Infrastructure and Capital Investment Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Official Report 435KB pdf

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Transport

Agenda item 2 is a transport update. We will hear evidence again from the Minister for Transport and Veterans as part of a more general committee update on transport matters. I welcome the minister again and his supporting official, Aidan Grisewood, who is director of rail for the Scottish Government. Minister, would you like to make a brief opening statement?

Thank you, convener. Transport is a wide-ranging subject, so I will mention some areas on which I anticipate questions.

Since 2007, the Government has invested about £8.3 billion in transport systems, making good on the sustained underinvestment of previous years. For 2012-15, £5.4 billion of investment has been allocated to transport infrastructure and services.

To deliver on our strategic transport objectives, we invest to create employment and to stimulate growth; to create conditions of advantage and opportunity; to allow businesses access to a skilled workforce and to deliver goods and services to markets; and so that people are able to move freely for work, education and leisure.

Ferries are essential to Scotland’s transport network. They provide a vital link to our remote and island communities. As you know, at the end of last year, we published our ferries plan, which contained a number of proposals to further enhance ferry services for the benefit of communities. Despite the very harsh cuts that have been made by the UK Government to our capital budgets over the quarter, we have continued to invest in vessels and shoreside infrastructure. The MV Lochinvar, a cutting-edge ferry that is the second of two unique hybrid vessels, was launched on the Clyde on 23 May at Ferguson Shipbuilders Ltd’s shipyard in Port Glasgow, and its sister ship, the MV Hallaig, is due to come into service later this summer.

I am proud that we are providing record levels of financial support to underline our commitment to ensuring that all communities, be they remote, island or mainland, share in Scotland’s future success.

Our commitment to bus services is demonstrated by the £0.25 billion of support that is provided every year for the bus service operators grant and for concessionary fares. Again, that happens against a backdrop of those services and support mechanisms diminishing in most other parts of the UK.

Statutory quality partnerships have been established across five local authority areas. Those partnerships help to create opportunities for authorities to specify the quality of buses and minimum frequencies of service. In return, the authorities concerned—local authorities and regional transport partnerships—undertake to improve the infrastructure. The Scottish Government seeks to encourage that kind of approach. In April, we launched the bus investment fund, which will provide around £3 million this year to support local initiatives.

In addition to that investment, we are committed to the national concessionary travel scheme for older people and disabled people. In January, we reached an agreement for the next two years, which will secure those services. The agreement provides fair reimbursement. I have seen some comments that suggest that there has been a cut. Obviously, there has been a reduction in the reimbursement rate, but the figure was not just plucked out of the air by the Scottish Government; it was worked out by consultants as being a fair rate. That was accepted by bus operators, although I would not deny that they would like a higher rate.

Transport Scotland is using the experience of the installation of smart-ticketing systems in more than 7,000 buses to inform its approach to the significant challenges that are faced in the extension of smart ticketing to other transport modes in the future. It is working towards its long-term vision of ensuring that all journeys on Scotland’s bus, rail, subway and tram networks can be accessed by some form of smart ticketing.

Edinburgh’s trams project is currently the second-largest infrastructure project in the country. With the support of Transport Scotland, it is now making good progress, and remains on schedule to begin passenger services by next summer.

We had a debate on railways last week in Parliament. They remain more than a way to move people and goods; they can spread prosperity, generate economic activity, strengthen communities and create business and leisure opportunities.

We are determined to deliver a modern and efficient rail network that is a source of pride and which puts the needs of passengers at its heart. I mentioned last week that more than 83 million passengers a year travel on ScotRail services, which represents remarkable growth of about a third over the past decade.

We are continuing to invest in better stations and better train services, and to support further growth. Last June, we announced a £5 billion programme for the period 2014-19, which includes £3 billion of capital investment in rail infrastructure and is supporting substantial improvements between Edinburgh and Glasgow, between Aberdeen and Inverness and on the Highland main line, and future electrification projects. We have committed to the development of community rail partnerships in Scotland for the first time, aiming to build on successful community involvement schemes such as ScotRail’s adopt a station scheme, which was mentioned last week in the debate.

We are making good progress with the re-letting of the two franchises from April 2015. The sleeper contract is likely to be in excess of £200 million, and the ScotRail franchise will be the single biggest contract that is let by the Scottish Government, with a cost in excess of £2.5 billion.

On roads, we are delivering the new Forth crossing, which is Scotland’s biggest infrastructure project in a generation. It is currently on budget and on time. The Forth Road Bridge Bill passed stage 3 on Thursday 23 May, and you may wish to note that the Forth bridges forum website went live on Monday 20 May, in conjunction with the launch of the world heritage site application for the Forth rail bridge.

The people of Scotland are currently having their say on the name of the new Forth crossing. I know that other countries are paying attention to the way in which we are trying to engage with individuals and communities in that regard. It is the first time that it has been done on this scale in Scotland. There are two days left in which to vote. If anybody has not voted, voting closes on 7 June. The public still have the opportunity to influence and be part of an historic process by logging on to www.namethebridge.co.uk, which I see was mentioned in the leader column of The Scotsman today—which is wider circulation than I can give.

10:45

Just under a year ago we set out our plans to dual the A9 between Perth and Inverness by 2025. On 28 May Transport Scotland hosted the industry in Perth to inform representatives from 26 consultancy companies about business opportunities that will be available through its ambitious £3 billion programme. Transport Scotland is currently holding a series of public exhibitions to update the public on the progress of various strands of the A9 dualling work. I encourage everyone with an interest to come along to one of the venues and to comment on the developing programme. For example, today’s venue is Kincraig community hall and tomorrow’s is Birnam arts and conference centre.

On transport and the report on proposals and policies 2, the Government has committed over £200 million over the current spending review period to support climate change action by reducing the carbon impact of transport, via active travel, low-carbon vehicles and congestion reduction.

That is a very good record of investment in the future of transport in Scotland. The proposals have been scrutinised by Parliament and by stakeholders. I thank the committee for its inputs. The Government is carefully considering the representations and recommendations that have been made during the process as it works to finalise the report, which it is expected will be published in the summer.

I hope that that brief overview of the key highlights of the past six months is helpful to the committee. I look forward to trying to answer your questions.

You mentioned briefly the Caledonian sleeper and ScotRail franchising processes. Can you update the committee on where we are with those?

I am very grateful at this point that the sole official who is with me is a rail official. I provided something of an update in the rail debate last week—namely, that we are now down to four bidders for the sleeper service. There had been a degree of scepticism about whether we would get that level of interest from others. We are very pleased to have four; three or four bidders is probably the optimal number for that service. The franchise is one of the smallest there will be; it is a new thing to have done and the level of interest is encouraging. You may remember that we kept open the option to put that franchise back into the main franchise if we did not get that appropriate level of interest.

The process for the ScotRail franchise is going well. It is on-going, which explains why we have staggered the two processes. We are very keen to incorporate any lessons from the Brown and Laidlaw reviews that took place because of the west coast main line situation, which means that a great deal of care is being taken as we go forward. The process is currently on schedule and we are happy with it so far.

On key dates, we have the pre-qualification questionnaire responses for the sleeper franchise that the minister mentioned. We plan to issue in July the PQQ to start the process for the main ScotRail franchise.

When do you expect the Caledonian sleeper franchise to be awarded?

The award date will be May 2014.

The main ScotRail franchise was extended. What kind of timetable do you expect for that?

It was not so much that the period was extended, but that we used some of the contingency period for which the contract allowed. That runs until mid-2015.

I would like a couple of updates on ferries. First, is MV Hamnavoe fully operational again?

Yes.

It took service on 23 May. Is that right?

It was the Thursday of that week—yes.

Serco NorthLink provided a free service for passengers, but only a very limited one. Passengers had to be accommodated by Pentland Ferries operating additional services. Has Serco NorthLink provided an explanation for why it was unable to provide a replacement vessel that would accommodate freight and passengers?

The passengers who sought to make the journey were accommodated by Pentland Ferries, and quite a number on the freight vessel that you mentioned, which took the bulk of the freight. Sometimes that meant that people’s vehicles had to be transported by one vessel, while they themselves were transported by another. There was capacity to meet demand; we were aware of that when the contract was made.

We did not just leave it to Serco to look for an additional vessel; we asked Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd, CalMac Ferries and others what vessels were available. The specific main reasons that Serco gave were, first, that a vessel would be required for a very short-term lease, so it was not attractive to many people to provide a vessel from other parts of the world. Secondly, there has been a substantial reduction in the tonnage available, because of the recession throughout the world. Beyond that, we hoped to have the Hamnavoe up and running in less time than it would have taken a vessel to get here from a distant part of the world, which is what transpired.

Were the costs of the disruption, for things such as buses and extra Pentland Ferries sailings, all met by Serco, or did the Scottish Government have to foot the bill?

We have not footed the bill for anything. Serco will be penalised for the sailings that were not undertaken, although the issue gets a bit more complex when it comes to the period in which it was providing sailings but not optimum ones, because they were freight services—we have to work through that. In addition, Serco had to pay about £0.5 million for the replacement of the ship’s crankshaft. The services and additional integration through buses were paid for by Serco.

So, Transport Scotland has imposed a penalty on Serco.

We have not come to the final figure, but it is about £7,000 for each time Serco did not provide the required sailing.

I have a question on the study that Transport Scotland commissioned into the impact of the removal of the road equivalent tariff for larger commercial vehicles in the Western Isles, Coll and Tiree. The MVA Consultancy report suggests that there was some negative impact on the economies of the islands through the removal of RET ferry fares for commercial vehicles, and it made a number of suggestions regarding schemes that might mitigate some of the negative impacts. Will you elucidate that a bit and say something about the findings of the research and how the Scottish Government is considering taking them forward?

We are still looking at the outcome of the research and listening to other stakeholders about it. We said before the study was undertaken, as part of the ferries plan, that we want freight fares across Scotland to be consistent, rational, intelligible and fair because, previously, there was a complex mixture of freight fares and, to an extent, that situation still exists. The origins of those fares and the rationale for them, if there ever was one, are lost in the mists of time. We will use the study to ensure that, across Scotland, we have a fair freight policy. Obviously, the findings of the survey will help us to do that, but that was our overall intention in any event.

Whom are you consulting?

The consultants’ report has come back to us. We have had representations and the issue is being taken forward. We are evaluating the report. From memory, in producing the ferries plan, we undertook a huge amount of consultation. We have the information back from stakeholders. The people in Transport Scotland who are considering the matter might take on additional assistance with that, but I do not know the detail.

I seek a little more detail on the issue that was raised previously about the time when the Hamnavoe was not in service. To an extent, there was a reliance on Pentland Ferries. Did Pentland Ferries receive any direct support during that period, or did it simply charge the normal fares that it charges for passengers who use the service?

Pentland Ferries certainly did not receive any support from the Scottish Government. As you know, it is a privately run service. However, as I mentioned in response to a previous question, additional bus services that went to the Pentland Ferries terminal rather than Serco’s were provided at the expense of Serco. Also, Serco’s systems were changed quickly so that people were directed towards Pentland Ferries. There were other options. If people wanted to travel from Aberdeen, they could do that. The assistance that was provided was a boost to the business of Pentland Ferries, as it carried far more passengers than usual. That was made as easy as possible, but the company received no direct financial support from the Government.

I was interested in the fact that what is in essence a subsidised service was for a while being provided by an unsubsidised contractor, and I wondered whether any lessons were learned for the long term.

Pentland Ferries has been there for some time and we have to take into account what the possibilities are for a crossing. When we established the contract, we said in response to representations from stakeholders that the Scrabster to Stromness route is a lifeline service. It is no bad thing that the public and private sectors seem to collaborate very effectively to meet passengers’ needs.

Alex, do you want to ask your question?

My shot next, is it?

I want to ask the minister about road developments, some of which he has touched on already. I am impressed by the work that has been achieved with the M74 and the M80 extensions and the contribution that that has made to our road network. Will the minister give me updates on one or two other projects, starting with the M8 completion?

All I can say is that we are at the stage of the process that we expected to be at. We have had huge interest from the industry. We had an industry day in Glasgow that was bursting at the seams—the hall was packed out. The work that it was expected would be done by this stage has been done and there is no change to the timescale. I can get you more detail about what is happening now, but the M8 completion is proceeding as planned.

The minister has already mentioned the dualling of the A9. Is it possible to get more information on current expectations on the timescale for that project?

We have said that we want the road to be fully dualled by 2025. We will be taking forward a number of projects well in advance of that. There is sometimes a kind of shorthand critique of the project that says that we have to wait until 2025. However, the truth is that many sections of that road will be completed long before then, so the benefits will be felt progressively along the road. Three sections are much more advanced than the rest of the route. Again I say that that is proceeding as we expected it to do.

The contracts that I mentioned before are design contracts—we are asking companies to make proposals for the design. The project will provide the successful bidders with 12 years of work. Progress is such that we can get it done by 2025 but, as I said, you will see substantial progress and sections being completed well before that.

I will move slightly closer to home for me. The obstacles appear to be gone from the Aberdeen western peripheral route project. Can the minister provide an update on where the project is at the moment?

Immediately after this meeting, I am away to see another one of the obstacles being removed—the International School of Aberdeen is about to be demolished. That work starts today. As you know, the school was on the route so it had to be demolished. The new school has been established.

The work that is on-going is mainly ground investigations. There were parts of the route that we could not get into previously. As a result of the legal process, we could only go so far. We are now ensuring that the rest of that is done. On that project too, we had an extremely good infrastructure day and we have a short leet of bidders for the project. It is not going according to schedule because, in my view, it should have been done many years ago. However, it is going as fast as possible, given that we had to wait for the outcome of the legal process. Today, we will see further evidence of that with the demolition of the school.

When will excavation and construction work begin?

You are talking about construction rather than destruction, which I suppose is what we will see today.

The invitation to tender has gone out and the contract is due to be awarded in autumn next year, so we could start to see other works on the ground very quickly after that. Work will also be happening in the meantime. We had the industry day in January, which had to be put in the Official Journal of the European Union.

Of course, such projects can vary according to a number of factors, including weather. When might we see the first car run on the AWPR?

As we have said before, 2018 is our target. There has been a lot of discussion about whether some sections might be done in advance of others—we are looking at that as well. That is also being considered in the discussion with bidders. For example, people have asked whether the Balmedie to Tipperty stretch is a discrete piece of the route that could be done in advance. That is being considered. There are suggestions that some of the pressures around the airport could be looked at sympathetically. For the whole route, though, we have said that 2018 is our target.

The latest roads project that the Government announced was the dualling of the A96. I am interested in that project in particular. My first question is a simple one. Why has the Government chosen to dual the full length of the A96 rather than simply the Inverness and Nairn section that was proposed in the strategic transport projects review?

11:00  

The most obvious reason is that we believe that all Scotland’s cities should be connected by a dual carriageway or a motorway. In my view, that is a basic requirement for a modern, developed economy. If we had not done that, the A96 would have been the only road between two cities that was not fully dualled or made into a motorway.

If we are going to do that level of work for some of the road anyway, it is right to do the whole thing. As you mentioned before, the A9 dualling did not feature in the STPR, but once we decided that we wanted to connect two cities—in that case, Perth and Inverness—it would have been anomalous for us not to do the same on the A96. It is right to have that level of road there.

I presume that a business case has been prepared for the dualling of the A96. Will that be published?

I will have to check that. Our normal practice is to do that. For example, I have said to the committee that we will produce a business case for the Edinburgh to Glasgow high-speed line. Elements of the business case may be held back for commercial confidentiality—I am not saying that they will be; I just cannot remember at this point—

Is there a cost benefit analysis for the dualling of the A96?

There will be, just as with the AWPR.

Are we likely to be able to see that at some point?

Yes.

Thank you.

I will go back to the AWPR, minister. Is one of the other obstacles the current stance of Aberdeen City Council, which says that the council should not honour its agreement, made way back in 2003, regarding the amount that the council should pay for the project? The council compares the project with the Forth crossing, which I think is completely irrelevant. What is your view on Aberdeen City Council’s current stance?

Only someone who is ignorant of the process that developed could make the accusation that the council does, given the fact that the split of the costs was agreed back in 2003.

Prior to that point, of course, the AWPR was a local road project. It was brought forward by Grampian Regional Council, I think, or by its successor councils. It was a local project that the previous Executive agreed to take on an element of. It worked out a ratio of 81 per cent to 19 per cent, split between the two councils, which was agreed by both councils. That was subsequently agreed again in January this year by Aberdeen City Council.

The approach of Aberdeenshire Council has been quite different, of course. When I went up to see some of the sites of the AWPR a couple of weeks ago, Aberdeenshire Council representatives said to me, “A deal’s a deal—let’s get on with it.” Aberdeen City Council’s approach is quite different. It is not happy with the cap that we have provided that limits its contribution. It has tried to talk itself away from the deal that was previously agreed. I do not know whether that will continue after upcoming democratic battles are fought, but it seems that it is an act of good faith that if you agree to something twice you do not then try to reopen the whole thing.

There was a danger—probably less so now—that the uncertainty created by that stance would have an impact on the process for the road itself. Such a situation affects the confidence of bidders and it was regrettable that we had it, but I hope that it has died away now.

You mentioned some pinchpoints such as Balmedie to Tipperty and the area around the airport. Do you envisage the AWPR being done in sections, or will it start at the north and work its way round? How do you envisage the work being done?

We have listened to representations from local people—valid, legitimate representations—but we have to talk to the bidders and see what they think, because they are the experts who will construct the road. We need to ask them whether it is possible to do a section to a particular timescale. We are not hidebound—we are not saying that we have to start at point A and finish at point B. There is scope to do things differently, but, to be able to do that and to answer the legitimate demands for earlier work on specific areas, we have to get the views of those who will be constructing the road.

Jim Eadie has some questions about active travel.

Minister, when you appeared before the committee in December 2012, I asked you about the refresh of the cycling action plan for Scotland—CAPS. Can you provide an update on the refresh of the plan, including a timescale for its publication, and can you confirm that it will contain interim targets and be fully aligned with RPP2?

The answer to your first point precludes my answering your second point about interim targets, because the plan has yet to come out. There has to be further discussion. The Government is looking at the plan now, and we will be talking to our local authority partners and to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities about it. After that, we will be able to announce exactly what is in the CAPS.

It is useful to know that the plan is at an advanced stage, but publication seems to have slipped a little. I am not overly concerned about that, because it is more important to get the document right than to rush it. Can you clarify the timescale?

We are trying to establish a date for the discussion with Councillor Stephen Hagan of COSLA, which will be the final part of the process. It is worth mentioning that point, because a lot of the discussion about the background to CAPS has been about the Scottish Government but, as members will be aware, CAPS is a collaborative document, not just the Scottish Government’s.

The work that we are doing on active travel—cycling, walking and so on—is carried out in many ways by local authorities and local partnerships, so we need agreement at that level first. I would have to check, but I hope to meet COSLA representatives either at the beginning of or during the summer recess to get the plan signed off.

You will be aware of the recent demonstration outside the Parliament, organised by the pedal on Parliament campaign, which involved some 4,000 cyclists from across the country. I understand that you recently met representatives of that grass-roots organisation. Can you update us on the outcomes of that meeting?

We discussed such things as 20mph zones, which I know you are well aware of. I pointed out that it is for local authorities to take decisions on such zones, because the roads where 20mph zones are sought are, in the main, the responsibility of local authorities. I understand the cyclists’ desire for those zones, but I did not agree with the demand for a wholesale change to 20mph roads. That has to be done by local authorities, and we have said that we will make available to other areas of Scotland the work that has been done with City of Edinburgh Council so that it can be taken on.

We also discussed cycling safety. We discussed at some length the situation in the Netherlands, and I am going there next week to see exactly what it has done.

We shall come on to that.

The pedal on Parliament representatives made the point that, although people hold up the Netherlands as an excellent example of how to accommodate cycling, the provisions in place there were not achieved overnight and that, as might be expected, a number of mistakes were made, which have since been rectified. They said that the Scottish Government and its partners should learn from those mistakes. They also made the reasonable point that it is better to do less but to do it effectively and properly than to do a lot and get it wrong. Perhaps that is an obvious point, but they made it based on their experience.

We also discussed liability. Ministers do not agree with the cyclists’ position on criminal liability or civil liability for road accidents, so we do not intend to take the matter forward. As was required under the previous CAPS, we investigated the situation in other countries, and we are not able to make a correlation between liability and improved safety. That was a point of difference between us.

Other than that, we had a constructive discussion, which will result in me being on a bicycle even more often in future weeks and months. We also discussed how more of the transport budget could be allocated to cycling in future years. You would have to ask the pedal on Parliament people for their view, but my view of the meeting was that it was constructive, and it has opened up a wider discussion about how we can try to achieve more in future.

Your final point, about funding, is one that Graeme Obree made at the pedal on Parliament event. He said that we are talking not about funding but about investment and that the amount of money that the national health service would save from reduced levels of obesity, cardiovascular disease, stroke and so on would be a huge benefit for the whole country. Is that something that you discussed?

Yes, it was discussed in general terms. I made the point—either at that meeting or at a similar one—that the argument that investment in one place will result in savings elsewhere is made across a range of Government expenditure. However, as I said, I cannot remember a time when public finances were as constrained as they are now, and there are issues around finding the money in the first place.

As you know, the pedal on Parliament campaigners would like a bigger slice of the transport budget to be allocated to cycling. I have laid out our priorities in terms of the other transport projects that we are involved in. To an extent, we are trying to make good on many years of underinvestment, which adds to the pressure. However, I reiterate the point that there are real gains to be made in, for example, increasing the number of commuting journeys that are undertaken by bike or another form of active travel, which was an issue that we discussed at that meeting.

We are considering that issue in relation to the next rail franchise as well. People focus on getting more bicycles on trains, but we are trying to focus on things such as the approach that we see in the Netherlands, where people can take a bike to the train station and leave it somewhere secure—they can even have it repaired while they are elsewhere—and then pick up a bike at the other end to complete their journey. That means that their entire journey can be made by either public or active transport.

We are trying to identify the most commonly used pathways where lots of commuting takes place to see how we can drive down the number of journeys that are undertaken by car in particular. In our discussion, we talked about the way in which we can do that in collaboration with our local authority partners, so that, if there were a terminal for buses or trains that was a mile or two away from a major centre of employment, the route between those two places could be maintained in a way that would encourage active transport. For example, if you wanted to encourage people to walk there, you could ensure that the lighting was better, and if you wanted to encourage people to cycle, you could take action on the maintenance of the roads and signage. We discussed the issue of creating commuting pathways, and I am keen that we should take that further.

Did you have any discussion about the level of investment that would be required to take that idea forward?

Pedal on Parliament made a demand for the level of investment that it wants, but I spoke about how constrained resources are and the extent to which our spending in this area is increasing—I would need to check the exact figures but we have spent around £70 million since 2007, which compares well with the previous five-year period in which the Government spent around £58 million. However, although the spending has increased, pedal on Parliament would like to see more being spent in future years. We discussed ways in which that spending could be increased, but I would not say that we came to an agreement. The best way to describe the situation is that we are still discussing the matter.

What do you hope to gain from your trip to the Netherlands?

I hope to gain an understanding of the infrastructure that is used there. There is a different culture around cycle usage. I have also heard that the Dutch have arranged their urban areas so that traffic is calmed—I have only heard about that at second hand, but I understand that there are subtle ways in which that can be done with regard to the nature of the environment that cars move through. I also want to get an idea of how they integrate different modes of transport, such as rail and bicycle. I am minded to find out what I can when I am there.

The Danish and Dutch cycling embassies exist to disseminate the good practice that exists in other European countries. We are quite a long way off the day when we might have a Scottish cycling embassy.

We are also talking to people in Denmark and Spain and are trying to learn the lessons of what they have done there. Of course, it is true to say that not every lesson will be transferable. We have a different climate and a different topography from those places, but we want to learn lessons from their experience.

In March 2012, the Parliament supported the idea of 100 per cent of children being able to access on-road cycle training by 2015. Are you considering that?

Yes. I think that we made an announcement last year of additional funding for that in order to increase the number of people who can get that training. As you know, cycling proficiency training in a school playground is quite different from on-road training. I would have to check exactly where we are at with regard to reaching that target.

On-road training is crucial. If we want to encourage parents to allow their children to cycle to school, for example, they have to have some level of confidence in the ability of the children to do that.

I will get back to you with information about where we are in relation to that target. However, I can say that we have taken the point on board, and that is what we want to happen.

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Will you provide an update on the national walking strategy?

We are working on that with the Paths for All Partnership. The latest that I have seen is that the work has been going extremely well. We have a further meeting coming up with those who are involved in active travel and we will be able to see how it is progressing, but it is pretty much as it was planned. The deadline that we have given is to be met. I will check and provide the figures on that.

Will you provide an update on the roll-out of wi-fi on ScotRail trains and in stations, including, if possible, information on plans to extend coverage to all rolling stock and stations that can reasonably be fitted with wi-fi equipment?

I will ask Aidan Grisewood to comment as well, but we are fitting the class 380 trains. By and large, those trains go out to Ayrshire but they are used across the network, too. The most recent announcement was about the class 170 trains, which are to be fitted with wi-fi, and a number of stations. Once those two sets of rolling stock have been fitted, about a third of our rolling stock will have wi-fi.

The fitting of stations can be done only in a phased way, given the practical and financial constraints. In deciding on the stations that we have announced will be fitted, we focused not just on footfall but on how long people tend to spend in the station. We also had an eye on access points for the Commonwealth games. That is why we have prioritised certain stations—but the ultimate aim is to achieve complete coverage.

I do not know whether Aidan Grisewood wants to say more on that.

The fitting of the 170 stock is on schedule for the end of this year, and as the minister said the fitting of the 380s will be beyond that, into the following year.

A commitment to roll out wi-fi across the whole railway is part of the franchise specification. There is a backstop date of 2019, but with an expectation that substantial progress will be made in the early part of the franchise period. It is not just a question of fitting the stock and stations, as we also need to consider the signal strength in particular areas. There needs to be a good deal of work around integration with the overall wi-fi coverage in Scotland, and that is being looked into.

I have a supplementary question on that. Is the wi-fi that is available at stations and on the rolling stock always free or is it free only for a short time window? I hear from colleagues that there is a 15-minute window and then a chargeable period.

That is the case on the east coast main line. We are not responsible for the east coast or west coast main lines. The wi-fi that we are responsible for is free. There can be a limit in terms of capacity, but people are not charged at any point.

Thank you.

My main question is about the Borders railway. I understand that the project recently entered its construction phase. Given that it is a 30-mile route and a number of bridges need to be built or rebuilt, are there any indications that the route will not come in on time and on budget? When do you anticipate that the route will open?

Network Rail is saying to us that it confidently anticipates that the route will be completed by September 2015. When we awarded the contract to Network Rail, we said that we wanted to ensure that we further explored any opportunities to bring that date forward. Network Rail was understandably a bit reluctant, given some of the uncertainties such as old mine workings. We expect to be able to sit down with Network Rail again at—I think—the end of the summer and say, “What have you found from your ground investigations? What is the position with the mine workings?”

If you travel along the route now, you see a huge amount of work going on. Network Rail is getting more information as that work is done, and it will become more certain about the timescales. We will not know until the end of the summer about its ability to pull forward the timescale; at that time, we should have a clearer idea.

Chris Gibb, the chief operating officer of Virgin Trains, has said that a combination of the west coast upgrade and the planned high-speed rail link to London would lead to the projected journey time on the Scotland to London route being reduced to three hours and 15 minutes. That is with no upgrade at all for Scotland. What is your comment on the feasibility or worthiness of that?

For some time, Virgin has held the position that substantial improvements in journey time can be made without a high-speed line coming right to Scotland. We have listened to what Virgin has had to say, and if there are any ways in which we can improve journey times in advance of there being a high-speed link to Scotland we should certainly explore them. However, we do not accept the point that Scotland should not have its own high-speed rail link.

On behalf of the UK Government, Patrick McLoughlin has said that he wants to see sub-three-hour journey times between Scotland and London. I am interested in finding out how he believes that that can be achieved. I cannot imagine it being achieved, even given what Chris Gibb has said, without a full high-speed line. We are therefore in discussions with the Westminster Government about how we can pursue proposals for a high-speed rail link to Scotland. We have announced our proposal for a high-speed rail link between Edinburgh and Glasgow to accommodate and encourage that move.

Given the limited line that the UK Government has announced, which should be completed by 2032, we anticipate—and most people in the industry agree—that a substantial upgrade to the west coast main line without the high-speed link will have to happen by around the mid-2020s; otherwise, the capacity will be exceeded and there will be real issues for both freight and passenger services on the line. It is common sense to say, “Let’s do the whole thing” and to start it now. Let us take the high-speed line right the way up to Scotland.

Although there are still people who do not think that a high-speed rail link is the way to go, there is virtual unanimity in Scotland among the trade unions, the business organisations, the Government and civic Scotland, through the partnership that we have, that we want high-speed rail to come to Scotland. If there are any interim benefits to be gained from some of Virgin’s suggestions, of course we should consider them, but I do not think that we should take our eye off the ball.

Scotland needs, deserves and will benefit from—and the UK will benefit massively from—high-speed rail coming to Scotland. The cost benefit ratio of what the company proposes in its business case would be massively better if high-speed rail came to Scotland. We would also start to see a substantial modal shift if people could make a train journey of three hours or less instead of going via Heathrow or Gatwick, which takes substantially longer than that.

It makes sense for us to proceed in that way. Although what Chris Gibb says is interesting and might provide scope for interim improvements, it is no substitute for high-speed rail.

Chris Gibb mentions a journey time of three hours and 15 minutes. To give us an idea of the difference between that and the journey time on a direct route, can you tell us the likely journey time if the high-speed line came all the way from London to Scotland?

I have mentioned Patrick McLoughlin’s target of sub-three hours, which is what we have always understood that we could achieve through high-speed rail. Perhaps Aidan Grisewood can respond on that issue.

We will sit down with Chris Gibb to find out more about what is involved in achieving a journey time of three hours and 15 minutes. We also need to distinguish between the direct end-to-end journey times of a non-stop service and a stopping service that is similar to what we have now. There are trade-offs around all of that. As the minister said, we are keen to understand what can be done to make incremental improvements in the meantime and to know the basis for the projected journey time of three hours and 15 minutes.

That is a question that I had not thought about. Does the time of three hours and 15 minutes include any stops or is it the travelling time?

That is what we need to clarify. We need to talk through with Chris Gibb the objectives around, for instance, the four-hour journey time, in a shorter timetable, on the basis of a non-stop service—I think it was three hours and 59 minutes—between London and Glasgow.

That is extremely important. The figure mentioned in other places was sub-three hours. I wondered what the difference was between two hours and 59 minutes compared with three hours and 15 minutes and what amount of money would be involved in that. We need to be in a position to compare apples with apples and not with pears, so that would be useful information.

On the part that is under your control, minister, can you provide an update on planning for a high-speed railway between Glasgow and Edinburgh and on what dialogue is taking place with the Department for Transport and HS2 in London about what we plan to do here in Scotland?

The situation has not changed much from the last time that I spoke to the committee. I said at that point that the Government expects to have a business plan by spring next year. It will take some time to consider the Edinburgh to Glasgow high-speed rail link. Aidan Grisewood will know more detail, but I understand that we are having discussions with the UK Government that are quite constructive—perhaps more so than in the past—about the ability to include Scotland in the scheme for, as it calls it, a stage 3.

As with our earlier discussion about AWPR, we have never accepted that the project has to start in the south and come north. We have always said—as we say with the Borders railway—that things can be done at different points. We do not have the same legal planning and consensus issues in Scotland as there are in England, given that there does not seem to be the opposition that has existed elsewhere, so perhaps we can make even quicker progress in Scotland.

Aidan Grisewood is more involved with the discussions with the DFT, so he may be able to say more.

As the minister said, we have had constructive discussions about the remit for the future work, in terms of planning and route options, for high-speed rail beyond Manchester and in the east of Scotland. That has been very useful. There was a meeting in May on on-going matters and a subsequent meeting with the Department for Transport. The Scottish partnership group has been reformed and there was a meeting on 22 April to update that group on the progress made so far on the high-speed link to London and on proposals about the Glasgow service. We agreed the remit of the group, feeding into that work.

Do you have a timeline for the electrification of the Glasgow to Edinburgh via Falkirk line and when the end-to-end journey is likely to fall to 42 minutes, as I think was mooted?

I think that we said previously that the electrification would take place by 2016; that remains our target. At that point we have to incorporate rolling stock that is suitable for electric lines. That process will take us until 2018 to complete, so that is when we will get the full journey time reductions.

Is it in 2018 that the end-to-end journey time is likely to be 42 minutes?

There will be progressive improvements in the journey time between 2016 and 2018, but the full effect will be in 2018.

Do you have a timeline for the electrification of the Alloa-Stirling-Dunblane line?

We have said before that we expect to have that completed within the control period up to 2019, but we now expect to achieve that earlier, not least because work is on-going just now. I was on the line last night; many of the bridges have already been raised to accommodate the work, so we should see completion by 2018.

I announced last week that the Whifflet project is about four years ahead of schedule. I am not about to announce that the Alloa-Stirling-Dunblane line will be finished four years ahead of schedule, but we have learnt lessons from the Paisley corridor project—namely, that things can be done more quickly, substantially and cost-effectively. We will keep an eye out for any way that we can bring forward any element of the project.

Thank you, minister. Given that we have no more questions, you have more time to get to Aberdeen for 3 o’clock. The committee will suspend briefly to allow the minister and his officials to leave.

11:30 Meeting suspended.

11:31 On resuming—