2. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the plan to extend the emergency measures agreement to help rail services deal with the impact of Covid-19. (S5T-02403)

Members will be aware that, on Friday, I announced that further emergency measures agreements have been agreed for the ScotRail and Caledonian sleeper franchises. That allowed staff to be assured about the stability of the future of their company prior to EMAs expiring during the course of the weekend. That was not the case elsewhere; the Department for Transport issued its update yesterday. The agreements will ensure that rail services continue to provide stability for passengers, employees and suppliers at a time of unprecedented uncertainty.

Given the extremely challenging budget position and the current uncertainty as to the consequentials that will flow from the United Kingdom Government, the new agreements will cover the period between 20 September 2020 and 10 January 2021, with estimated additional resource expenditure of £103.5 million.

I have instructed my officials to commence discussions immediately with both operators, to seek agreement on a long-term plan for the period beyond January 2021.

The Government has made more than 40 announcements on transport, worth almost £650 million, since the beginning of March. Only three of those were made in Parliament; the rest were made on Twitter and in press releases, including the announcement that we are talking about, which was sneaked out on Friday.

In the interests of transparency, will the Cabinet secretary publish the full emergency measures agreement that he has now agreed with the franchise companies rather than wait until the end, as he did with the previous agreement?

From what the cabinet secretary said in his announcement on Friday, it seems that one change will be that, under the new EMA, any payment of management fees to Abellio or Serco will depend entirely on their achieving satisfactory performance levels. Will the cabinet secretary tell us how much has been paid in fees to those companies under the first management agreement and what his estimate is of the fees for the new agreement?

I am surprised that the member suggests that the announcement was “sneaked out”. The member might not be aware that such agreements must be notified to the European Commission. That happened late on Thursday. We received the finalised, signed copy of the agreement at 12.30 on Friday afternoon. I wrote to the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee at 3 minutes past 1—33 minutes later—to inform the committee that the agreement had been put in place. ScotRail and Serco Caledonian Sleepers then made arrangements to notify the trade unions.

I could have taken the approach that the Department for Transport took, which was to ignore the concerns of staff and not to inform them that the agreement was due to expire over the weekend; I could have waited until Monday. Instead, we chose to move at pace to ensure that staff had certainty about their jobs, given that more than 5,000 jobs depend upon that EMA being put in place.

On the other points that the member highlighted, there is a copy of the EMA on the Transport Scotland website. The member is correct about the performance payment, in that we have taken an approach that is different to that taken by the DFT. No automatic management fee is paid to Abellio ScotRail or to Serco. Any management fee must be achieved through performance and is capped at 1.5 per cent. As I also highlighted, the figure that will actually be paid is dependent on performance and will be reconciled only at the end of the EMA.

The Cabinet secretary has had six months in which to make this announcement and is responding today only because of my topical question. He has previously used the excuse that he will not end the ScotRail and Serco franchises and run the services via an operator of last resort because he would eventually be forced down the route of another franchise.

It is clear, after the weekend’s announcements, that franchising is dead. Will the cabinet secretary commit to end those franchises when the deal ends in January and to bring the services under public control so that every penny spent is focused on better services and on keeping fares down, instead of more agreements, more management fees and more shareholder dividends?

I am again surprised by the member’s question, given that he is well aware that, under existing legislation, we in Scotland do not have the power to do anything other than to franchise our rail services. The power to take any other option is reserved to the UK Government.

I hope that the Labour Party is at last arriving at the position that all powers relating to rail should be devolved to this Parliament. The Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen—ASLEF—has now called for all powers, including those of Network Rail, to be devolved to this Parliament. I hope that the Labour Party in Scotland will finally find the courage to stand up and demand that those powers be placed here in this Parliament.