Chamber and committees

The next questions will come from me. The moving annual average performance target is one of the key assessments of how well the railway network is operating. The Scottish Government constantly said that Abellio was failing them—I remember Alex Hynes having to answer questions about that in a previous committee. We now have fewer trains and we are still not meeting the target. Can someone explain that to me?

I still have not had an answer to the question. Abellio was reaching roughly the same targets that you are reaching now, but it was running more trains—so it was a more cluttered landscape—and it was criticised constantly by the Scottish Government for failing to reach the target. However, you are now saying that it is okay if that target is not met, because the service is in public ownership.

I understand that the Government will choose the ownership structure; I was just saying that we criticised Abellio for not reaching targets, but you are not reaching the targets at the moment, so should you not be criticised?

I am looking round the table but do not see anyone else who wants to come in.

We have had a wide-ranging discussion, and we have heard quite a bit about Edinburgh, Glasgow, Winchburgh and Aberdeen, but witnesses have failed to talk about Inverness, which is a subject close to my heart. The dualling of the A9 also requires the dualling and double tracking of the railway. That is an idea that we can develop outside this meeting.

Thank you very much for your time. I am sure that we will see you again.

I call Mark Ruskell.

Will you clarify that for me? I am a little confused. In the last year of the franchise, when ScotRail was going to be nationalised, Abellio could make decisions on wages provided that those were approved by the Scottish Government. It could not make a decision without approval from the transport minister, because that was part of the agreement.

That would require the development of new trains. I remember that, when the 125s or HSTs came up six years ago, you said that they were a great step forward. The new Hitachi trains took quite a long time to develop and come into service. We are now in 2023, so 2030 is seven years away. If the design process and the procurement process started now, would the trains be available by 2030?

So if an issue is on track, you go to the minister, and if it is on passenger service delivery, David Lowrie goes to the minister. Is that right? Perhaps I am complicating things; I am trying to see what the pyramid looks like.

Good morning and welcome to the 19th meeting of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee in 2023. The first item on the agenda is to decide whether to take in private item 3, which is consideration of the evidence on the railways that we will hear today. Do we agree to take item 3 in private?

Members indicated agreement.

I thank all the witnesses for coming this morning. Your passion for the subject has been clear to all. Thank you for your evidence and for explaining to me the complex structure of how the whole system works.

I briefly suspend the meeting to allow for a change of witnesses.