Edinburgh Airport Rail Link

Speech by Alison McInnes delivered to The Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change (Stewart Stevenson) on Thu 13th Sep 2007

Alison McInnes: To ask the Scottish Executive when it will report back to the Parliament on its work on continuing to progress the Edinburgh airport rail link project. (S3O-602)

Stewart Stevenson: As promised, we will report back to Parliament at the end of the month on the review of governance issues identified in the Audit Scotland report.

Alison McInnes: I thank the minister for his answer. I remind the minister of two points. First, the terms of the motion on EARL that the Parliament agreed on 27 June were:

"That the Parliament ... further calls on the Scottish Government to continue to progress the EARL project by resolving the governance issues identified by the Auditor General".

Secondly, the response of the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth to that motion being passed was:

"I also put on record that the Government will pursue the terms of the resolution in relation to the Edinburgh airport rail link."-[Official Report, 27 June 2007; c 1192.]

I ask the minister to explain how suspending work on the EARL project, as well as his comment to the Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee on Tuesday that suspending work on EARL was "the way to protect the public purse and ensure that we do not allow the project to go ahead",-[Official Report, Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee, 11 September 2007; c 26.] square with those two earlier points? Is it not the case that the minister has already decided to defy the will of Parliament and to ignore the promises of his cabinet secretary?