Borders Railway

Speech by Alison McInnes delivered to The Scottish Parliament on Thu 13th Mar 2008

I understand that the Borders railway won the Parliament's backing because it will deliver major economic and social development opportunities and because it represents one of the most sustainable public transport proposals in Scotland. In fact, the minister said last week that its cost benefit ratio has increased even further.

The Government's laudable aim of leading the way on tackling climate change must be backed up by action. Transport contributes significantly to climate change, and it is one of the fastest-growing sources of emissions. We can take a big stride forward in respect of carbon reduction by facilitating modal shift, but only if the country invests in high-quality public transport services. If our country is to meet its climate change responsibilities, the Government must deliver a number of key transport projects without delay.

In developing Scotland's transport network, it is important to break the link between economic growth and transport growth. Reducing carbon emissions without damaging economic performance will be critical in the future, when economic success will depend on attracting and retaining talent. The Borders railway project will facilitate economic growth without concomitant transport growth. The railway will bring significant modal shift benefits. It will reduce car dependence, and it is expected to cut car journeys by more than 700,000 a year, which will reduce emissions and reduce traffic levels on the A7 and the A68. The project will also improve safety for travellers, as rail travel is around ten times safer than car travel. Much of the Borders is not currently served by efficient transport links, so the benefits of the railway should not be underestimated. It will facilitate new housing-including affordable housing-reduce congestion and address the predicted labour shortfall in the Lothians.

There is no doubt that the delivery of major transport projects needs broad support from the Government, local councils, the community and the private sector, and long lead-in periods. Successive Governments' certainty and willingness to press on with projects whose genesis was under a different regime are needed. At this stage of the development of the Borders railway project, it is not helpful to introduce uncertainty. Losing time through prevarication is damaging, because people lose confidence and investors think about going elsewhere. In the meantime, the opportunity to take early action to reduce emissions is lost, which makes it harder each year to contain damage. From what we heard last week, I believe that the Borders rail project is losing momentum. It risks stalling completely as a result of a lack of genuine commitment from the Government. We now have no start date and no clear funding mechanism.

Last week, the minister said that the non-profit distributing vehicle would operate as a private firm under Government control, which raises governance issues. The SNP's planned funding method is untested for transport projects in Scotland; so far, it has been used only to finance new schools. It appears that the proposed method would mean that a single company would build, finance and maintain the rail line. Do we need another layer of confusion? How does the proposal fit into an integrated transport network?

Last week, the minister said:

"NPD funding models are a cost-effective borrowing mechanism that avoid the high interest rates of private finance initiative funding and leave ownership of the asset in public hands".

However, finance experts have said that the incentives for private sector involvement remain unclear. Mr Stevenson also said:

"The details of our final approach will be developed by Transport Scotland, in conjunction with the financial partnerships unit and Partnerships UK, full account having been taken of market soundings and the need for a competitive procurement process."-[Official Report, 5 March 2008; c 6576.]

It sounds to me as though there is not a lot of certainty about the method, and that that is why we are facing a delay of at least two years.