I thank Ariane Burgess for leading this debate in Parliament, and I begin by reminding members of my voluntary register of interests as the convener of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers Scottish parliamentary group, which Mr Hepburn would be very welcome to join.

It is in that capacity that I am reliably informed that, under the rail systems alliance Scotland control period 7, safety, infrastructure and engineering works are being carried out on the Highland main line after many years of neglect, but a debate of this importance does require us to be honest with the people that we are here to represent, and dualling the Highland main line, and even its full electrification, as I understand it, are not on the near horizon. Indeed, I am told that the cost of the structural engineering works required if the whole route was to be dualled would be extremely high, because the line has never been extensively dualled. But if we can dual roads like the A9, why can we not dual railways like the main line to the Highlands?

So, when Ariane Burgess harks back to the Victorian era, she has a point. As my old friend and comrade, trade unionist, rail enthusiast and historian Dave Watson told me, the 1861 act of Parliament that paved the way for the Highland main line’s construction provided for only 7 miles of track to be dualled, near to Inverness. Later on, a further 7 miles were dualled near Perth, and then 23 miles of track were dualled near Blair Atholl between 1900 and 1909. But, of course, strictly speaking, that means that we go beyond the Victorian era into the Edwardian steam age.

The call for the electrification of this line in the motion, though, I believe is something that we should certainly pursue doggedly. As the RMT has said over and over again, electrification remains the most proven and effective method to decarbonise rail transport and to deliver faster journey times safely. That would benefit passengers, but it would also benefit freight, which is where we also need vision and ambition.

In my view, we have a highly centralised economy. We need greater decentralisation of industry and a greater diffusion of economic power. So boosting the Highland economy and electrifying this line, I believe, should be part of that, not least because every £1 million invested in rail generates £2.5 million-worth of value in the wider economy. We know that major exports from the Highlands and Islands, like whisky, shellfish, agricultural produce and timber, are nearly all transported at the moment on lorries, often on roads running alongside the Highland main line. If we are serious about getting traffic off our roads and on to our railways, we need to invest in rail and invest in electrification.

Finally, I am bound to say to the Cabinet secretary that that goal of a shift from road to rail is not helped by the fact that train stations on this line—Dunkeld and Birnam, Blair Atholl, Dalwhinnie, Newtonmore and Carrbridge—are not currently staffed at all and that Pitlochry station, which is staffed, is now suffering a 10 per cent cut in ticket office opening hours, and Kingussie, on the Highland main line, is facing a cut in ticket office hours of 65 per cent. That is more than 27 hours a week when the ticket office is now closed when formerly it was open. In my view, this is diminishing passenger service, diminishing passenger safety and diminishing passenger accessibility.

So let us use the public ownership of the railway to invest in it, to invest in the infrastructure, to invest in safety, to invest in reliability, but to invest in the people who work on it, too.