growing population in the Orkney mainland where connectivity was deemed to be less of a challenge.

Ferry services seem to contribute as a concern for people like that. That is evident in the falling population in North Ronaldsay relative to the growing population in Orkney mainland. It is difficult to understand what the post-pandemic migration pattern will look like, but certainly we have heard a lot of commentary from people who are concerned about ferry services, in the way that Councillor Robertson has already mentioned. I would retell that story.

Q159       Sally-Ann Hart: We need to look at rural bus transport services as well. Looking at the demographic, you mentioned older populations and people who are not working. Which user groups of people are most affected by the availability and cost of public transport? Here we are not just looking at ferries. We are looking at bus services and train services. Mr Robertson?

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: I will not talk about trains, anyway.

Sally-Ann Hart: No, you will not, but the mainland might.

Ranald Robertson: Looking at the demographic pattern, it looks as if lots of the older people who live in our communities manage. How affected they are, though, is a different question. They put up with it, perhaps. Clearly, the working-age population and the younger population are harder to retain.

We have an issue around sustainable populations. It is not all transport. Housing is a significant factor as well and the availability of affordable housing. I will not go completely off topic, but that impacts everywhere in our region. We have seen that. It is not just an island issue that we have in migration into the larger settlements, whether that be Fort William or Elgin or whether that be our island areas. The availability of services encourages people to choose where they live, but that then impacts rural areas that are left without a significant resource.

We all need to do a better job of understanding and hearing from younger people as well about their needs. We are certainly not experts on that and we are aware that we need to get better at that as well.

Q160       Sally-Ann Hart: Communities are only sustainable if young people can live and work there. Councillor Robertson, do you have anything to add to that?

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: I was a young person once. In my time, we had to go off to Inverness for senior secondary and I spent six years in a hostel in Inverness when we were part of Inverness-shire. We have a brand-new school—it is not so new now—in Benbecula, which means at least the kids can travel by bus to school in the locality itself. But they still go off to university and college from the islands and quite a few do not return.

The jobs are there, yes, and Ranald has talked about housing, which is a big issue. The reality for us in the Western Isles is that it is a lot cheaper to build all our houses outside Stornoway than it is to go out to the rural areas. If you go down to Barra, the house prices go up significantly. There are a lot of jobs in Barra itself. A lot of young people want to move back, but the lack of affordable housing prevents that. Well-heeled people come in and buy up all the properties—

Sally-Ann Hart: Yes, I understand that from my patch, Hastings and Rye.

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: That leaves a lack of housing for the young people who want to stay. It is a good place to bring up a family in the Western Isles. The opportunities are not there because of the lack of housing and some of the travel issues we have.

Q161       Sally-Ann Hart: We know that transport is largely a devolved issue. What can the Scottish Government do to tailor support for groups of people, whether younger people, older people or working-age people with families? Could the UK Government do anything to further support the Scottish Government in improving public transport in rural Scotland?

Dr Cope: Again, partly in response to the previous question if you will forgive me, is that from the way we collect data about the walking and cycling routes that we are working with Transport Scotland, local authorities and other partners in Scotland to deliver, it appeals across the demographics and the whole of society. We see users of the route coming from all age groups, genders and the whole spectrum, which makes me think that the investment is doing the right thing and it has that cross-appeal.

What else could the Scottish Government do? It could invest more in walking and cycling. We see the investment is working. We see good evidence of its proving effective in engaging a lot of people, improving public health and making a contribution to carbon emission reductions as well, which is another crucial part of what walking and cycling should do, which we have not covered in this session yet.

Q162       Sally-Ann Hart: Mr Robertson, what could the Scottish and/or the UK Government do more to improve public transport?

Ranald Robertson: As Andy Cope has mentioned, investment in active travel is welcome. It is important that that active travel investment reaches everywhere. The Scottish Government has recently announced an active travel transformation programme that has largely or to an extent moved away from a competitive bidding process, which helps a rural or island area. For the first time, the Western Isles, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, has seen a significant investment in active travel infrastructure of £600,000 that it can take forward. That is an example of a good direction of travel.

As a nation, we need to recognise the importance of that post-carbon, more environmentally friendly and sustainable transport opportunities. There is a real need to improve public transport connectivity in rural areas and to improve how that integrates both with other public transport services or indeed—

Sally-Ann Hart: Integrated systems?

Ranald Robertson: Yes, systems that work for the passengers and are customer- and passenger-focused.

All of these things need to happen. Also, having a way to identify where investment is needed at as local a level as possible is good. If we could set out regionally our important investments, things such as the Western Isles spinal route, which has already been mentioned, fixed links in some of our island communities, ensuring that they remain resilient because weather patterns are changing.

I am not saying what the Scottish Government or the UK Government should do here, but having a good way of engaging people at a regional level and trying to set those priorities would be a positive way forward. We might find that we get the right solutions for the area that will have the greatest impact in securing our rural and island areas.

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: Ranald mentioned that the integration of travel is quite important. For somebody from Barra going to a hospital appointment in Stornoway, it can be a three-day event for a half-hour appointment because your ferry does not meet the plane does not meet the bus. We have been arguing for years for better integration of ferries, planes, buses and so on. That is quite an onerous journey for an elderly person going for cancer treatment if they have that kind of trip to face.

In terms of what the Scottish and UK Governments could do, we need £1.5 billion to bring our ferry fleet up to what it should be. I know the Scottish Government have committed something like £695,000 at the moment. The investment did not happen over 30 years. It did not happen recently. It has been compounded by what has happened in Port Glasgow. That would be a huge win for us in connectivity. It would make a big difference.

We hear a lot of discussion about the six ferries that are currently being built, but we need to be looking ahead to the next eight now and a commitment to the next eight over and above the six. We need to see that going forward. Currently, capital funding is quite tight, if I might say, and we are looking at something happening in 2026, but we need a commitment now to more than the six ferries that are on order. The proper provision would make a huge difference to our lives in the Western Isles.

Q163       Sally-Ann Hart: The ferries are a lifeline, that is clear. Listening to the three of you, it is apparent that communities need to be put at the heart of public transport provision in rural Scotland.

I have one last question. I will put it out there if anyone wants to answer it. To what extent does the second delivery plan of the Scottish Government’s national transport strategy achieve communities being put at the heart of public transport provision? Does that strategy achieve the aim of affordable, accessible transport?

Ranald Robertson: Clearly, the national transport strategy set out some high-level priorities for the country. Thinking about today’s topic, reducing inequalities was one of those. There are some important aspects within what is proposed and supported through the second strategic transport projects review.

One area that needs to be recognised is that it is primarily focusing on the Scottish Government’s own transport assets and infrastructure. There are some significantly important local authority-owned ones that local authorities are not funded for.

We have talked about ferries a lot today, but to talk about ferries in a peninsula sense, the Corran Ferry has been recognised not as having taken communities to the brink but the issues with that one service, which continue today, place a real strain. The local authority is looking now to work with the Scottish and UK Governments to find a solution. It is an example of the type of project that does not fall under the scope of the national transport strategy but can have a transformative effect either in a positive sense or a negative sense.

There are others. The landslides that affect the Stromeferry bypass are not dissimilar to the ones that impact the A83, rest and be thankful, but one happens to be on a trunk road and the others are on local authority roads.

We need to maybe take a step back and find a mechanism to look at all our transport assets and infrastructure and recognise what is required to improve places and communities. Trunk roads run through major settlements such as Fort William and Elgin. To me, we should try to move beyond that and try to bypass these centres so they can be better places for people to live in.

Aspects of that are well covered within STPR2 but, for me, we need to step away from infrastructure in our national transport strategy and recognise what impacts people’s lives. The Corran Ferry has now emerged as an issue that needs to be addressed.

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: Ranald has covered it well. Out in the Western Isles, we have a significant number of causeways that allow ferries between islands that are off the main islands. Now some of them built in the 1960s have huge problems with overtopping because of rising sea levels, which in certain instances can cut these communities off entirely. We must look at these issues as well. Some people say, “These causeways allow ferries”, and little attention is paid to our causeways now, which are in some instances quite old. The one I refer to all the time cost £9 million to raise it and make it safe, but that is money the local authority does not have. That is where we hope the Levelling Up Fund would have helped us. Ranald covered most of it well.

Dr Cope: I will mention briefly the Scottish Government’s aspiration to reduce car kilometres by 20% as well. The Government has put down an important marker there. It is essential in the context of exactly what you describe: rising sea levels. We do not have anything like that from the UK Government or central Government in England or whatever. In the sense of having a quantified target, the Scottish Government leads the way. That is important.

Looking across the other devolved Administrations, in Wales we see the road strategy there of not building new roads, again to support our climate aspirations. That is another important area.

I do not know the answer to your question because I do not know exactly how that interfaces with the STPR. Sorry.

Q164       Andrew Western: Much of what I was going to touch on has been covered, but I wondered, Mr Robertson, if I could come back to your point that you touched on in response to Sally-Ann Hart around the affordable sustainable travel and the development of low-emission or alternative fuel modes of transport. Could you tell us a little bit about how that may be encouraged in more rural and remote parts of Scotland?

Ranald Robertson: I will borrow from the example I already mentioned, the Moray growth deal, because it is a good example. It takes Scotland’s largest demand-responsive transport system and builds it into something bigger and better. It is looking to develop a solution that works seven days a week when people need it from what is largely a 9-to-2.30 five-day-a-week service today. It will see a fleet of electric buses supported by electric small vehicles as well, six seaters, and aims to provide a seven-day-a-week service when people need it. It requires investment but it stands to make a real difference. I hope it can become a model that we can look at for other areas as well.

We have some other good examples of approaching transport differently in a rural area. The Highland Council has now started operating bus services in its area in-house and has managed to deliver a significant savings as well in the costs that previously would have applied for securing those services.

We have some good examples of what you can do. Scaling that up across the country becomes more of a challenge. We must look to make sure that what we do in Moray can scale up elsewhere as well. I am not suggesting it is, but it is not about having one solution that could be deemed difficult to scale up. The Moray one is organic. It comes from a service that has existed for a long time. It is building it into something that, actually, with engagement with employers and people in the area, we hope will work well.

Q165       Andrew Western: Dr Cope has probably covered off what I was going to ask about the aspirations within the transport strategy for driving a reduction in car use. I wonder, Councillor Robertson, if you could talk a little bit about your experience of the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on particularly aviation and ferry journeys.

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: The ferry journey itself in terms of the cost of the ferries is quite reasonable through RET. It is the added-on costs of the significant number of cancellations that have happened and particularly on one of the routes, the well-documented Lochboisdale to Mallaig service, where the ferry was withdrawn for one month. The impact that has on businesses in that area has been quite stark with accommodation providers. It is South Uist but it also affects North Uist and Benbecula, where they say there is a 30% reduction in what they get for their accommodation at that time of year.

The three-month period particularly in summer is critical for them and carries them through the winter. We have seen the added cost of hauling in animal feed as well. There is the issue of supplies to the shops. Several times, containers carrying supplies coming to the Co-op in Barra have had to be dumped. These costs are added on all the time.

Something else I mentioned earlier that particularly concerns me is patient travel. One of the biggest groups of complaints I get is about issues of patient travel. Significant numbers of flights as well as ferries have been cancelled because of weather-related fog and so on. To be fair, Logan Air is quite good at putting you up in alternative accommodation and so on. But if it is a health board-related thing, as I said earlier, what they provide does not come anywhere near the cost of the accommodation. We have been having that argument but have not gained any headway at the moment.

I wanted to mention the public service obligations or PSOs in air travel. Currently, the Barra-Campbeltown-Tiree service is out to tender, but the local authority we have in the Western Isles is between Benbecula and Stornoway. Because patients from Barra and Benbecula tend to have to go to the Western Isles Hospital or Raigmore in Inverness, the reality is that the council has had this year to retain two rotations on Tuesday and two rotations on Thursday. They get an allocation of about £406,000 from the Scottish Government for that particular air service, but the tender cost this year has come in at over £600,000.

We have had to go into reserves to pay for that. The health board does not provide anything at all and the reality is, from April next year, that we might not be able to provide that service at all, which will have a huge impact, bearing in mind most of the people who travel on it, over 90%, are health-related. That means consultants coming to the Uist and Barra Hospital as well. It has a huge impact on us.

As I said, one of the biggest complaints and concerns I get locally is the issue of patient travel. It must get addressed going forward because, as I said, the local authority within the settlement it gets from the Scottish Government cannot probably afford to retain it beyond next year. They have the opportunity to cut the roads maintenance budget or whatever, but it is a serious issue for us going forward. The issue of patient travel is a huge cost to the community and is very important.

Q166       Andrew Western: Mr Robertson, is there anything from elsewhere in Scotland around the cost-of-living impacts that you would highlight?

Ranald Robertson: Yes. On the aviation point, I will make some supplementary comments, if I may.

The PSO mechanism has some real positives in the sense that it can make it affordable for passengers to travel by air services, but it also creates inequality in the cost for Councillor Robertson to travel here from Benbecula versus, say, somebody travelling to Westminster from Barra. I know that somebody makes that trip. The PSO mechanism allows you to consider aviation as part of a system and as part of a transport network and to set fares accordingly.

Another aspect of aviation that is on our horizon at the moment is its journey to net zero. The Scottish Government has set a 2045 target for that. The UKRI funding has supported the Sustainable Aviation Test Environment project, which has given us a route map to introducing low-carbon technology in aviation, but there is likely to be a cost differential at least for some time. It is not likely to get cheaper early. That is what happens. How do we implement that without pushing fares further up? That probably points to maybe a strong case for considering the PSO mechanism to ensure that air services are affordable and operate at the times that people need them but also can potentially drive innovation and industry within the UK as well. There is potentially a positive in that as well.

Moving on from that to the more general point around other examples in the country of air transport services, we should try to capture some good practice. As an example, in a not-very-rural area in our own part of the world, HITRANS manages public e-bike dock systems in Inverness and Fort William and has been able to deliver an annual pass for unlimited use of the e-bikes to any user of the system for £80. That is about £1.60 a week. It allows people to travel and gives them an affordable option for travel.

Of the 15 dock locations, the fourth most used is in the Hilton area of Inverness, which is an area of deprivation. Give people an option. We also have a good number of docks in Fort William. Caol is the best-used dock location in Fort William. It shows that all solutions do not need to be car-based or vehicle-based.

Making that work in a more rural area becomes more challenging and there might have to be a slightly different solution, but you can make some of these types of schemes work. We have virtual docks. It is not all about fixed docks. If a regular user in a more rural area was able to get into the urban area with that solution, you can create a virtual dock. Be open to using technology.

We also have a Mobility as a Service platform, which makes it much easier to access multiple modes of transport digitally. You need the modes of transport to be there but, yes, it works in rural areas as well as it does in urban areas.

Q167       Douglas Ross: Councillor Robertson, at the beginning of your evidence you said that the ferry situation had been well documented in your area and then you went on to say, “Some would say too much”. What were you alluding to there? Do individuals think it maybe gets too much airtime and is not as big an issue?

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: Yes, I have had that comment made to me by a number of mainland-based socialists, shall I say. It has not come from any kind of island socialists—

Q168       Douglas Ross: How is that viewed on the island?

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: The current officials in Transport Scotland, CalMac, CMAL or any of these organisations do not understand the impact it has on us. You have to live it to understand the problems it has caused our community.

The decisions are taken by people who are remote from the disturbance it causes. It has been well documented in all the press, radio and television. The issues on the ferries have been everywhere over the last while. I see more people come back with negative comments because 90% of CalMac sailings are on time, forgetting that they do not count the one that is out of service and so I will not go down that road. It is that kind of issue.

Q169       Douglas Ross: It is not just officials in government bodies who are critical that ferries are often mentioned too much. Our Chair tweeted after I had raised this issue four times with the former First Minister. He said, “Ferries, ferries, ferries, ferries, ferries and then some more ferries. And did I mention the ferries.....#fmqs. Every week.”

That is the type of narrative from mainland representatives that is not helpful, I presume, to the arguments you and your constituents try to put across.

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: Yes. We are aware of that tweet. In fact, we discussed it before we came into the meeting and we thought that the Chair certainly has not invited us to talk about ferries. Yes, that is the kind of reaction you get from people who do not understand the problems it causes us day to day.

Q170       Chair: You also understand, Councillor Robertson, that my constituents have never written to me once about the ferry service. I believe a range of issues impact them deeply but do not get the same type of attention and airtime.

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: Yes. I have seen some of the commentary, “What about the NHS? What about the cost of living?” There are accusations that the BBC is having a go at the Scottish Government with the way it reports the issue of ferries. I am quite clear that anybody who does not live on an island does not understand the impact it has.

Q171       Douglas Ross: Not for the first time, I completely disagree with the Chair of this Committee. Constituents in Moray write to me about this because it also comes down to the amount of money we have to spend on other public services in Scotland. For the two ferries, which we discuss quite a lot, the latest update is almost up to £360 million. They are so far five years late. This issue does deserve the attention it gets at the moment.

Also, it is not just an island issue. We saw the huge protest in South Uist but, a week ago, there was also a similar protest in Glasgow for people who have connections with the islands and wanted to make their views known on the mainland as well.

Can I ask a bit about some of the things, Councillor Robertson, before today’s meeting, particularly about the prioritisation matrix? It particularly affects the Lochboisdale to Mallaig route. Have you heard anything encouraging from CalMac or the Scottish Government about looking at that to make sure that this route does not seem to be the first one affected and is not the one that is affected longest?

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: The new Transport Minister met with the South Uist group a few days ago and they have had a report back on what was discussed at that meeting. Robbie Drummond has said that we will have to go out and consult every community, which means that this will take forever. To our mind, it is purely a numbers game for them.

The fact that Lochboisdale has had the same withdrawn several times—surely they would have moved up the sliding scale from halfway up the ladder to the top of the ladder. Why pick on one community all the time? That is happening. For CalMac, it is an easy choice. It is a numbers game because 300 will use the ferry to Islay as opposed to 50 to Lochboisdale. That is it. We have never had the matrix properly explained to us and how it works socially and economically. We have made the argument since we are not mentioning compensation, which has been—

Douglas Ross: I was coming to that.

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: I know you were coming on to that.

Q172       Douglas Ross: In a moment, if I can.

In terms of alternatives, I picked up from the council website that you proposed to Kevin Stewart an amended time. This is a previous Transport Minister to the current one. You as chair of the committee proposed an amended timetable that would eliminate the need to cancel the lifeline ferry service to Boisdale. How was that viewed by the Minister, by officials and by CalMac?

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: We proposed two alternative services, one more complicated than the other. It was designed to spread the pain throughout all the communities. All the communities are happy to accept that the issues are spread out. They know there are not enough vessels there and that cancellations will impact somebody somewhere, but spreading it out was agreeable to all the communities.

We presented the alternatives directly to the Minister at the time, Kevin Stewart, but he resigned for health reasons shortly afterwards and then it took about two or three weeks for his replacement to be established. Apart from a variable discussion with one of the CalMac people, I have had no proper response.

Over the last several years when there has been ferry disruption, we have always provided CalMac with an alternative, which is always for one reason or another denied us. But then, when it happens again, we tend to see our timetable being used. CalMac does not like to be told. It tends to forget that I am surrounded by experienced seamen, retired people from CalMac and naval architects. Dozens of them keep me—it is not me who makes up the timetable, I can assure you. It is all these other people and the strong ferries network we have, which is useful. We can provide pretty good timetables to CalMac but—

Q173       Douglas Ross: No response so far. In terms of compensation, I wanted to raise this. I mention it quite a bit in the Scottish Parliament. I have asked the First Minister to provide compensation not just to the businesses affected but the communities affected. Individuals and families are as affected at times as businesses. We have heard of people regretting their choice to move to the islands because of the situation they are in now. There is a real worry that it could lead to further depopulation.

Is there any defence for the Scottish Government not to award compensation to the islanders affected?

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: The argument we put forward many times was about the Edinburgh trams. Businesses were compensated during the works. We felt that we could not see the difference. They say that they have never given compensation for travel issues. That was their reason. But our argument was that businesses impacted could bid into some type of resilience fund.

As for the Lochboisdale and the ferry issue, several businesses have delayed investing. I have heard that from a number of them, particularly one of our strongest businesses. The shellfish industry, for example, has not invested because of concerns about what was happening.

The community there needs compensation or the opportunity to bid into a resilience fund of some kind because they have lost a month over the summer already.

Q174       Douglas Ross: Yes, and, as you say, they have a short window when they have the highest number of visitors. I fully support that and the Committee will look at that. Also, it seems rather counterproductive that their argument against that is because the fines that CalMac have for poor service and so on then go back into the fleet, but it almost rewards their failure if that money simply goes back in again rather than going to the islanders affected.

Finally, Councillor Robertson, the Scottish Parliament now does not sit again until September. The day after the Scottish Parliament rose and all the MSPs went away from Holyrood, the Cabinet Secretary announced further delays to the completion probably of both ferries and certainly of one of them and an additional cost of £20 million.

Given your experience in this issue—and you were over in Turkey recently looking at what has been done there—will the two ferries now be built on the current budget of £358.5 million and be delivered on time or do you expect them to cost more and be delayed even further?

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: We were discussing that earlier. They will cost more. We hear some good reports that Glen Sannox 801 will be ready by springtime. We hear that possible bit of news. We have no idea about 802. We might have the first of the vessels from Turkey before 802.

I argued—and Ranald was with me—at a meeting. I am up to my seventh Transport Minister in six years as chair of transportation. We raised the issue about four Ministers ago that they should scrap 802, go into wherever they hold the plans for the Hebrides, the vessel we have, take them down off a shelf and build three or four of them for the same money. But we were told that it would take too long for procurement and so on. I wish that that had happened. We would sit there with four Hebrides-type vessels, which have performed extremely well. I can understand where the Scottish Government are, I have to say, with 801 and 802. It is a difficult one.

Q175       Douglas Ross: You have no confidence that they will be now delivered on the current schedule or on the current budget?

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: Probably I would look at 801, Glen Sannox, being finished by springtime.

Douglas Ross: But 802 not so?

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: I would not like to bet on 802.

Q176       Douglas Ross: Mr Robertson, if I could move to you, the HITRANS commission statement is to improve transport services and infrastructure in the areas you cover. You briefly mention major trunk roads going through towns such as Elgin. That will not happen if we get the A96 dualled. You also cover the Highland Council area, which takes in a significant part of the A9.

What is your view, your members’ view and the view of the communities up there about the failure to meet the target to dual the A9 between Perth and Inverness and where we currently are with the uncertainty over the dualling of the A96?

Ranald Robertson: The first duty that HITRANS was set when the regional transport partnership was established was to prepare a regional transport strategy and a delivery plan that we would support and set as the priorities for the region. We do that as a partnership body with our local authorities. Within that and going back to earlier iterations of our regional transport strategy, we sought to have a strategic dualling programme for the A9 and the A96.

We identified the bypasses on the A96 as where we would like to see a start on the dualling as well. We were pleased when announcements were made about that. Like others, I had a degree of scepticism about 2025. Certainly for the last few years, the announcement that the 2025 target for the A9 would not be met was not a great surprise.

Q177       Douglas Ross: Did you feel that was because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine that the Transport Minister put it down to or was it before that?

Ranald Robertson: Realistically, before the Ukrainian conflict, we felt that it was a challenging target to set. The death rate on the A9 last year—

Douglas Ross: The highest in 20 years.

Ranald Robertson: —shows why it remains a concern despite things having been done with speed cameras to try to manage and make that route safer.

The transport strategy recognises the impact of not improving connectivity between Inverness and Aberdeen and Inverness and Perth and the settlements along the route with Elgin being such a significant centre in the Highlands and Islands. Transport is in demand and we need to allow our economy to flourish. We have things at the green freeport at Invergordon at the moment, which could make a case for improving the A9 north of Inverness at least for a section as well.

It is disappointing that we are not there. It is disappointing that the Tomatin to Moy section never progressed. We have heard a lot about the approaches to tendering for that. Maybe there will be lessons learned for future phases. We remain positive about certainly the need to continue to make these investments, accepting that that is alongside the decarbonisation of road transport.

We also need to recognise the challenges of electrification of our rail lines that parallel all these routes as well. Potentially, that also is an expensive and difficult challenge to take forward.

Yes, from our perspective, we will certainly work with our partners in Transport Scotland and the local authorities to see what we can do to support that. We remain with those as high priorities.

As for our interventions on the A82 as well for the west of our area, if you take an east centre and west of the Highlands and Islands, there are three key corridors, the A89, the A82 and A96, but of course there is also this one bit of the A83.

For our part, we are going through a refurbishment of our regional transport strategy at the moment. We will reflect on the current status of those projects. We are not too clear on where the A96 sits. We are probably clear on the A9. We know that the A9 commitment remains. We have heard a lot more about that. We probably do have a bit more uncertainty around the status of the climate review and what that means. We have had some engagement but even with that engagement, it is not very clear where that one is going.

Q178       Douglas Ross: I want to finish up on that point because it goes right through my Moray constituency. What are your member organisations and councils saying or asking about the A9 and the refresh to your strategy and what do you think is a legitimate timeframe to complete the dualling from Perth to Inverness that was previously promised?

Ranald Robertson: I have seen reports that have suggested that it will be dual by 2050 and I have also seen the First Minister’s commitment to that.

Douglas Ross: If I remember correctly—it was my question—he said it would not take that long. In fact, he dismissed it out of hand. Therefore, what is not 2050?

Ranald Robertson: A lot of design work has taken place on the A9. We have a good idea of what that dualled route could look like. The money would need to be found.

On perhaps a more positive point, the figure bandied about for the A9 dualling is often £3 billion, but from looking at the cost of the sections that have been completed to date and adding them up it seems that potentially significant sections of the A9 can be dualled for less than £3 billion pro rata, if we focused on some of the sections that are perhaps more achievable, get the procurement right and work well with the construction industry to ensure that there is a pathway for delivery.

I am not going to put a date on it, Mr Ross, and you will forgive me for giving a bit of a politician’s answer, sorry—

Douglas Ross: You will forgive me for trying.

Ranald Robertson: It is perhaps not the place for me to make such a glib remark but considering the design work that has been completed for the dualled A9, if we can get procurement right and the finance in place—and I do not shy away from how difficult the financing could be—if you look at the sections like Crubenmore and how much that cost, some sections could be achieved.

Similarly, I am not sure if you want me to keep off the A96 but I will just say that we have a design for the A96 from Inverness to Wester Hardmuir. It is designed to a dual carriageway standard. In the very short term, if we accept that even with the climate review the case for bypassing Elgin remains in place and the case for bypassing Keith remains in place if those bypasses were at least created to a consistent standard with the standard that is being set for the Nairn and Wester Hardmuir section, that would be some progress as well. If we are going to bypass those settlements, then let’s look at end-to-end journey time and allow people the opportunity to pass slower-moving traffic as well.

Q179       Douglas Ross: That is going to be my final question. Some of that work has been done but some of that work has also been stopped. I remember that a couple of years ago I had an FOI request back that pretty much said that it had all been halted. Therefore, despite it being an SNP manifesto commitment to fully dual the A96 from Aberdeen to Inverness, has inviting the Greens into government and their anti-roads policy put that in doubt? Do you think that the A96 under the current Government in Scotland will be fully dualled?

Ranald Robertson: I think that it will be. I do not know about the timescales. That is just my view. Government have restated the commitment as the dominant party. I sense that people are still very supportive of it as an intervention.

As for the timescale, I do not think that 2030 will be achievable. There might need to be prioritisation and it might take time. I would hope that if we get the bypasses right that would be a positive step as well, but the route, as I know you know very well and probably better than me, is a particularly frustrating one. The end-to-end journey time gets longer and longer practically every time you go on the route. It is not subject to seasonal variation. Journey time on that corridor is extending 365 days of the year.

Q180       Douglas Ross: That work can be ongoing while there continues to be work on the A9, but we are at an impasse where we do not have the environmental review, despite it being promised. Until we get that, we cannot say with any confidence that it is going to go ahead because it is still subject to that review. Is that correct?

Ranald Robertson: The review places a question mark on it, and we need that review to complete and conclude before some clarity is reinstated. As I know you know, it has already been through some difficult processes in identifying the route. I am particularly thinking about Elgin-Forres, my part of the A96. We have had some challenging aspects of that process already and they are behind us. We just need to see the completion of the review, which I think has most recently been stated as just being in the calendar year rather than anything more.

Q181       Chair: On the A9, as you know half of it goes through my constituency between Perth and Inverness. You are right that there have been significant processes, particularly the new section from Bankfoot up to Dunkeld.

Something that exercises my constituents as much as the delays is their involvement and participation in some of the design issues. We have an issue just now around Dunkeld with the possibility of what happens to get it past what is a very busy junction. We also had the issue of Killiecrankie battlefield, which you will probably remember from when that was announced what must be a couple of years ago now. It does remain important that local communities have an input into some of the design and structural issues around these major developments.

Around Dunkeld-Birnam, this is something that they get particularly exercised to the point of being upset about. I know that you do take cognisance of local input. I wonder if you could make a commitment to this Committee that that is something you will continue to do as we go forward with this project.

Ranald Robertson: It is not in my gift in terms of the project. It is Transport Scotland’s project. I would say that I do not think we have had the same issues in the Highland sections of the A9 dualling programme, but we have had some issues, particularly around non-motorised users and how we handle and build and improve the opportunities in the Carrbridge into Grantown and Aviemore section, for which we have had a positive outcome. I think it is really important, though, that local people and local users are properly and fully consulted, but I do not think there have been quite the same issues in the Highlands.

Chair: The Highland part as you go into the Highlands.

Ranald Robertson: The A9, of course, already bypasses settlements. It is not maybe as close to Dunkeld. You also have the station aspect. I think that the previous investment in the A9 through Highland reduced the issues in terms of the real tension between the local areas. Kingussie and Newtonmore are quite separated already. You have a line, you have land, so it is maybe not quite the same, but we have, particularly around non-motorised users, still had to make sure that we get things right.

Q182       Chair: On that, I know that Dr Cope has not had an opportunity to contribute to this particular section. What are your views particularly around non-motorised users? Are we starting to design our major road infrastructure projects with that in mind when we are going forward?

Dr Cope: I don’t know. I hope so. It would be nice to imagine that that was the case. I could not tell you empirically whether it was or not. I would say that £3 billion is a hell of a lot of money and you could do an awful lot to resolve some of the problems that we have talked about today, active travel, and cost of living issues, and I would be a little bit sceptical about whether dualling a road helps.

I suppose my key point is just to remember how we make decisions about how we invest in transport, the transport economics of how we do this stuff. We have various systems throughout the UK, and what these transport economic appraisal mechanisms tend to do is to lock in car use and overemphasise the benefit that we get from building more roads, widening roads or whatever it might be, at the expense of thinking about people who do not have access to a car perhaps or at the expense of thinking about public transport service improvements.

You have asked the question a couple of times: what could different Governments do? I would continue to implore all Governments, Transport Scotland as well as all UK Governments, as I frequently do, to take a look at the transport economic appraisal guidance and whether it is doing the job in terms of the distribution of impacts and supporting cost of living issues.

Q183       David Duguid: I am just making a note of something that Dr Cope said that I want to come back to later.

There was lots of talk about the A9 and the A96 and, as Douglas Ross and others of my party colleagues in the north-east will be aware, the A96 does not touch my constituency. However, there are lots of people to the west and to the south-west in my constituency who do actively use the A96 so I am very aware of the concerns that have been raised. I must say that I know it is not the responsibility of anybody here, but the A90 north of Ellon is also a concern and has been for a lot of my constituents. I believe that we are going to be seeking some written evidence from Nestrans and Aberdeenshire Council perhaps on what their plans are for that.

Going back to Mr Robertson’s earlier comment about when you have a combination of trunk roads and council-operated roads, the classic example in my constituency is where the A952, which is a local authority-run road; it basically goes straight up and down but the A90 curves round from Peterhead to Fraserburgh. The two junctions at either end of that A952 are two of the biggest, blackest accident hot spots in my constituency. Of course, there is a challenge as to whose job it is to look after that. Do you think that more integration between the Scottish Government and the local authority with the needs of the local communities as a focus is the way to go? I am trying to paraphrase what you might have said earlier.

Ranald Robertson: I think that I know the junction that you refer to. I do not know if winter maintenance is a factor, so differing regimes on winter maintenance and whether that is part of it, but I do think that it is an example of an area where you can probably have better collaboration between BEAR Scotland or whoever has the Transport Scotland contract and the local authority. I think that is an area.

It would seem sensible that if you are doing maintenance in that area you could extend the contract to cover the local road and the trunk road. Work has been undertaken to try to develop road collaboration programmes to get cross-working happening across local authorities, but potentially and I think up until now it has looked more at getting some economies of scale by bringing together collaboration at a local authority level.

I do think that openness is a good practice that will probably naturally come from the challenging financial outlook that we are all dealing with. Yes, I think that more could be done and we should be looking to collaborate.

Q184       David Duguid: Would you agree that it is important to get the input of the communities directly impacted by these transport links as much as possible? Sorry, it is a bit of an obvious question.

Ranald Robertson: Absolutely, yes.

Q185       David Duguid: Going back to something that Councillor Robertson said earlier, something that has been bothering me for years is when places like Banff and Buchan in my constituency, Moray or the Highlands and Islands are described as being remote. It does not feel particularly remote when you live there because you live there; you are in the middle of it. I think that you said something—and I scribbled it down but I may be quoting you wrong—along the lines that it is the people who are making the decisions who are remote from the locations that are impacted.

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: Yes. Most of the decisions to do with transport in our area are made by people in Edinburgh or Glasgow or Gourock. The point I was trying to make is that they do not really understand the impact it has unless you live there and you suffer the consequences of cancelled flights and ferries and the impact it has on your life.

I have sat at numerous meetings with various agencies over the last six or seven years and I have seen no change in their attitude to the decision making at all. They will say, “Oh, we understand, we understand” but it is quite clear that they don’t. That is why we have always argued that the headquarters of CalMac and CMAL have a significant number of Transport Scotland ferries division people moved to the islands. I think that all the new jobs that come up should be based in one of the islands on the west coast and then they would understand.

Q186       David Duguid: Yes, I would agree with that. Going back to Dr Cope, the thing you were talking about earlier that I was trying to scribble down was this idea that we are always talking about—and I think you mentioned a presumption towards—there always being a need for cars and that we need to look at alternative ways of transport and active travel among that. Is there also another need to maybe look at it the other way around and ask why people need to move around in the first place?

Going back to Mr Robertson’s comment about integrating the different responsibilities of the Scottish Government, local authorities and UK Government in terms of, for example, digital connectivity, one of the things that Covid brought to us was more behaviours around working from home that maybe were not there before. Obviously, not everyone can work from home, but is there something about getting the work and education and everything that we need to do as human beings back into the communities so that we do not need to move around so much?

Dr Cope: I would argue that is very much the case. To take the first bit of the question about how we decide what we want to do in transport, one of the big debates in the transport field at the moment is how we change from a predict and provide mode, so predicting what is going to happen in transport based on the trends that we have seen over decades now of increasing car use and what have you. How do we get past that predicting based on those forecasts that take a very linear view to a position where we can do something that is a bit more like deciding what we want and providing for that?

It is quite a difficult dynamic to work out how you change the transport planning mechanism that has been established for generations now and move towards a place where we can say, “This is roughly what we want transport to look like. How do we get there?” instead of constantly catering for a need that we might not be able to do. We might not be able to keep driving up the A9 or whichever road we want to dual if we are not able to keep using fuel at the rates that we currently want to use it.

Yes, the proposition of bringing things back into the community is very much at the heart of certainly what Sustrans tries to do, and many of our partners as well, including many of the local authorities that we work with I should say, to make sure that communities have all the facilities that they need.

I started off talking about the modelling work that we have done and the question of how far people have to travel to get to the destinations that they need to go to. Of course, we are busy centralising services in many parts of the country so people, of course, have to travel further. If you can—I hesitate to use the word—decentralise and get some of those services back into the local communities, then it immediately reduces the distances that people have to travel.

It feels like a fairly straightforward argument, but costly, of course, and driven to some extent by market forces. If we are talking about greengrocers, clearly we are not going to ask Transport Scotland or any of the planning authorities to open greengrocers, for example, but neither is Sustrans willing to do that at the moment, for better or for worse.

Q187       David Duguid: What I am hearing from you all is this need to look at the whole system and not any one piece of it. Do Mr Robertson or Councillor Robertson have anything to add to that?

Ranald Robertson: A point worth noting is that digital connectivity has to be good as well as physical connectivity. It is not always as good in remote rural areas, to borrow that emphasis. You can do things within that. There is a good example in South Uist at the moment—a project called Smart Clachan, which is bringing together housing, digital connectivity and jobs. The project is trying to create new housing co-located with workspaces and perhaps with an emphasis on having workspaces available in smaller regional centres. If we could bring the jobs that have a real stake in that area, like ferries, trains or whatever else that might be, closer to that area, then you might get better operational outcomes, too.

I think that there are some good examples, but there is also that risk that the areas that are digitally better connected might perform better. We do need to be recognising, again going back to the emphasis of this being the recovery from the pandemic, that working patterns have changed. Travel patterns have changed. To focus on trains, it should not be about a weekly train ticket, your weekly or monthly pass, because there might be three days a week that you are travelling by train in the way that previously it was five. We need to flex to recognise what works for society now as well.

Q188       David Duguid: I agree with you. In my constituency, as I am sure is the case for other Committee colleagues who mostly represent rural constituencies, the people who suffer from lack of public transport often are the same people who suffer from poor broadband connection. That is the double whammy that I think we would all like to see improved.

This is my final question and then I will have to go because I need to be somewhere else at 5 pm. Councillor Robertson, I think that you were earlier referring to the impact of cutting back public transport on after-school activities. Getting children back and forth to school is covered but I wonder if your council is the same as Aberdeenshire Council. There seems to be an effort to protect after-school activities, which is a good thing and we should welcome it, but not so much the public transport. In your council area, does that create an inequity among those children who cannot get home after these after-school activities?

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: Yes, there are sensitivities in certain areas on that particular issue. For example, our main school is in Benbecula and Berneray and Eriskay are a significant distance away. To be fair, we do get parents car sharing. They organise it and take turnabout. In the Western Isles, we have a lot of voluntary groups and third sector groups more than anywhere else in the country, I think, who do quite a lot of that provision. They are filling the gap that the local authority or health board or somebody else has given up through lack of funding.

In general, I think that some of the after school works quite well because of what the parents themselves or voluntary groups do in terms of car sharing. There is a commitment in the community to offer as much support as they can to the young people. Some of our volunteers are, I have to say, to be congratulated for the time and effort they put into these things. Clearly, the provision from the local authority has disappeared quite a lot over the last 15 or 16 years and I cannot see—

Q189       David Duguid: What has been the cause of that?

Councillor Uisdean Robertson: It is not going to get any better, bearing in mind the core budget that the council gets.

David Duguid: It is not as much, yes. No further questions from me, Chair. Thank you.

Chair: It is just as well that was your last question because we will be concluding before 5 pm, so that is almost perfect timing. Thank you all ever so much. I know that you have all come a big distance and through a variety of transport means and methods, and we are all delighted to see you here today.

I think that there were a couple of things that you said you would get back to this Committee about—certain things that individual members had asked for—so if you could provide those, that would be very helpful, and anything else, of course, that you feel you could usefully contribute to this short inquiry. Thank you very much for attending the Scottish Affairs Committee this afternoon.