Rail Travel (Fife Circle)

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at on 25 January 2018.

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Photo of Humza Yousaf Humza Yousaf Scottish National Party

I reiterate that, when a stop is skipped, it counts as a public performance measure failure and, of course, ScotRail is held to account for those.

With regard to the issue of financial fines, the service quality incentive regime—SQUIRE—is probably the best auditing regime of any railway in the United Kingdom. That has been borne out by the fact that ScotRail has been fined quite substantially when it has failed to meet the extremely high criteria that we set for it.

I will reflect on Mark Ruskell’s point when considering future franchises, but, before we get to the franchise endpoint, we should continue dialogue with ScotRail to minimise a practice that is unhelpful. When I became the transport minister, I told ScotRail that I expected it to minimise the skipping of stops, particularly during peak hours. That has happened, but it is clear that the autumn and winter months have been challenging for ScotRail, and that is unwelcome.