I have written to the Cabinet Secretary for Transport Michael Matheson requesting that he use the upcoming break in the ScotRail franchise agreement to take Scotland’s railways back into public hands.
This has come on the back of the news that ScotRail’s continued failure of passengers resulted in the franchise running up automatic fines totalling more than £2 million in the first six months of this year alone.
Between January to June this year, fines for breaches of a series of performance measures reached a whopping £2,241,837.
The public already know that ScotRail is not delivering a good service for the money they are paid and the fares we are paying. Whether it is the number of delays, cancellations, overcrowded carriages or cleanliness of the facilities, people are paying huge fares for poor service.
These fines only come in to place when ScotRail fail to meet certain performance measures which shows that the service is clearly not up to scratch. But seeing as we subsidise the rail anyway it is hardly a fine for the private operator – It is about time we took ScotRail back in to public ownership and bring an end to this farce.
We are starting to see more and more drive for this across all parts of the UK, and Scotland shouldn’t fall behind. Recently, the Welsh Government set up Transport for Wales – a not-for-profit organization set up to run the transport system after repeated failures from the private operators.
It is time we did the same here in Scotland in order to deliver a proper publicly owned transport system that is fit for purpose for the transport needs of 21st century Scotland.”
Notes:
Fine reports for each quarter –
SQUIRE report – Q1 2018/19 https://www.transport.gov.scot/media/42616/squire-q1-2018-2019-percentage-performance-figures.pdf
SQUIRE report – Q2 2018/19 https://www.transport.gov.scot/media/43315/squire-2018-19-q2-percentage-performance-figures.pdf
