Chamber and committees

I will pick up on Stuart Hay’s point about parking outside schools. I absolutely understand that in an urban conurbation. I will ask you the same question for rural settings, where there are no buses, where probably the only place to park is outside the school and where a lot of people rely on private transport to get their children to school. How do you solve that problem? Will one size fit all?

Gary Fuller, were you trying to catch my eye to add something, or did I misinterpret that?

I have a couple of questions on LEZs. In the previous session, I sat through the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee’s examination of the Transport (Scotland) Bill and LEZs. We were told that winning people over was really important, as Gary Fuller has just indicated. We were also told that the money that is collected from LEZs should be invested in the infrastructure needed to make the LEZs work more effectively. It is difficult to compare London with Aberdeen. London has an integrated transport policy, with buses and tubes that interconnect. Glasgow might be able to claim to have some of that, but I am not sure that Aberdeen can claim to have that.

Should the money that is raised from LEZs be ring fenced and put straight back into improving transport infrastructure so that we do not disadvantage people who can no longer take their cars into cities?

I am happy to let this session run for a bit. If Gary Fuller could give a really short answer, you can then put your questions to Paul White. Gary, do not upset Monica.

Maybe you could roll your questions for Paul White into one, Monica.

There is always an expectation on the convener to manage the committee to make sure that all members get to ask the questions that they want to ask, which is difficult.

Thank you very much. It has been a really interesting session. I have found it extremely interesting, and the fact that we have overrun probably proves that everybody has found that.

I will briefly suspend the meeting until 10.50 to allow a change of panels.

Thank you very much. As with the panel from the previous evidence session, we have overrun slightly, but that shows how interested everyone has been in the subject. Thank you very much for giving your time. We will move into private session. I politely ask you to move as quickly as possible, because we have quite a lot to discuss, but thank you very much for your very valid input.

Paul White talked about LEZs and Euro 6 engines on buses. Is there a fear that LEZs in major conurbations that require Euro 6 bus engines will push those buses that do not meet the Euro 6 bus engine standards into rural settings, where there are not LEZs, or is that nothing to be worried about?

We move on to questions from Liam Kerr.

I am going to push you to go to the next question, Jackie, having identified a flaw in the system.