17:15 Owen Thompson (Midlothian) (SNP)

The Scottish Government have robust evidence and the insight to make better informed decisions on transport spending and priorities in Scotland. As I mentioned, we have already had a Dalkeith bypass approved, and it did not take us 70 years to achieve that—it took devolution. The focus needs to be on projects to improve lives, boost the economy, support communities, and work towards net zero. That is how the Scottish Government are planning Scotland’s future transport infrastructure investment. They are doing so much through the second strategic transport projects review, not the Union connectivity review.

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17:22 Kerry McCarthy (Labour)

We had a debate in this room this morning on the much-awaited and long-delayed transport decarbonisation plan. I made the point that the Government are committed to that huge £27 billion-worth of spending on road infrastructure but the Transport Secretary ignored the advice of his civil servants to carry out an environmental impact assessment. It is not my role to take a view on what local projects are needed. That is for locally elected representatives, and I would not want them to do that in my patch. However, I hope that we measure things against the impact on the natural environment and overall contribution to getting to net zero, because that cannot be done just by a shift to electric vehicles. We have to discourage road travel and give people alternatives, whether that is investment in rail or buses, as has been mentioned, or other means.

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