Draft Public Service Obligations in Transport Regulations 2023

Gavin Newlands Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2023 General Committees

[Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Robert. I welcome the new Minister to his place. I will not detain the Committee for long. I will not repeat what this measure does, but further to the questions from the Labour Front Bench, can I ask a question on public service obligation routes? As it stands at the moment, PSOs in Scotland have to include London—I should say routes awarded by the UK Government currently have to include London. The Scottish Government have a number of PSO routes in Scotland. A number of local authorities in Scotland have their own public service obligation routes that they support as well.

In the Select Committee on Transport, of which I am a member, we heard from many witnesses that the inflexibility is deeply unhelpful and a barrier to regional connectivity. The Minister at the time almost agreed, and said that the Government would definitely look at that and come back. The Union connectivity review by Sir Peter Hendy also recommended that it be looked at and changed, as it is a barrier to regional connectivity. In the Flightpath to the Future report, the Government acknowledged that and said that they would respond in their final Union connectivity review response. To date we have still not seen that UCR response. Can the Minister tell us when the connectivity review response will actually come out and whether the Government are still minded to look at the rules surrounding PSO routes as they are currently drafted in England?