Chamber and committees

Our next item of business is an evidence session on Scotland’s railways. In March last year, the committee held evidence sessions with rail industry stakeholders and the Scottish Government in advance of ScotRail’s transfer into public ownership, and we agreed to keep a watching brief on the issue.

The purpose of today’s session is to take stock of ScotRail’s first year in public ownership, considering issues such as industrial relations, fares and usage, and the future of the rail industry in Scotland.

I am pleased to welcome on our first panel Mick Hogg, who is the regional organiser and lead officer for ScotRail and Caledonian Sleeper at the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers; Gary Kelly, who is the organiser for Scotland and Ireland at the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association; Kevin Lindsay, who is the district organiser for the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen; and Robert Samson, who is the senior stakeholder manager for Transport Focus.

I thank you very much for accepting our invitation; we are delighted to have you here. We have allowed about an hour for the session.

We will go straight into questions, and the first ones will come from Fiona Hyslop, who is the deputy convener.

We will come to the subject of ticketing later. You are obviously passionate about it, so you will get a chance to come in on it.

Yes. That would fit logically.

Who is that aimed at? It can be aimed at only one person.

I made that point. I understand that the role of booking office staff is not just about selling tickets. I was simply interested in finding out what proportion of tickets were sold at booking offices. It might be a question of repurposing roles, rather than staff necessarily selling tickets, given the importance of keeping people there.

I am not disputing the points that people have made about security and looking after railway stations. I am simply interested to know how many people buy tickets at a station rather than using the technology that we have to do it online.

No, no, Kevin, I see and hear your passion, but I have to mix the committee up to make sure that all members get their questions in. I think that Liam Kerr has one more question.

I am going to wrestle this back to try to let Liam Kerr in, as he has been waiting patiently.

I am trying to understand the reporting structures. The more complicated they are, the more difficult it is to see a way through. You think that the structures work, but I was under the impression that the unions do not think that they work or think that they are opaque. The unions tried but struggled in part to explain the structures.

Ash Regan will ask the first questions.