The Scottish Government suffered an embarrassing defeat over their plans to reintroduce peak fares on ScotRail services as the Scottish Parliament supported a motion I amended calling for the decision to be reversed.
I was successful in passing my amendment by 64 votes to 62.
This followed another embarrassing defeat for the Scottish Government over their decision to scrap their promise to provide free school meals to pupils across Scotland.
The non-binding motion on peak fares called on the Scottish Government to reverse its decision to reintroduce peak fares on Scotland’s railways and that the Scottish Parliament agreed that “making public transport more accessible, affordable and reliable is key to supporting more people to use public transport.”
The ScotRail peak fare suspension pilot, which started in October last year, saw passengers saving hundreds and sometimes thousands of pounds in commuting costs and helped increase passenger numbers by 6.8% – despite the ScotRail timetable being hit with delays and cancellations that knocked commuter confidence in the reliability of train services.
The Scottish Government and ScotRail have also been accused of under-advertising the scheme at its introduction due to concerns of overcrowding on trains.
I have consistently called for the permanent removal of peak fares, as they are a tax on workers, and have also been raising my concerns with ScotRail services in Fife with Managing Director of ScotRail, Joanne Maguire.
The SNP are determined to paint the peak fares suspension pilot as a failure when we saw an increase of 6.8% in rail users during a time of unprecedented chaos and mismanagement on the rail.
It has already been revealed that the scheme was not advertised properly at the start for fears of overcrowding and the interim report was delayed due to bad weather having an impact on the statistics so the idea that it would have achieved all its goals just one year on is ridiculous.
The SNP are simply using this as an excuse to dump a genuinely positive proposal because their financial mismanagement has left them desperately clawing for cash to fill the economic black hole.
If we are serious about shifting people out of cars and onto public transport, we must make it affordable, accessible and available – moves like this will simply push more people to use cars as driving remains the cheapest way to commute to work.
I am also struggling with the idea that people are going to be expected to pay more for a substandard service on a reduced timetable – constituents across Fife have been contacting me regarding the overcrowding on trains due to the reduced timetable and trains coming with only a couple of carriages at peak times.
I have written to ScotRail and called on them and the Scottish Government to get a grip of the situation and provide the rail service that the people of Scotland deserve.
