Chamber and committees

You share—

That would be helpful.

I am conscious of the fact that Bill Reeve has not had many opportunities to come in, because all these people are asking about bypasses and roundabouts. Let me finish up with a question about the East Kilbride rail enhancement. The briefing that has been given to us describes the project as having been enhanced in size. However, my mailbag tells me that it has gone from being a project that includes dualling of the track to one that retains a single track, so the people of East Kilbride are not very happy about the project as it stands. They see it as being a diminution of the original project. In fact, as recently as yesterday, I saw a letter that was sent by the leader of South Lanarkshire Council to the transport minister, complaining about that very fact. Can you explain why it is seen as an enhancement and where additional scope is involved? The empirical evidence that I get on the ground is that it is the opposite of that.

Excellent. On that positive note for public transport, I will draw this session to a close. Bill Reeve, Helen Carter and Lawrence Shackman, thank you very much indeed for your time this morning. I think that there are one or two points that we want to follow up, and we will do that. Thank you very much indeed.

I now draw this public session of the committee’s deliberations to a close, and we will move into private session.

Thank you. The deputy convener, Sharon Dowey, has a series of questions.

But when that advice was overridden, you did not consider your position at that point.

I am trying to establish whether there was a boycott.

Was your non-attendance because of a lack of spaces, or was it because you had misgivings about the announcement or you felt that it would compromise the negotiations that you were involved in?

So it was a case of, “When is an invitation not an invitation?”

There was an internal email, issued on 20 August, that recommended that Mr Mackay lead on the announcement, but you are saying that, by the next day, there had been an intervention that meant that the First Minister was leading on the announcement.

Had you been available to attend, would you have attended?