Glasgow Airport Rail Link

– in the Scottish Parliament at on 6 November 2013.

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Photo of John Scott John Scott Conservative

The next item of business is a debate on motion S4M-08173, in the name of James Kelly, on transport. We are extremely tight for time in today’s debates, so I ask members to stick to their allocated times. Mr Kelly, you have eight minutes.

Photo of James Kelly James Kelly Labour

I welcome the opportunity to open the debate on behalf of the Scottish Labour Party and to move the motion in my name.

This is an important debate because it is about the story of a scandal at the heart of the Scottish Government. It is not only about how £30 million of public money, including more than £8 million lost in land sales, was wasted, but about how the Scottish National Party Government does business. Let us not forget that the Government was too arrogant to come to the chamber and explain how £30 million was wasted on the cancelled Glasgow airport rail link project. Recently, the SNP was happy to spend two and a half hours on a debate looking forward to next year’s Ryder cup, but it did not want to make a statement on the millions of pounds of public money that has been lost. I am therefore delighted that we have the time this afternoon to hold the Government to account.

I get the clear impression of a Government that is out of touch and not in control of what is happening. George Adam seems to think that it is a laughing matter, but I can tell him that when millions of pounds of public money is lost or wasted by the Government it is no laughing matter.

Photo of James Kelly James Kelly Labour

In answer to parliamentary questions last week, Keith Brown revealed that the land sales, which account for more than £8 million in lost funds, were processed by officials and there was no ministerial oversight of those transactions. It is a bit like what happens on a Saturday night, when the television newsreader tells viewers to look away when the football scores come up. I get the impression of millions of pounds swishing about in the transport budget and the minister looking away, out of his ministerial office.

There is a theme of incompetence in the way that the issue has been handled. We have heard from the Government that it had to sell the land because it was surplus to requirements. The reality is that, while one part of Transport Scotland was involved in selling the land, the other part was involved in an airport study group that was considering the possibility of a new GARL project. I have here the answer to a freedom of information request that shows that, in March, April and May this year, Transport Scotland was involved in discussions with a transport study group that was considering a new GARL project. At the same time, another branch of Transport Scotland was involved in the sale of the last piece of GARL land. Questions remain about that. Was it sheer incompetence on the part of the Government and Transport Scotland, or was it a show of political spite in killing off the GARL project? It is clear that Keith Brown is not in control of his department or his brief. The civil servants in Transport Scotland are pushing the policy context in different directions while Mr Brown sits in his ministerial office and twiddles his thumbs.

That theme of incompetence also runs into the SNP amendment, although the minister should be congratulated because he has achieved what engineers have failed to do—a U-turn on the railways. The SNP amendment describes the GARL project as “ill-conceived”. The SNP—or whoever drafted the amendment on its behalf—seems to have forgotten that it was a great supporter of the GARL project in 2006. Furthermore, when the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth, John Swinney, proposed the cancellation of the project, he did so on the basis of affordability, not desirability. The amendment is not competent, as it does not represent the SNP’s real position, and it should be withdrawn.

When we look at—

Photo of James Kelly James Kelly Labour

Just let me make my point.

When we look at the SNP benches, we do not see Sandra White, Nicola Sturgeon or any of those MSPs who, in 2006, were making enthusiastic speeches in favour of the Glasgow airport rail link.

Photo of Annabelle Ewing Annabelle Ewing Scottish National Party

If the member is suggesting that the amendment is incompetent, presumably that is a direct challenge to the Presiding Officer, and he may wish to comment on that.

I did not have the privilege of being a member of Parliament at the time to which the member referred. However, I wonder who it was that conducted the initial land deals for GARL. Was the land not purchased by Strathclyde partnership for transport, which was chaired by a Labour councillor?

Photo of James Kelly James Kelly Labour

All land deals were subject to due diligence when they were added to the Scottish Government’s balance sheet. That is why we need a full audit—to scrutinise the transactions carried out by the Scottish Government. Keith Brown has not carried out that scrutiny; he left the matter to his officials.

There is no doubt of the strong economic case for an airport rail link—

Photo of James Kelly James Kelly Labour

I am sorry, but I am running out of time.

Next year, the people who arrive for the Commonwealth games will do so at an airport with no rail link. However, similar cities, such as Manchester, Newcastle, Paris, Milan and Copenhagen, all have airport rail links.

The situation is not just a scandal of money wasted but a failure of Government. The Government is too arrogant to come to the Parliament to explain the misuse of public money and too out of touch to know what is going on and it has a transport minister too incompetent to manage Transport Scotland. The Minister for Transport and Veterans is culpable and questions remain unanswered, which is why we need a full and independent audit. If we are to be a serious Parliament, we need answers to those questions and we need them immediately.

I move,

That the Parliament deplores that £29.91 million was spent prior to the cancellation of the Glasgow Airport Rail Link project, including an £8.17 million loss on land transactions; regrets that the land sales lacked transparency and accountability and were processed with no ministerial oversight, and demands a full and independent audit of all transactions associated with the project.

Photo of Keith Brown Keith Brown Scottish National Party

It is more than four years since John Swinney came to Parliament to explain the reasons why we cancelled the GARL project. That was the right decision then and it is the right decision now, yet here we are again going over the same old ground with the Labour Party.

We knew that the costs associated with the cancellation would be around £30 million—we made that clear to Parliament at the time. However, we had to balance that cost against the £176 million in savings from not going ahead with the project. Let us not forget that the project was one in which the costs and risks had been massively underestimated by SPT, the original promoter.

I have just heard in the background a comment on the trams. I wonder what the people of Edinburgh would say if we could go back in time and not spend £776 million on that project.

Labour’s motion conveniently ignores the fact that, in the intervening four years, there has been a massive investment in the rail network that serves Glasgow, Paisley and Inverclyde. More than £660 million has been provided, with £230 million being spent on upgrades to the track and the stations and new platforms at Glasgow Central, and £430 million being committed over 16 years to the new fleet of class 380 electric trains, which are now running. That underlines our focus on delivery for the people of the west of Scotland, and our determination to prioritise the right investments and not to flinch from taking hard decisions to drop projects that simply do not deliver value.

I turn to the context in which the decision to cancel GARL was made. It was taken in a period when maintaining capital expenditure was vital to Scotland’s economy. Action was required to ensure that the impacts of the exceptional cuts that Westminster had imposed were kept to a minimum. We can all remember the words that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury wrote as Labour departed from office in 2010:

“There is no money left.”

In those circumstances, we faced some extremely tough decisions. The cuts had started well before that, when Labour drove the economy into a ditch.

This Government was prepared to take the resulting difficult decisions. A contributing factor in our decision to cancel GARL was the fact that the costs associated with accommodation work within the campus of Glasgow Airport Ltd were escalating. Let us look at some of the facts. Work by Transport Scotland in the first half of 2009 identified a fourfold increase in the scope and capital compensation costs that we had inherited from SPT.

Photo of Keith Brown Keith Brown Scottish National Party

In a second.

In January 2007, SPT estimated that work in the airport campus would cost £7.8 million. In May 2008, when the project was handed over from SPT to Transport Scotland, it was estimated that SPT work in the airport campus would cost £16 million. Following a thorough review of the potential scope of the project from January to July 2009, Transport Scotland estimated that work in the airport campus would cost £70 million.

Photo of James Kelly James Kelly Labour

The minister mentioned Transport Scotland. Was he aware that, earlier this year, Transport Scotland participated in an airport study group that was looking at GARL at the same time as another branch of Transport Scotland was looking at selling off the final plot of land?

Photo of Keith Brown Keith Brown Scottish National Party

Yes, of course I was aware of that. Transport Scotland has said the same thing throughout the process, which is that we do not support a replacement GARL project. Nobody who was involved in that study group said that there should be a publicly funded GARL project. Two of the partners in that study have said that they are willing to look at a private sector-funded bid for GARL. They are pushing that, but the Government position has not changed throughout the process.

Photo of Keith Brown Keith Brown Scottish National Party

No, I will not.

The Government was not convinced that that level of public expenditure to compensate what was a private company could be justified at a time of significant cuts to public budgets and services. The cancellation saved £176 million of our hard-pressed capital budget. Parliament was kept informed of our intentions at the time, and has been kept informed of them ever since.

Labour’s accusation that the disposal of land lacked transparency is simply not true. We kept Parliament informed of the costs associated with the GARL cancellation and of our intention to dispose of the land throughout 2010. We could not have been clearer in doing that. We also made clear time after time that the land would be disposed of in accordance with the guidance and principles that are set out in the “Scottish Public Finance Manual”.

Some of the disarray in the Labour Party can be explained by the fact that its leader accused the First Minister of being too close to the issue. Johann Lamont insinuated that there was a connection between one of the people involved and the First Minister. Labour has gone from saying that the Government was far too close to the process to saying that we are not involved in it enough. That is despite the fact that we are following exactly the same procedures—those that are set out in the “Scottish Public Finance Manual”—that the previous Administration followed; I do not know whether Mr Kelly was a member of the previous Administration. We have done exactly what was done in the past, but the Labour Party has to find something to criticise. It does not want to be held to the same standards—

Photo of Keith Brown Keith Brown Scottish National Party

No, I have already taken an intervention. I have less time than the member had.

Photo of Keith Brown Keith Brown Scottish National Party

No, I do not have enough time.

We made it clear time after time that the land would be disposed of in accordance with the “Scottish Public Finance Manual”. It sets out the requirements on how Scottish ministers and officials should go about ensuring propriety in land transactions. It is for officials to ensure that those guidelines are followed. The decision to declare the land surplus was taken only after an extensive trawl of other Government departments had been carried out to determine whether the land could be used for some other purpose.

Our record of investment in west of Scotland transport infrastructure speaks for itself. I have already mentioned some of the figures. On the rail network, we have continued to invest in works at Glasgow Central station and the rail corridor that serves Glasgow, Paisley, Ayrshire and Inverclyde at a cost of around £230 million, and £430 million has been invested in the introduction of the new class 380 trains, which are providing 9,000 additional seats and between 50 and 120 additional seats in the peak hours.

With regard to roads projects, members might remember the M74. There was a time when the Labour Party was committed to that and was going to see it through; once again, it did not, but we did at a cost of £692 million. [Interruption.] Perhaps some members think that the Labour Party completed the M74 project. Well, it did not—it was the SNP Government that completed it.

The M80 Stepps to Haggs project, which, incidentally, won a saltire award last week for the excellence of its engineering, was delivered on time and on budget at a cost of £320 million. As for the future, we are looking to the Edinburgh to Glasgow improvement project, which will deliver longer trains and extended platforms at Glasgow Queen Street station and the electrification of the core Edinburgh to Glasgow via Falkirk line.

The Deputy Presiding Officer:

The minister is in his last minute.

Photo of Keith Brown Keith Brown Scottish National Party

I should also mention the £80 million electrification of the Cumbernauld line, which will introduce electrified services in advance of the Commonwealth games; the electrification of the Paisley canal line; the completion of the M8 motorway link; and the upgrading of nearly 7 miles of the existing A8 between Baillieston and Newhouse. Those investments will bring real benefits to Scotland; for example, the Paisley corridor improvements have delivered 61 operational jobs, whereas GARL promised 67. In total, the Paisley corridor improvements have delivered 45 per cent of the construction and operations jobs that were forecast for GARL and, of course, the new class 380 trains will provide an additional 9,000 seats.

Photo of Keith Brown Keith Brown Scottish National Party

The Government is not afraid to make difficult decisions when it has to and, once we have made a decision, we move on from it. Our focus is to prioritise investment as an essential tool in enhancing productivity and delivering faster, more sustainable growth. The private sector is free to develop proposals to construct a rail link to Glasgow airport. It should not require support from the public purse for project development, but the fact is that no credible proposal has come forward in the intervening four years.

I move amendment S4M-08173.2, to leave out from “deplores” to end and insert:

“recognises the saving of £176 million from the cancellation of the ill-conceived Glasgow Airport Rail Link project; notes that the Parliament was informed of the decision to dispose of surplus land in March 2010 and accepts that this was carried out in accordance with the principles and guidance in the Scottish Public Finance Manual; welcomes the fact that the Scottish Government has made substantial investment, including the successful implementation of the £660 million of improvements to rail infrastructure, trains and services serving Glasgow, Paisley, Inverclyde and Ayrshire, and notes that all of this was achieved by the Scottish Government at a time of reductions in capital funding through prioritisation of the transport projects that will provide the greatest benefit to the people and economy of Scotland.”

Photo of Alex Johnstone Alex Johnstone Conservative

I have no particular desire to become involved in this unsightly spat between the Labour Party and the SNP. However, as the opportunity to speak in the debate has come to me, I will use it.

Once upon a time, we could say that, although every major airport had a railway running past its perimeter fence, none of them had a rail link that passengers could use. In fact, the only one with an effective rail link is Prestwick and that probably came about only because the Secretary of State for Scotland at the time, George Younger, happened to have the airport slap bang in his constituency. It occasionally pays to elect the right member.

Photo of Alex Johnstone Alex Johnstone Conservative

If the member will excuse me, I will carry on and try not to get too involved.

This afternoon, the Labour Party has made a number of suggestions about some form of impropriety surrounding the cancellation of GARL and subsequent actions. If it has facts to support such accusations, I suggest that it brings them forward. However, as it stands, it appears that there are very few facts involved other than those that have been very simply and clearly laid out.

Photo of Jackson Carlaw Jackson Carlaw Conservative

Is Mr Johnstone, like me, curious to know whether Ms Lamont took up Mr John McGlynn’s invitation for a private meeting after certain allegations and whether, as a consequence, Mr McGlynn received a written apology? If so, does Mr Johnstone think that we should be told?

Photo of Alex Johnstone Alex Johnstone Conservative

I would be very interested to have that information. As I have said, I would like to see all the facts laid out.

In looking at those facts, however, we should take one or two things into account. First, I would be a little reticent in accepting the SNP amendment’s description of the GARL project as “ill-conceived”. When it came forward, the scheme itself seemed very reasonable. Indeed, it seemed so reasonable that I think every party in the Parliament supported it. Who would not? It was a simple means of providing a valuable service. However, as the minister has pointed out, the estimated costs of work on the campus of the airport rose from £7.8 million to £16 million and then to £70 million. That should have set alarm bells ringing all over the place, especially with the Government. When the estimated costs of the whole project doubled and then doubled again, alarm bells should certainly have been ringing. When grave concerns emerged about not only the likely outcome but the reasons for the increase in prices, I believe that the Government did the right thing and called a halt to the project.

That said, that does not solve the problem that we still have: there is still no rail link to Glasgow airport. That is why I chose to lodge what many might describe as a naive little amendment, and one that I do not expect to survive to be voted on. We simply encourage the Scottish Government

“to explore options for the future provision of a low-cost rail link that will connect Glasgow Airport to the national rail network.”

I have already heard some encouragement from the Government. In spite of the fact that there is continuing reluctance by the transport minister to become involved in a Government-sponsored project, he has spoken about the possibility of achieving that through private sector investment. As a Conservative, I believe that private sector investment has a great deal to be said for it. First, it will control the project costs, and, secondly, it will deliver a link that does what it is supposed to do and nothing else. There will be no bells or whistles—the expensive options that we see in some of the other transport projects around.

We should not take from the debate the negative—the arguing that will go on between the SNP Government and the Labour Party Opposition and the petty political point scoring that is inevitable in such situations. Perhaps we may have turned around and be facing in a different direction at the end of the debate. We may have decided that, instead of arguing about the past, we can look forward to the future, when we might eventually be able to catch a train to Glasgow airport.

I move amendment S4M-08173.1, to leave out from “deplores” to end and insert:

“encourages the Scottish Government to explore options for the future provision of a low-cost rail link that will connect Glasgow Airport to the national rail network.”

Photo of George Adam George Adam Scottish National Party

I will try to remain positive, as Mr Johnstone said that we should, but that is extremely difficult when we get the bile that we are getting from the Labour Party. It seems that there is the reality of the situation, and there is the paranoid planet of the Labour Party. Is the Labour Party really now trying to tell us that there is a strong economic case for the GARL project? The line was going to have 11 passengers per train. The costs were spiralling long before the SNP was the Administration. At one point, the cost was £140 million to £160 million. Tavish Scott then said that the cost was £170 million to £210 million. The costs constantly moved on. We are talking about 11 passengers per train and £3.1 million of subsidy every single year.

Photo of George Adam George Adam Scottish National Party

I would love to do so but, unfortunately, there is not enough time in the debate. I have much to get through to stop some of the misinformation from Labour.

There were reports early on that Sinclair Knight Merz had said that only 5 to 6 per cent of Glasgow airport passengers would use GARL. Have members ever tried the bus from Glasgow airport into the centre of Glasgow? It is very efficient and quick, and it gets people there on time

As always, I encourage everyone to go to the nearest town, via Gilmour Street, and see what is happening in Paisley. Let us talk about the positive Paisley aspect of the story, which the minister mentioned. The work that was completed in February 2010 has delivered extra capacity to the Glasgow Paisley corridor and two additional peak-time services. The Scottish Government delivered 61 jobs; at its best, GARL was going to offer only 67 jobs. That is what Labour is arguing about. We have managed to move things forward and make things better for my constituency.

The Scottish Government has been up front about the costs of cancelling GARL. What exactly does the Labour Party want? The Scottish Government cannot be more transparent in everything that we are talking about. Again, I go back to the Labour Party’s paranoia. It is desperate to find something and cause trouble. It is pure political mischief. That is the problem, but the public are not buying that. They are not buying into that idea, because they can see the desperation in the Labour Party.

GARL was acquired by SPT, or Strathclyde partnership for transport—that organisation has changed its name so many times that we forget what its name is. Since its inception, it has been run by the Labour Party. We might ask why Labour-controlled SPT bought the land at such a high cost?

Photo of George Adam George Adam Scottish National Party

Unfortunately, I do not have the time to give way. If the Labour Party thought more of the debate, perhaps it should have used its whole time for it, instead of putting the debate into a small part of that time.

We have also had the pantomime, as has been said, of the Labour Party leader coming into the chamber and accusing the First Minister of all types of things. However, it was not only the First Minister who was accused but someone who was not here and could not represent himself: a local businessman who has offered jobs to people in my constituency.

We must ask ourselves what the Labour Party’s motivation is and what it is trying to achieve in this matter. It is not about the Labour Party trying to scrutinise the Government; it is about the Labour Party trying to create something that is not there. However, the information is available and the Labour Party should stop playing games and join the real world with the rest of us.

Photo of Neil Bibby Neil Bibby Labour

I welcome the opportunity to speak in this Labour debate on the Glasgow airport rail link, because it will interest many constituents in Renfrewshire and West Scotland. We should have had a full ministerial statement several weeks ago on the issue; it is telling that Labour has had to bring the issue to Parliament today.

The minister spoke for several minutes on the Government’s actions on the Glasgow airport rail link and we heard many words, but the one word that we did not hear was “sorry”. We should have had a full apology from the minister today for three reasons: for cancelling an important infrastructure project for the region and the country; for costing an estimated 1,300 jobs in the Renfrewshire and Glasgow area; and for scandalously wasting our constituents’ taxes in the process.

We need transparency and we need accountability for this mess. It is completely unacceptable for ministers to hide behind officials, which is why Labour is calling for an independent audit into the land transactions, as James Kelly outlined earlier. The cancellation of the rail link has cost at least £30 million However, it is not the Government’s money, but our constituents’ money that has been wasted. The £30 million is a staggering figure. If the minister does not think so, that shows just how out of touch he is and how badly we need an independent audit.

I firmly believe that a rail link to Glasgow airport would have been beneficial to the whole country, with Scotland’s biggest city being linked by train to its airport. The SNP’s record on the issue means that we can get a direct train from Glasgow Central station to Manchester airport but not to Glasgow airport.

I note, as others have, that the minister’s amendment describes the Glasgow airport rail link as “ill-conceived”. He must disagree, in that case, with both John Swinney, who previously described the project as “desirable”, and Derek Mackay, who when he was leader of Renfrewshire Council acknowledged the “economic and transport benefits” of the rail link. The Government’s amendment also points to

“£660 million of improvements to rail infrastructure, trains and services serving Glasgow, Paisley, Inverclyde and Ayrshire”.

However, the reality is that weekday off-peak train services from Paisley Gilmour Street to Ayr have been halved, despite the minister’s continued denials. What sort of improvement is that? In addition, the investment in the Paisley corridor and the rolling stock that has been put on the route was done to facilitate the Glasgow airport rail link. The Government’s misrepresentations and failure to be open are not just reasons for an audit, but are a demonstration of a behaviour pattern.

We should not forget, as James Kelly said, the delayed publication of the Aecom study that the Government was part of, as the transport minister has confirmed, which recommended a rail link at the same time as the Government was selling off the land. Four years on from the cancellation of GARL, rather than seeing the benefits of a rail link, all that we are left with is an expensive mess and more questions than answers. This is not the SNP governing in Scotland’s interests. In relation to George Adam’s speech, what is even less forgivable are the actions of SNP MSPs who purport to stand up for Paisley and Renfrewshire and who supported the Glasgow airport rail link until Alex Salmond and John Swinney told them not to.

We all know that unemployment is too high and that we need jobs for young people and people who have been made redundant. In Paisley, we heard the announcement of 141 job losses last week. The SNP’s response to that is to sell off the land for the rail link cheap in a fire sale and, while they are at it, to slash college places for training and retraining opportunities.

It is about time that the SNP Government apologised for the mishandling of the Glasgow airport rail link and the loss of jobs to Renfrewshire, and time that we had an independent audit. It is also time that SNP MSPs who represent Renfrewshire started standing up for Renfrewshire.

Photo of John Mason John Mason Scottish National Party

First, I think that we want to emphasise that rail is a good thing. Last night, we held an inaugural meeting of the proposed cross-party group on rail. I thank the 10 members who attended and others who want to be members of the group, but sent their apologies. I very much hope, despite some of the remarks in his speech, that I will be able to work with Neil Bibby, as co-convener of the group, to take it forward. The reality is that many, if not all, of us agree on the importance of rail and want to develop it, even though there can at any time be disagreements about the priorities.

Let us be realistic about what has been achieved. In my case, the Airdrie to Bathgate link allows trains to run from Helensburgh all the way to Edinburgh. I mention that not least because it links six stations in the east end of Glasgow right through to Edinburgh. It was delivered on time and on budget, and I went on the first train.

Of course it is desirable to have rail links to all airports. If I remember correctly from my SPT days, there was cross-party support for a rail link, as there was for a number of other rail and transport projects. One of Prestwick airport’s big advantages is its closeness to a railway station. When I go to visit other countries, I often use the train from the airport to the city centre, but not exclusively. The last time I flew to Rome, Paris, Athens and Brussels, I took buses to the city centres. I admit that I use the cheaper airlines, so that might be a factor.

We have to live in the real world, where there are limited finances, even in the good times. That means that we have to set priorities in the transport budget. We can ask, “What if we didn’t have the Edinburgh trams scheme?” or “What if we didn’t need to replace the Forth road bridge?”, but the reality is that we were forced to spend money on both projects.

We also have to set priorities between transport and other objectives. I am clear, and I think that most of my constituents in the east end of Glasgow are clear, that if we have to choose what to spend a limited amount of money on, housing has to be top of the list and transport must just accept its place. When setting priorities, we also have to remember that Glasgow airport, as has been pointed out, is exceptionally close to the city centre. The distance is some 8 miles and the journey takes only 20 to 25 minutes by taxi or bus. By comparison, Heathrow is 15 miles from the centre of London, and Gatwick is 29 miles.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Should the Forth road bridge have been built differently? Yes. Should the Edinburgh trams system have been handled differently? Yes. Should the Scottish Parliament building have been built for less? Yes. Should the land for GARL have not been bought in the first place? Perhaps the answer is yes. However, it is not unusual for the public sector to sell a piece of land and then to have to make a further decision. For example, in Glasgow City Council, it was not an unusual situation that land was sold and then had to be bought back at an inflated price because, for example, we wanted to put the Commonwealth games on the site.

The reality is that the people who authorised those projects considered that they were doing the right thing at the time, and in the case of SPT there was cross-party agreement that we wanted an airport rail link. We did not realise that the financial crisis was coming down the track towards us, so I think that it is somewhat unfair to go back now and criticise SPT or others who were involved in the decision.

The motion also calls for an audit. I wonder what is meant by that, because the auditors are there anyway and are doing their job. Is that a criticism of present or past auditors?

The Deputy Presiding Officer:

You should be drawing to a close, please.

Photo of John Mason John Mason Scottish National Party

Are we saying that the auditors, who are professional people, are not independent? Is this an attack on the accounting and auditing professions?

Photo of Mary Fee Mary Fee Labour

The debate is not one that is designed to maintain the usual standard political posturing that can be witnessed in the chamber, but to address serious questions that remain about the cancellation of the Glasgow airport rail link project, and to ensure that we have the clarity that taxpayers want about the cost of cancelling that vital infrastructure project.

We on the Labour benches want to know why £30 million has been spent on closing GARL and—especially—why almost £8 million has been lost on land transactions. Those questions are why we believe that there should be an independent audit of the handling of the land transactions to expose any lack of accountability and competence. If the minister and the Scottish Government maintain that all aspects of the cancellation of GARL were above board, they should have an audit and clear the air once and for all.

Photo of Mary Fee Mary Fee Labour

No. I am sorry but as time is tight in this debate I am not minded to give way.

In 2009, when John Swinney axed GARL, I was a local councillor, so I know of the anger and dismay that constituents felt when they heard that the GARL project was to close. To this day, many of my constituents vent those feelings at surgeries and on the doorstep.

The more information that surfaces about the cancellation of GARL, the more local people remember that it was this Scottish Government that let them down. Not only did the local economy lose investment, but jobs that were promised to Renfrewshire were taken away at a time when they were desperately needed. For my constituents—constituents I share with George Adam and Derek Mackay—clarity is required and it should come from an independent audit.

Such was Derek Mackay and George Adam’s support for the project that the then council leader recognised the transport and economic benefits of the rail link and continued to support the project until his boss axed it. I am not sure which position Derek Mackay takes these days when standing up for Renfrewshire. The same goes for George Adam, who was also a councillor at the time and was also in full support of the project.

Photo of Mary Fee Mary Fee Labour

No. I am sorry, but time is too tight to take an intervention.

When John Swinney made his announcement, he maintained that we could not afford the project. The viability of the project was never questioned and the Glasgow Airport Rail Link Act 2007 has never been repealed. With that in mind, and given the sale of the land at ludicrously lower prices than it was bought for, I urge the Scottish Government to listen to Scottish Labour and allow an independent audit to take place.

Looking at next week’s business, the Scottish Government has scheduled a debate entitled “Modernising Scotland’s Transport Infrastructure, Meeting the Challenges of the 21st Century”. What a shame that the country’s largest airport experiences poor connectivity to all our rail networks. To ask visitors who land at Glasgow airport to take a bus to get a train to travel 9 miles hardly seems like a country that is meeting the challenges of the 21st century.

The GARL saga really embarrasses this Government. The information that led to this debate being sought was obtained only after sustained use of parliamentary protocols and questions in the media. A recent Audit Scotland report shows that the Government needs to improve its reporting to the public on major projects. The GARL affair best exemplifies the lack of accountability and transparency of this SNP Government.

Let us have an independent audit and find out why £30 million of taxpayers’ money was wasted on GARL.

Photo of Chic Brodie Chic Brodie Scottish National Party

I am never one to intrude on personal grief, and I know that Labour Party members have had it hard over the past few weeks. However, I find it inconceivable, and even unbelievable, that poor Mr Kelly—for whom I have the greatest respect—should again have been sent out of the Labour trenches to do battle with such a poor armoury and infantry.

Last week, Mr Kelly’s—pro tem—senior officer, General Lamont, launched what she thought was a pre-emptive strike against our transport minister, which is a dangerous thing to do against a former Royal Marine who is a successful Scottish businessman. Her pre-emptive strike used dud ammunition, and she launched it in the full knowledge that Mark Griffin MSP, head of her transport division, had made a similar foray in the weeks before and had been given a straight and clear answer by the transport minister, who told him that the land that he was asking about had been purchased by Strathclyde partnership for transport—I will come to the sale in a minute—although it was subsequently bought by the Government.

General Lamont therefore knew the answer before she asked her question. It appears that as well as not talking to her support in the Falkirk outpost, she does not talk to her transport lieutenant. In the course of her attack, she fired innuendoes about the sale at a perfectly reasonable Scottish businessman. I echo Jackson Carlaw. Has she apologised to the general concerned in writing? She knew that her salvo at Government ministers would miss its target. She knew—or she should have known—that there were clear guidelines and restrictions on the valuation, purchase and sale of land, and the role of ministers in relation to those activities. She knew—or she should have known—that the rules of engagement on the sale of land are, and were, laid down in the “Scottish Public Finance Manual”, as per Westminster Treasury rules.

Photo of Chic Brodie Chic Brodie Scottish National Party

No. I do not have time.

General Lamont knew—or she should have known—that surplus land cannot be held speculatively by Governments and must be sold at an independently assessed market value. Apparently Transport Scotland did not know that. According to a written answer:

“The sale prices were based upon a professional assessment by Transport Scotland’s property services consultants of the current market value of each plot.”—[Official Report, Written Answers, 30 September 2013; S4W-17215.]

Not only that, but I have here a copy of the minutes of a meeting at Strathclyde partnership for transport, which say:

“After consideration, the Partnership approved the acquisition of Airlink Security Parks Ltd based on the terms outlined in the report”.

In the previous item, the SPT was talking about another property, its headquarters. What did it say about that? It said that

“the circumstances of both the property market”— that is the value of property—

“and SPT’s Landlord had changed”.

Further on in the minutes, in item 10, we have, at item (e), under “Contract”,

GARL—Branch line advance works—utility diversion. Advance ordering of gas pipes” at the sum of £1.2 million. Who gained or lost from that presumption? The leader of the Opposition’s comments were not, as it was kindly put by the businessman who was affected, “regrettable in the extreme”. In fact, they were way wide of the mark and very badly misplaced.

It did not help that apparently there was no meaningful or sustainable business case for the whole project in the beginning. I have just been through the 2009 financial reports.

With respect to Mr Kelly and his fellow troops, I think that it is time for their general to return to the ranks.

Photo of Patricia Ferguson Patricia Ferguson Labour

I am sure that Mr Brodie will reflect on that speech and the tone in which it was delivered, and that he will consider whether it was the right speech to make.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate. I have said it before in the chamber and I will say it again—the decision to cancel the Glasgow airport rail link was wrong. It was a project that had the potential to stimulate the economy, create jobs and boost tourism. It would also have provided a public transport link to Glasgow airport that would have got cars off the road and made the journey easier. It was an infrastructure project not just for Glasgow and the west of Scotland but for the entire country. I remind Parliament that the delivery of an airport rail link was a commitment that was made in our bid for the Commonwealth games.

However, the Scottish Government decided to cancel the project without any real review or appraisal and without discussion with the other stakeholders. Much has been made about the escalation in costs in the transfer from SPT to Transport Scotland, but I also remind Parliament that when that official transfer took place, Transport Scotland carried out three months of due-diligence inquiries. What did it conclude? It concluded that no significant cost increases or overspends had been identified. In fact, a scant three months before the decision was made to cancel, the then Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change said that the project was on time and on target. How quickly they forget.

As we know, as the then Opposition, SNP members including the Deputy First Minister, Mr Swinney, Mr Stevenson and Sandra White, made strong arguments in favour of GARL. Ms White in particular bemoaned

“the lack of a direct rail link to Glasgow Airport”—[Official Report, 15 November 2000; c 62.]

and suggested that

“The benefits of the link are overwhelming”.—[Official Report, 29 November 2006; c 29844.]

However, once the cabinet secretary had decided to axe GARL, SNP members fell silent and their views about the necessity of the project were swiftly forgotten. Not one of its Glasgow members had the courage to speak out and say that it was the wrong decision.

Today, the audacity of the SNP has been revealed by no less a figure than the minister himself. In the amendment, he refers to GARL as “ill-conceived”. I confess that I was genuinely taken aback when I saw those words in the Business Bulletin because I can recollect no occasion in the past when an SNP minister has described GARL in that way. Indeed, John Swinney described the project as “desirable” when speaking about its cancellation, and the Scottish Government seemed at the time to be suggesting that it regretted having to make the decision to cancel GARL but had been forced into it by economic circumstances.

Parliament deserves an explanation from the minister as to the Scottish Government’s real opinion of GARL. Is it against the project in principle, as the minister seemed to suggest, and if so, why has it not said so before now? I remind the minister that, if a private GARL were to go ahead, it would still need rails to run on and those rails would have to cross land between Glasgow and its airport. What land does the minister think could now be used for a revised GARL project? Perhaps we will have a monorail, at the kind of cost that that would involve.

In coming to a close, Presiding Officer—I am conscious that your generosity goes only so far—I will mention another Glasgow rail line that has been the subject of much discussion. I speak, of course, of the Anniesland to Queen Street line in my constituency.

I sincerely welcome the Scottish Government’s recent commitment that that line will be electrified, but an idea of the timescale and a discussion of the implications for passengers would be welcome. The line is a vital link for people in my constituency, and they deserve to know what the Scottish Government’s plans are. I sincerely hope that the commitment to electrification of the Anniesland to Queen Street line lasts longer than the commitment to GARL.

Photo of Stewart Stevenson Stewart Stevenson Scottish National Party

It was an American President who once said that, when he came into office, all the things that he had been saying were bad turned out to be much worse. That, perhaps, was the case with the GARL project.

The Labour Party motion rather unwisely invites Parliament to agree to an “audit of all transactions”. The word “transaction” is, of course, defined in “Webster’s Dictionary” as “a business deal”. It is not just about finance, so let us look at some of the transactions and delve deep into the Official Report of the Parliament.

We will look first at 3 October 2006, when the Glasgow Airport Rail Link Bill Committee was meeting and John Halliday, the assistant chief executive of SPT, was before the committee. He made the position clear:

“SPT was the architect of the agreements and we negotiated the terms.”—[Official Report, Glasgow Airport Rail Link Bill Committee, 3 October 2006; c 300.]

We know where it started: with SPT.

We heard from a number of members that there was “a strong economic case” for GARL. James Kelly said it in his opening speech, and Mary Fee said that

“the viability of the project was never questioned”.

However, in paragraph 32 of the committee’s preliminary stage report, Glasgow Airport Ltd is reported as saying:

“As the bill stands, we think that it is as likely to have an adverse effect on the airport as it is to have a positive effect”.—[Official Report, Glasgow Airport Rail Link Bill Committee, 8 May 2006; c 57.]

Right at the outset, even the airport operator was unconvinced.

Patricia Ferguson said that the rail link would take “cars off the road”. Well, at paragraph 38 of the report, we read about

“reductions of 0.5% and 0.8% in total M8 traffic flows by 2030.”

We are talking about single-figure numbers of cars being taken off the motorway. At paragraph 40, we read that the bus operators expected the number of people who would use the bus to double. Therefore, GARL would hardly be displacing anything.

The committee recorded its slight scepticism about the claimed economic benefits at paragraph 26. In paragraph 17, it said:

“patronage figures are low.”

Looking further, according to paragraph 221 of the consideration stage report, it was certainly possible that the project could cost as much as £210 million.

The Deputy Presiding Officer:

The member is in his last minute.

Photo of Stewart Stevenson Stewart Stevenson Scottish National Party

From paragraph 34 of the consideration stage report, it is clear that not all the evidence was available to Parliament. Commercial confidentiality prevented negotiations with the airport from being fully revealed to Parliament, so we made the decision in some ignorance. Paragraph 36 of the report says that

The Committee remains extremely disappointed” by that.

The costs on the airport campus were to be £5 million but ended up at £70 million. In the detailed costings that were brought to Parliament, not a single line item approaches the figure of £70 million.

I supported the project initially, but it was ill conceived in its detail. The reason for that lies at the door of parliamentary colleagues in the Labour Party and their allies in SPT.

Photo of Alex Johnstone Alex Johnstone Conservative

In my opening speech, I described the debate as a spat between the Government and the Labour Party. The debate has been that and little else.

We have learned some interesting facts. We learned that John Mason has undertaken a form of world tour to assess airport rail links in a number of countries. I was glad to hear that he is a frugal man after my own heart; he assured us that he travelled on budget airlines.

A number of the serious issues that have been raised have been confused. Some members have sought to confuse and conflate issues to try to make something where nothing exists.

The whole argument comes down to the questionable business case. Rising costs called that business case into question, even if we accepted it at the outset. The Labour Party used the line that the decision to cancel the project was based on affordability rather than desirability. That indicates that Labour does not understand the importance of a business case in such a project. I would fully expect a business case to be produced for any such project or any attempt to restart the project in the long term.

The facts are simple. We can question the comment that the project was ill conceived—there is a side argument to have about that—but the project quickly demonstrated itself not to be justified on the ground of a business case, given the outturn costs of which we quickly became aware.

As I said, costs on the campus rose from £7.8 million to an estimated £70 million. The cost of the project went to an estimated £176 million—that is the figure that I have, but we have heard the suggestion that it could have run to £210 million. The project was proposed for the right reasons, but the costs got out of hand. I therefore believe that the Government took a responsible move in ending the project, although I would like to think that we could revisit it some day and achieve the objective.

A key issue that the Labour Party has put at the centre of the debate is the suggestion that something was wrong with the land deals. It is always a disappointment to buy something that is expensive and sell it cheaply. Anyone who has ever been involved in business might well have experience of that. However, the economy of the country and the value of things for buying and selling changed dramatically in the intervening period. That might have had something to do with the behaviour of a Labour Government elsewhere, but let us give it the benefit of the doubt.

As far as I am aware from the information that has been made available to date, there was no impropriety in the land deals. If the Labour Party suggests that there was, I am still waiting for the evidence to be presented to support that.

As a consequence, I find it hard to recommend that my Conservative colleagues vote for the motion or the SNP amendment, so we will abstain on both. I hope that we can put the debate behind us and begin to take a more optimistic approach to the provision of useful and usable local rail services to link Glasgow airport to the Scottish rail network.

Photo of Keith Brown Keith Brown Scottish National Party

We have heard a very different view of GARL in the last two speeches—and of the committee stage 1 report, from Stewart Stevenson. The stage 1 committee report also stated, in relation to the people who would use GARL:

“the largest of these groups in patronage terms is ‘Non Airport related trips’ (60% of the total GARL patronage in 2009). Even by 2030, this group will still account for almost half of the trips, while actual air passengers will still be a minority”.

I have mentioned the work that has been done on the Paisley corridor delivering the additional capacity on that part of the network. I have also mentioned the class 380 trains on the Ayrshire and Inverclyde routes, which are providing more than 9,000 additional seats to the existing fleet and between 50 and 120 additional seats in the peak hours. I know that there are still Labour MSPs who are determined to see that as a bad-news story for their own reasons.

As we have heard, the business case for GARL estimated that 67 operational jobs would be created. The Paisley corridor work that we took forward delivered 61 of those jobs and 45 per cent of the construction and operations jobs that were forecast in the business case were delivered by the parts of the project that were delivered.

In 2009, we asked the Labour Opposition which budgets it would cut to enable the continued delivery of the project and it offered none. We looked at a number of alternative funding options at the time, but none was viable.

Patricia Ferguson has been scaremongering relentlessly about some of the services in Glasgow. If Labour intends that the £176 million—now substantially more than that—that it would take to reinstate GARL is to be found by cutting the services that Patricia Ferguson professes to defend, perhaps we should be told that by the Labour Party. We have made perfectly clear, a number of times, our commitment to the services that Patricia Ferguson mentions.

As I said, we looked at a number of alternative funding options but we could not find any at that time that was viable. It is interesting that, at the time, the current supporters of a rail link were not prepared to contribute to its costs:

“The only direct financial support from the council would be through the contribution that is made to the running costs of SPT.”—[Official Report, Glasgow Airport Rail Link Bill Committee, 24 April 2006; c 15.]

That was Glasgow City Council’s position on 24 April 2006. There is also this comment from BAA Scotland’s finance director, again in 2006:

“The rail link is about enabling Glasgow city centre to benefit from the airport, rather than allowing the airport to benefit.”—[Official Report, Glasgow Airport Rail Link Bill Committee, 8 May 2006; c 55.]

The study that has been commissioned and led by Glasgow Airport Limited has been mentioned and Alex Johnstone will be pleased to hear that one of the proposals—one of the options—is a light rail study. That option is being looked at in relation to the study, which will inform the next surface access strategy. The airport is leading the study with other partners. In the longer term, the study may inform future investment by those partners.

As I have said, ministers will give due consideration to any private sector proposal to construct a rail link to Glasgow airport. However, no support will be given from the public purse for project development, construction and/or on-going operating costs.

The land that we have been talking about, of course, was acquired—as has been pointed out—by Strathclyde partnership for transport in February/March 2008 at the height of the property market. We are well aware of what happened to the property market in the wake of the global recession towards the end of 2008. We could never expect to recover the purchase price of the land when we came to sell it, given the downturn in land and property prices. We have followed the principles and guidance that are set out in the Scottish public finance manual. Mary Fee says—

Photo of James Kelly James Kelly Labour

Just to be clear, can the minister put on the record whether he had any visibility of the land transactions when the Scottish Government was selling off GARL land, or was it done solely by officials?

Photo of Keith Brown Keith Brown Scottish National Party

The crucial point—I have said this three times now, I think—is that the land transactions were carried out in accordance with the Scottish public finance manual. The member will know—I think that he will know—that officials regularly buy and sell land—[Interruption.]

Photo of Keith Brown Keith Brown Scottish National Party

And not every transaction comes to ministers unless there are specific reasons for it. I was going on to say that it was exactly the same process.

James Kelly has questioned my competence in this and that is up to him. Let us look a little bit at competence. The Labour Party, when it raised the issue most recently, did not even seem to know that the land was bought by SPT. The Labour Party did not know that its own councillors had been involved in buying the land in the first place. First it alleged, or tried to insinuate, a connection between the First Minister and a businessman who we have heard was not here to defend himself; it will be interesting to find out about the apology, which has been raised already. The Labour Party then moved from saying that ministers—the First Minister in particular—were too closely involved in this to saying that I am not involved enough.

The Labour Party is not exactly demonstrating competence in relation to this issue. It has all the figures, which have been released into the public domain. In response to Mary Fee’s comments, ministers have said that there has been no untoward activity, so there should not be an inquiry. If Labour thinks that there are untoward activities, it should demonstrate that if it wants an independent inquiry.

Labour has come up with absolutely nothing so far. As for being reluctant to debate the issue, I will debate it every time that Labour brings business to the chamber if it wants to. We have nothing more to say—[Interruption.]

The Deputy Presiding Officer:

Order, please. The minister is in his last minute.

Photo of Keith Brown Keith Brown Scottish National Party

You have nothing left to say about it, and nothing to fear in releasing the figures.

The incompetence, in my view, lies in the Labour Party. You have been six years in opposition and you still cannot work out how to be an effective Opposition. It is absolutely appalling.

Going back to the same subject, we do not have any evidence to support some of the accusations that are being made. I understand that the Labour Party might still aspire to be the next—or a future—Government of Scotland. Before you do that, you will have to become an effective Opposition—

The Deputy Presiding Officer:

Minister, please speak through the chair.

Photo of Keith Brown Keith Brown Scottish National Party

This is not effective opposition, believe you me.

I have mentioned the things that we have delivered. We made the right decision at the time, and we stand by it, so let us look forward to the future. We have focused in the intervening four years on delivering record investment to improve and upgrade the transport infrastructure. There are many jobs that Labour never managed to complete, and we have completed them. I mentioned the M74; there is also the Airdrie to Bathgate line and the Stirling-Alloa-Kincardine line. We are the first Government to commit to dualling the A9, and there is the Borders railway too.

Those are things that the Labour Party did not do. Your Liberal Democrat pals—the ones who were working with you in the past—are not here at all to defend what you have put up today. That tells its own story.

The Deputy Presiding Officer:

You must conclude, please, minister.

Photo of Keith Brown Keith Brown Scottish National Party

The investment has been key to the continuing economic recovery of this country—[Interruption.]

Photo of Keith Brown Keith Brown Scottish National Party

I ask members to support the amendment in my name.

Photo of Mark Griffin Mark Griffin Labour

It is outrageous that the Government has had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to the chamber to outline how it has wasted almost £30 million of taxpayers’ money to cancel a project that would have had tremendous benefits for the economy of Glasgow: the driver of growth in the west of Scotland.

However, it seems that the Government has had no hand in that loss; it is all the fault of the civil servants who sold off land that cost the people of Scotland £8.5 million for a grand total of £359,500. That is a massive loss to the public purse of more than £8 million for the land transactions alone.

Let us be clear. The minister has stated again and again that he has played no part in those transactions. A civil servant in the Scottish Government has, therefore, taken the decision to declare land surplus to requirements, despite the fact that there is still an act of Parliament—the Glasgow Airport Rail Link Act 2007; the fact that GARL still appears in the national planning framework; and the fact that the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth, John Swinney, stated at a parliamentary committee:

“Essentially, the decision not to proceed with the Glasgow airport rail link was taken on the basis of the affordability of the project in the context of the Government’s programme.”—[Official Report, Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee, 3 November 2009; c 2258.]

So, it was nothing at all to do with the project being ill-conceived, then.

Why, given those three facts, is a civil servant acting without any ministerial direction or oversight—which is what the minister has said—and declaring the pieces of land on the GARL corridor surplus to requirements and initiating their disposal? There is something there that does not quite make sense. I take on board the points from Government members that GARL was not a Government priority and that it had no intention of funding it. However, that does not mean that the Government should take a scorched-earth approach and ensure that a different Administration would not be able to implement the project. Even in the unlikely event that the Government achieves its aim of independence, the first Scottish Administration will now be unable to go ahead with the GARL project.

There is a precedent here. The Queensferry crossing, which could possibly be described as this Government’s flagship capital investment project, would not be going ahead if the previous Administration had taken the same view on projects as the current one. When Sarah Boyack was a minister, she was approached by officials regarding the sale of the land that was required to build the Forth replacement crossing. She insisted that, although it was not a priority for the Government at that time, it would be wrong to tie the hands of a future Administration. Where would we be now with the Queensferry crossing if the previous Administration had taken the same approach as the current one?

However, the land was declared surplus and sold at a fraction of the purchase price not by a Scottish Government minister but by an unnamed civil servant. A civil servant has acted independently of ministers, an act of Parliament and the national planning framework, but another twist is that this particular official also seems to have operated independently of other members of staff within his department. While all that was being done, a group of individuals, businesses and local authorities were sitting down with Transport Scotland to discuss the public transport options for Glasgow airport. As a result of those discussions, Transport Scotland part-funded a report that included an option recommending a train line to carry passengers direct from the airport to the centre of Glasgow—

Photo of Keith Brown Keith Brown Scottish National Party

The member is making it up now. [Interruption.]

The Deputy Presiding Officer:

Order. Members should not speak to each other across the chamber.

Photo of Keith Brown Keith Brown Scottish National Party

I ask the member to reconsider that last point, because there was no recommendation contained in that study that there should be a heavy rail link to the airport. Given that the member says that the civil servant whom he keeps on talking about acted alone, is he saying that ministers should be involved in such decisions and that the manual that proscribes us from being involved—the same manual that Labour followed—is wrong? Perhaps he could clarify that.

Photo of Mark Griffin Mark Griffin Labour

I have looked at the Aecom report, although I do not know whether the minister has done so. I said that the report includes a recommendation for a train line to carry passengers direct from the airport to the centre of Glasgow. If the minister can point to the section of the report where it does not say that, I will happily come back to the chamber.

Officials at Transport Scotland seem to have spent public funds on a report that recommends a train line to Glasgow airport, while a different official has sold the land at a massive loss and killed the possibility of the recommendation ever being realised. We have two parts of Transport Scotland working against each other, and we have a minister with no knowledge or oversight of any of it. When we have two parts of the same Government department acting independently of ministers, working against each other and wasting public money, the only reasonable option is for a full independent inquiry. I think that the public will be wondering why the minister has not already instructed one.