Every week when Parliament is sitting, I take the train from Inverness to Edinburgh, and every week I experience a journey that feels stuck in the past. It is slow, often overcrowded and punctuated by frustrating waits as the train stops in passing loops to let other services go by. A journey that should showcase modern, clean transport instead exposes how little has changed since the Victorian era. It is not good enough. That is why I am grateful to colleagues who supported my motion to allow this debate to take place, and to the Highland Main Line Community Rail Partnership, which has worked incredibly hard to push for an improved rail experience on the line.

The Highland main line should be the backbone of the north for people and businesses, but that Victorian railway is delivering Victorian-era journey times. For most of its 118 miles, it is still single track, and the trains that use it run on polluting diesel. That means wasted minutes at every stop, unreliable timetables and a line that is unable to meet the needs of the people and the economy that it serves. It also produces more carbon emissions instead of cutting them. With anything that is almost 170 years old, there comes a point where change and renewal is needed. The evidence is clear that dualling and electrifying the line could cut journey times, improve reliability and reduce emissions, and it would be a game changer for our Highland communities.

In 2024, the central belt to Inverness rail routes created £87 million of economic benefit. That could grow significantly with an upgrade, meaning that any work would soon pay for itself. We could significantly scale up the current 15 passenger services a day. For communities in the strath, that would mean real commuting options, with frequent, reliable services to Inverness. For the wider Highlands, it would mean faster, cleaner connections to the central belt. In turn, that would improve wealth distribution, reducing its concentration in the central belt and spreading it along the main line to the thriving city of Inverness, into the Highlands and beyond. Likewise, instead of talking about Highland depopulation, we could see an increase in the number of people moving north. All of that would make Scotland’s path to net zero emissions so much easier, while improving people’s lives.

The economic opportunities from improving the main line cannot be ignored, either. Businesses need a resilient and modern freight artery that links Inverness and Perth to the rest of Scotland, as well as to England and Wales. We should be making it easier for companies to choose the climate-friendly option and move more of their goods by rail.

There is enthusiasm for doing so in industry circles. For example, a well-known supermarket already regularly uses the main line to move consumer goods. Imagine if major Scottish industries such as whisky and timber could also take advantage of an improved main line. It would mean fewer lorries on the A9, safer roads and lower carbon emissions.