Good Morning everyone and welcome to the committee's 22nd meeting in 2019. Can I ask you please to all ensure that your mobile phones are on silent. The first agenda item is the decision on taking business in private. The committee has asked to consider taking items 4 and 5 in private. Our discussions on the committee's pre-budget approach and our future work program are agreed. We agreed. Rwy'n adwsrfaith, a genderitwm ddweud. That is European Union withdrawal act 2018. We have received consent notifications in relation to three UK SIs as detailed on the agenda. These instruments are being laid in the UK Parliament in relation to the European Union withdrawal act 2018. Are there any comments? In relation to the Common Organisational Markets and Agricultural Products Markets, the motion that is before us, that is part of the general Common Organisational Markets amendments. One of the previous ones that we have already dealt with and agreed as a Parliament is the Agriculture Legislative Functions EU Exit 2 Regulations 2019 AGTF Oblique 02. In relation to that, that creates a financial obligation on devolved administrations to provide compensation to certain peoples. The briefing notes tell us, as they have previously done, that UK Government DEFRA officials say that the UK will cover that moneys, but we haven't heard formally that that is going to be the case. As this is a cost that potentially devolved administrations, including ourselves, could bear, I just want to put on the record that I think it's time we did here formally. I'm not asking for any action, convener. I just wanted to put it on the record. Well, it's certainly on the record. It might be appropriate that the committee consider writing to receive confirmation that that's the case. Do the committee have a view on that? There's sort of some nods and some... I think what I'd ask is, is the committee happy to write to the Scottish Government to confirm its content for the consent of the UK SIs referred to in the notification and write to them regarding the financial position? We're agreed. Okay, and we move on to agenda item three, which is the Transport Scotland Bill. Today we are continuing our consideration of stage two amendments to the Transport Scotland Bill. I'd like to welcome the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Infrastructure and Connectivity and his supporting officials. I'd also like to welcome the non-committee members present, and I also ought to note that Christine Graham is standing in for Richard Lyle, who is away today. Now, I'd briefly like to explain the... I don't think I've been here as a substitute before, have I? You have indeed. Aha. Well, that's all right. I don't have to make any about the declarable in this. No, no, no. Indeed, we remember you even if you don't remember that. I'll take that in the way it was intended. You can make a declaration if you want to make a declaration. Okay, so I'd... Thank you. I'd like to explain the procedure briefly before anyone watching. There'll be one debate on each group of amendments, and I'll call the member who lodged the first amendment in that group to speak to or move that amendment and speak to all the other amendments in the group. I'll then call other members who have lodged amendments in that group. Members who have not lodged amendments in the group who wish to speak should just catch my attention. If he has not spoken already on the group, I will then invite the Cabinet Secretary to contribute to the debate. The debate on the group will be concluded by me inviting members, the member who moved the first amendment in the group to wind up. Following the debate on each group, I will check whether the member who moved the first amendment in the group wishes to press it to a vote or withdraw it. If they wish to press ahead, I will put the question on that amendment. If a member wishes to withdraw their amendment after it has been moved, they must seek the agreement of the other members to do so. If any member of the present objects, the committee immediately moves to vote on that amendment. If any member does not move their amendment when called, they should say not moved. Please note that any other member present may move such an amendment. If no one moves the amendment, I will immediately call the next amendment on the martial list. Only committee members will be allowed to vote. Votings in any division is by a show of hands. It is important that members raise their hands clearly in the air so that the clerk can record the vote. The committee is also required to formally indicate that it has considered and agreed each section of the bill. I will put a question on each section at the appropriate moment. We will move on to the bill and to the first section, which is the recovery of unpaid parking charges. I would like to call amendment 260 in the name of Murdo Fraser, grouped with amendments as shown in the groupings. Murdo Fraser, can you please move amendment 260 and speak to all the amendments in the group? Thank you, convener. This is a package of amendments that introduced the concept of keeper liability in relation to charges for parking on private land. I appreciate that this is quite a legally complex area, and it is also an area where the committee has not previously taken evidence. Accordingly, if you will bear with me, I want to set out some of the background to this issue and put these amendments in context. I have a long-term interest in trying to improve the regulation of private car parking in Scotland. That is driven by my constituency Mailbag, in that I have been contacted by hundreds of constituents who have been hit with what they believe are unfair penalty charges from unscrupulous private car park companies. Many of those originated at one particular car park in the centre of Perth, but since I have raised the issue, I have been contacted by people right across Scotland who have faced similar difficulties. I have had experience, as I am sure other members have, of people coming to me with penalty notices not being fairly issued, perhaps being issued where people have simply overstayed their parking by five minutes or less, where they have been issued where someone has correctly paid for their parking, but inadvertently entered the wrong digit into a parking pay machine, or where the system for paying has been unduly complex and confusing. In some cases, the penalty charges have been extortionate—a basic charge of £60 or £80, rising to £160 in some cases. Often, those charges are then passed on to debt collectors, and individuals are bombarded with threatening letters, which indicate that court proceedings will be taken if they do not pay up. For many people, particularly the vulnerable or elderly, the whole situation can be very distressing, and they end up paying those charges even though they might not be properly due. My research on the issue led me to understand that there is no specific legislation in Scotland dealing with the regulation of parking on private land. This is covered at present by the general law of contract. This is the situation in which Scotland has fallen behind other parts of the UK. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 governs the situation in England and Wales, and it has introduced an independent appeal system known as POPLA, parking on private land appeals. Those who are hit with a penalty charge have recorsed to an independent appeal system. That has never applied in Scotland, and we have a situation here where a penalty notice can only be challenged by going to the same company that issued it in the first place, which is clearly a very unsatisfactory situation. In addition to introducing an independent appeal system, the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 introduced Keeper Liability in England as part of a balanced package of reform. My interest in the subject led me to introduce in December 2017 a members' bill proposal for regulation of privately operated car parking in Scotland. I propose that it would cover five issues that I believe were necessary for reform. Firstly, legislating for a maximum charge that could be recovered as a penalty for breaching the rules of parking on private land. Secondly, introducing regulation for uniform signage to avoid the present confusing situation. Thirdly, regulation for appearance of penalty charge notices to make it clear that these are civil payments and to differentiate them from local authority issued parking tickets. Fourthly, the introduction of an independent appeal system in Scotland, so we mirror the situation in England and Wales. And fifthly, the introduction of Keeper Liability in Scotland. I ran a consultation on that proposal. I received 136 responses, including from industry groups, consumer rights organisations and the general public. There was overwhelming support in principle for better regulation, with 93 per cent of those responding supporting this and only 4 per cent opposed. I subsequently had very positive engagement with the former Transport Minister Hamza Yousaf and the current Cabinet Secretary Michael Matheson on those issues, and the Scottish Government has always accepted the need for reform in this area. Whilst I was carrying on with this work, Sir Greg Knight MP, who is a Westminster MP, introduced a private members bill, the parking code of practice bill. This had cross-party and government support at Westminster and is now the parking code of practice act 2019. What Sir Greg's bill does is introduce a statutory code of practice for car park operators for the first time, one that will be rigorously policed. It will tie compliance with a statutory code of practice to access to DVLA records. A present car parking company can only pursue car owners if they can identify who they are, and in order to do that, they have to have access to the DVLA database. In the past DVLA were happy to essentially sell this information to anyone with a genuine interest, but in future, only companies that comply with a statutory code of practice will be able to have access to these records. Without that, their penalty notices will effectively be unenforceable. Last year, this Parliament passed a legislative consent memorandum that would ensure that the 2019 act applies to Scotland as well as south of the border. That would therefore deal with the first four points that I consulted on, and it will bring in an independent appeal system in Scotland and address the other issues. That only leaves the issue of keeper liability outstanding, and this needed to be legislated for separately. Having discussed the matter with the Scottish Government, we agreed that the Transport Bill would be an appropriate legislative vehicle in order to try and bring in these reforms. Having set out the background, convener, let me turn to the amendments. What keeper liability will do is make the registered keeper of a vehicle liable in the first instance for payment of reasonable penalty charges for parking on private land. At present, under the general law of contract, it is the driver of a vehicle who is deemed liable for any charges when parking on private land. It is the driver of the car who enters into a contract with the landowner or the car park operator. This leads to an obvious difficulty with enforcement, as the landowner or the car park operator has to try and prove who the driver of the vehicle was, which in practice can be extremely difficult. What keeper liability does is allow penalty charges to be pursued against the registered keeper in the first instance, or the registered keeper can identify who the driver was to avoid liability, and the driver can then be pursued against. Keeper liability already exists as a concept in Scots law. It exists for those who park on public land. To anyone who parks on a public street and receives a parking ticket, we will find it addressed to the registered keeper. It also exists in relation to, for example, the likes of speeding offences where someone called by a fixed speeding camera will find a notice addressed to the registered keeper. If they were not the driver of the vehicle at the time, they can then pass responsibility on to that person. That issue has, of course, been at the heart of some very high-profile court cases in recent times. Why should we support keeper liability in this context today? Well, it is very important that this is viewed in the context of the other wider reforms that I have been describing. This is part of a package of law reform, one intended to bring in a fair balance between the rights of the car driver and the legitimate rights of a land owner or a car park company to recover costs for breach of contract. I understand from the Scottish Government, and no doubt the cabinet secretary can confirm this in due course, that the intention is that the introduction of keeper liability will be tied to the date of introduction of the new statutory code of practice, which deals with the other issues of concern that I identified earlier. I would certainly not be supporting keeper liability as a standalone measure, but it needs to be seen in this wider context. In the consultation that I ran as part in my member's bill proposal, 35 per cent of those who responded were in favour of keeper liability, with 33 per cent who were opposed, 15 per cent who were neutral and 16 per cent who were unsure. I think that the high percentage of those who are neutral or unsure reflects that it is quite a difficult concept to understand. Nevertheless, there was a small majority more in favour than against. At present, only around 25 per cent of penalty charges for parking on private land in Scotland are being paid. There is a high level of uncertainty around where the law stands, and there are urban myths that those charges are not enforceable in law, which is not true, and that level of uncertainty is not good for anyone. Bodies such as Citizens Advice Scotland have done excellent campaigning work in this area, and everyone has agreed that we need greater certainty. That is not just an issue for commercial car parks. There are many businesses and private individuals who have a legitimate interest in trying to protect their car parking spaces. Owners of flats in city centre developments, for example, with allocated parking spaces, are present and find it effectively impossible in a practical sense to enforce their rights over their parking spaces without keeper liability. What they find is that their parking spaces are filled up by random members of the public coming in to get free parking rather than paying for it, and people who have paid for a parking space cannot actually use them. The same things might apply to, for example, a shop with allocated customer car parking or a business that has parking attached for its staff. What keeper liability does is ensure that those rights that already exist in law are much more easily enforced. Convener, I thank the Scottish Government for all its support in drafting of those amendments and for its co-operation, and I am happy to move amendment 260. Just before I close, I turn briefly to the amendments 268A and 319 in the name of Pauline McNeill, which seek to amend my own amendments. As far as I can determine, what those amendments seek to do is ensure that any enforcement of those notices can only be done by a public body, and I really cannot see how such arrangement would work in practice. The enforcement of notices for parking on private land is a civil matter between the landowner or their agents on the one hand and the driver or keeper of the vehicle on the other. There is no locus for any public body to become involved, and no public body has an interest in the enforcement of those notices. Moreover, I cannot see what public body or bodies is going to get involved in trying to resolve those matters. The Scottish Government has no interest in spending taxpayers' money getting involved in resolving disputes between commercial companies and private individuals, nor have local authorities any interest in getting involved. There are simply no public bodies or agencies that have the capacity to take on this work. I fear that those amendments, although they may be well-intentioned, are essentially wrecking amendments that drive a coach and horses through the carefully balanced package of reform that I have been trying to take forward with the help of the Scottish Government, and I would urge Pauline McNeill, therefore, to withdraw those. Thank you. Pauline McNeill, can I ask you to speak to amendment 268A and other amendments in the group. Thank you very much, convener. Speaking to amendment 26A, this amendment ensures that only someone employed by a public body can either ensure a parking enforcement notice and ensures that private companies cannot be contracted by local authorities to issue parking enforcement notices. This amendment will prevent the situation with private companies to issue tickets with no authority to do so. This is a probing amendment. It is a probing amendment that really witches it against Murdo Fraser's amendments, and I want to set out why they give me cause for concern. First, I thank Murdo Fraser for a very thorough explanation, but it is the first time that I have heard the reasoning behind it. As you will be only too familiar at the stage 2 proceedings of this Parliament, there is no requirement to submit a notice alongside your amendment, so you can only read the amendments and try to understand what the member is trying to achieve. It gives me cause for concern that I think that these amendments would give wide-ranging powers that have not been tested. My constituents in Glasgow have had no say what I think are quite sweeping powers that are going to be given to private companies. The amendments introduce new-keeper liabilities, and apparently that is because Scotland has fallen behind England. I want to set out why that phrase is—I think that it should be examined because, in many cases, Scotland does things differently. Wheel-clamping, for example, has not been legal in Scotland where in England it has taken them some time to legislate. Falling behind England in these matters does not give me cause for concern. As Murdo Fraser rightly says, and this is where I agree with him wholeheartedly, the private car parking industry has been notorious to setting drivers with record-breaking tickets. In the first quarter of 2018, 1 million and a half sets of vehicle records from DVLA were applied for. As Murdo Fraser says, as his advice noted in 2015, the highest number of hits that he had on their webpage was in relation to this. Murdo Fraser says that parking notices are issued every five seconds in the DVLA's course to share 6.5 million records with private firms. The first thing that I would ask the committee is to consider whether they would be satisfied that a code of conduct would be enough in order to bring what has been an industry that has, for some part, had a poor reputation among their constituents. Murdo Fraser says that only 20 per cent of fines are paid. Perhaps that is because people feel that they are being unfairly fined, and that has been my experience for the constituents. Car parks are owned by a variety of different companies such as pension funds, finance companies. Town centres is probably the one that I know best, where town centres sell off the right to car parks. Many supermarkets have done it. Many of the cases that I get are from people who have just parked in the supermarket and have been a short time over their stay and have been issued parking notices. In my view, there is a remedy for the cases that Murdo Fraser outlines. Some people have written to me about this in housing estates, where other people park in spaces that they are not supposed to, but you might be familiar with the Dundee case, where Ms McKee, a persistent offender, parked in a residence parking bay. Those are based with permit holders only. There is a remedy, because, after all, at the end of the day, it is a contractual obligation, and that can be forced in a court, as Murdo Fraser says. It is a civil matter. It did not sound very exciting. I know from 15 years of experience. I am sure that you will get to come in with some pile of wisdom. No, it is not pile of wisdom. It is a genuine question. Essentially, the member is proposing that only public agents can recover what is a private debt. There are other examples of where that sort of thing happens, such as policing is done at football matches and the football clubs are charged for providing that service. Is it the member's intention that the private body that seeks to recover this private debt and is compelled to use a public officer to do so would have to pay a fee to the public body that is employing the officer for providing that service? That is a very fair question, Mr Stevenson. I would emphasise that, at this stage, this is a probing amendment. What I sought to do through the drafting is to suggest that there should be some public oversight in relation to the private industry, because if you pass those amendments, you are going to give—I am going to address this point—far-reaching powers and keeper's liability, which I would suggest a code of conduct. It is not a statutory and you need to be careful what you are doing here. I would like to address that point, but thanks for the question. The registered keeper cannot be held liable unless it can be established that they were driving the car and the alleged beach took place. That, in effect, made it difficult for parking companies to enforce the tickets against their registered keeper. Bear in mind that the grounds in which a lot of those companies seek to enforce notices are on very, very thin grounds. We have heard that the code of conduct, which was a subject of an RCM, which Greg Knight, the MP, brought forward. In the code of conduct, it is entirely to deal with trying to regulate the private parking industry. It is a good thing. However, to introduce keeper's liability with those amendments goes way beyond what the code of conduct seeks to do. In fact, I would argue that, as I have said previously, in England, motorists have probably experienced more draconian attempts by private car parking industries because of some of the framing of their legislation. It has been described as a loophole—I do not believe that it is a loophole at all. The amendment 266 goes even further than the powers that the police have under section 172 of the Road Traffic Act, in which it stipulates that if a driver cannot be conveniently contacted, then the registered keeper becomes liable. What does that mean? I asked members to test what this word is conveniently. Does that mean that, if you are the keeper of a vehicle and you are pursued and you are asked where you are driving the car and saying that it was my son who was driving the car? Where does your son live? What attempts are being made to try and find the driver? After all, it is the driver of the vehicle that breached the not necessarily keeper, because what keeper's liability does is that it makes the keeper liable, no matter what. I do not think that that can be right. The registered keeper gives the correct details and it is not convenient for them to make the necessary—so who decides what convenience is? We have no guidance or certainly I could not find any guidance as to what that actually means. In amendment 268 it says that it was immaterial for the purposes of this park whether the vehicle was permitted to be parked. To me that is quite a wide-stipping, sweeping statement in an amendment that is immaterial for the purposes of this park, whether the vehicle was permitted to be parked. To me in plain English that suggests that it does not really matter and I would suggest that the drafting of that certainly should not have passed Scottish ministers because that is far wider than we have at the moment for keeper's liability. I do accept that there are problems in private dwellings. I have also been contacted by businesses like Barclays who say that we have 3,000 parking spaces and we want to make sure that a lot of companies put up barriers. There are remedies for that. I have serious concerns about that. Those things need to be tested and that is what stage 2 is for, but they are quite wide. As I have said previously, Scotland has done things differently. We have not really had a chance to discuss what the code actually means. If we are going to introduce keeper's liability as part of bringing a code of practice, we need to be sure that the code of conduct along with the issue of keeper's liability does not mean that more of our constituents—I will finish on that point—creates an offence of parking by trespassing. Trespassing is not a feature of Scotslock. Why are we going to accept a principle in Scotslock that we have not free? Parking by trespassing, believe you me, if you pass these amendments, more of your constituents, albeit under a code of conduct, where there might be a limit—we do not know what that limit is yet. There are too many uncertainties, convener. I would ask the committee to scrutinise this very closely before you pass this into law. There are a few members who have indicated that they wish to speak. Perhaps I could just ask Murdo Fraser when he is summing up to clarify that the position of the code of conduct and whether there is a statutory obligation there, and also to clarify if the code of conduct—the non-compliance with the code of conduct—will help anyone regarding their appeal process if they want to appeal their ticket. Just for the reference, I have been caught by one of these systems. On two occasions, probably, I should admit that, but it is not going to affect how I vote much. On that note, Mike Rumbles, followed by Christine Graham. I understand from what Murdo has said that he has put a great deal of work into this. It is just that the committee is blinded on it. I understand from also what he has said that he has worked with the Cabinet Secretary on it, but it has not come before this committee. Our job is to examine the proposals that have been brought forward to the committee. The 23 amendments in an area that we have not examined. Murdo could have brought those forward to us in evidence at stage 1. We could have taken evidence on this whole approach, and yet we are blindsided. I cannot be supporting those amendments for that reason alone, but I have many more worries about that. We are changing contract law to criminal law—that is one worry. I do not understand why we are making the keeper liable under criminal law, rather than the driver. That seems to me to be a complete change about, and we have not worked with it. I hope so. It is not changing civil law to criminal law. It is civil law. It is a matter of contract law. It is not changing it at all. But it is not a statute. No, it is not. It is not changing something that is presently a civil law matter to criminal law. It is not doing that at all. It remains within civil law. Thank you for that intervention, and I am sure that you will have a chance to explain it in detail in your summing up, Mr Rumbles. That is exactly what I mean. The committee has not had a chance to look at this. We do not know anything about it. That is the job of this committee to have examined all of this, and that is why I am not— Of course I will, Meryl. Mr Rumbles has taken an intervention on that point. He might remember that, because he was on the committee last year, this committee debated a legislative consent memorandum to Sir Greg Knight's parking code of practice bill, as it was. In fact, I remember Mr Rumbles raising precisely the issues that he is raising now at that particular point. It is a little bit pushing the boundary to say that the committee has not looked at the issues, because there was a debate in the committee at that time that Mr Rumbles contributed to. I thank Meryl Fraser for that intervention and for the records. Everybody is aware of this. Anybody listening was a very brief debate on a legislative consent motion. What I am talking about is that we have got the transport bill before us, and we have spent a great deal of time looking at all the issues in the transport bill in stage 1. There has been controversy already over the transport bill when my colleague John Finnie here on the committee brought forward amendments on another issue, and then we were able to pause the stage 2 process and take evidence on it—a shortened evidence session, but we still took evidence on it. This is quite a major change in law, and I think that we should have given some time to it. There are other issues. I am not generally happy that what has happened to the protection of information that we give to the state, that the state is able to sell those details to private companies. I am just not happy about that. I just feel that this major issue of changing the whole focus of the law and liability in law from where it should rightly stand, which is the driver to the keeper, is wrong in principle. I am not happy about it, and I am afraid that I will not be supporting those amendments. The most important reason why I am not supporting those 23 amendments is that I just do not feel that we have had a time to do our job on this committee and do it properly. I absolutely support that, and I do not want to patronise you about the clarity of your explanation, because this is a civil matter of contract. People do not understand when they drive into supermarket car partners. There is a notice that says that two hours free overstay that £100 fine, and if you pay it within a couple of days, it is £50. They do not understand that. In law, it is an invitation to treat. In other words, you say that I am going in here. That is the contract that I am entering into, and as I leave, if I have over saved my time, there is a breach of contract, and there is a fine imposed to that. That is the first thing that they do not understand. It brings clarity to let people know that. It has happened where there has been free car parking before in the areas. The second thing is that, as the law stands, it is a driver who is liable, because the other person who read the notice made the contract to breach the contract. However, the notice and penalty goes to the keeper of the vehicle, because that is all that they have access to with the registration number.  That is not why I think that this is a good idea, because there is clarity in the law. However, the notice said to me that you are the registered keeper of this vehicle, and we have been told you were the driver. Of course, nobody knows who the driver is, but they just put that in the notice. However, by doing this, you will actually have legal status to them, because they are issuing these notices now. It remains a civil matter. Clarity is the important thing here that people understand, and the car parking private companies, whatever you think of the money that they make from it, that is irrelevant as a contract. Whatever you think of this, people will know where they are, and so if the keeper gets the notice that I got, they will know that if this becomes law, it is legitimate, and they are liable for it if they do not declare who it is. Yes, I am happy to do so. I am a bit puzzled why Christine Grahame thinks that it is fair, it is right and proper that someone who is not responsible for driving that vehicle suddenly becomes responsible under this law. It exempts stolen cars and exempts hired cars, so obviously you have given your leave to somebody to drive your car, so if you have responsibility for that vehicle, I think that in fairness to both parties, because at the moment they say it to you anyway when they have no right to say it, and there is no appeal, so I think that many of the things that you have introduced make it clear to people. Again, I reinforce that it is a contractual matter, and contractual law prevails, and that is why I cannot support Pauline McNeill. So, when does public, well, maybe we just finished before you get on, why should public authorities get involved in private contracts, as a matter for courts? Presiding Officer, out of the committee member on this case, but you want to come in, Pauline, I think, before I come to calling. Did you want to interrupt? Yes, I just wanted to ask Christine Grahame. First of all, a lot of these car parks are revenue streams for companies, which shows why they really pursue people pretty hard, and how can you stop that from happening? Surely, if you did want to stop that from happening, we are going to put that into statute, where the code of conduct is simply a code. Surely, then, in order to balance up the protection for people, you would want to see both in statute then, surely? I think that you are mixing up the fact that they charge too much, the fines are heavy duty, and you can be five minutes over and you end up with 100 pounds. I think that you are mixing that up. The issue about the revenue streams, I do not think that I am happy about that, but the point that I am making is that you are entering into a contract that tells you what is going to be the outcome if you go in, and the only thing that the public can do is not go into them or come out early or just keep them empty. You know, vote with your car. Well, heaven's sake, I'll let Murdo Fraser defend his amendments if you don't. I'm not here in lieu of a Murdo. Christine, I'm going to move on, and I would say to committee members and Christine, try and do this through the chair rather than just having conversations across the chamber, I think, you'll usually say to me, Christine. I want to come to Colin Smith and then I want to go to John Finnie, say Colin, and then John, and then I'm going to go to the cabinet secretary. Colin. Thanks very much, convener. I mean, this is obviously a significant change. In Murdo Fraser says that, or sorry, as Mike Rumble says, this committee has not taken any evidence at all on the issue of keeper liability. It's been introduced here at stage two, quite late in the process. The Government appeared to support it, yet no evidence was brought at all to this committee to say in the Government supported this proposal. The Government haven't put it in its own transport bill, despite the fact that it claimed to support this particular proposal. The conduct of some of those private car parking firms are well documented, and Murdo Fraser's members' bill set out proposals to tackle a large number of those, but they've now been tackled. Four out of five of those issues have been tackled, but the one issue, keeper liability, is not a single person has written to me saying that that's a particular concern for them. I have to say that it's not the issue with those private car parking firms. It's the abuse and the failure of those firms to follow existing rules, whether it's on signage, whether it's about making it clear to people what they could be fined. I certainly will, yeah, yeah. Would the member accept that, as well as some of the parking companies having appalling behaviour, some of the drivers have appalling behaviour? I have a shopping centre near me where people park. Sometimes in disabled spaces, just before nine o'clock in the morning, they run off to the bus and then they come back at five o'clock because it's cheaper to park in a space like that than it is to pay in the city centre. So it is on both sides—there's bad behaviour on both sides—would he accept? There is indeed, and this proposal doesn't do anything to tackle the bad behaviour. The reality is that these companies consistently abuse the existing rules that they have. We've got a code of practice that isn't even statutory, and maybe that's the issue that should be addressed if we're going to tackle this in what's entirely new section, in my view, to this particular bill. So I have concern that there's been no consultation whatsoever by the Government on this. I have no idea what any organisation really believes on this specific proposal that's before us. I'm very supportive of the bill that went through a UK level recently that tackled most of the previous concerns, but I have a real issue with this committee being asked to agree to something, which is the reason for what 23 amendments—a bill on itself, quite frankly, that should be properly consulted. I've listened intently to what Mr Fraser says, and ordinarily, in the question of private companies, I would find myself in the polar opposite position of Mr Fraser. That's not the case on this occasion. I think that this is a very measured response to a very well laid-out issue. Similarly, as someone who's frequently gone on about private companies and is concerned about issues of data protection, if I had those, then I most certainly would be hoping to articulate them today. I don't. As for the question of scrutiny, the committee doesn't take evidence on every conceivable thing. It's incumbent on all of us to look at proposals and do our very best to understand them and clarify them in the day. I'm satisfied that there is clarity about this. I'm satisfied that it's a measured response that Mr Fraser is proposing. Is there a second intervention? He would. It is actually quite a major piece of change in the law of this. It's not just an extra that's just been brought before the committee. Can I just give you one example of what he's— could he tell me what he thinks is fair? I was in Edinburgh and my car was in Aberdeenshire, and yet I got one of those notices because I had over parked, apparently, in Aberdeenshire. It couldn't have happened because I was physically here in Parliament in Edinburgh. Does he think that if we changed it all like this, then I would have become liable for whoever used my car and received a penalty in that way? Does he think that's right? Are we not taking personal responsibility away from individuals? I think that we're bringing responsibility into it. The reality of the situation is that, as has been said, higher cars, stolen cars, whatever. There are obligations—if you're the owner of a motor vehicle, you have obligations connected with the ownership of that vehicle, and one of them is to ensure that you do your very best to comply with regulations. As regards Pauline McNeill's amendments, I certainly don't see that. I'm someone who's very supportive of the public sector, but I don't see a role in that. I think that you've had a good chance to come. We are 40 minutes into the first group of amendments. You absolutely can make a point forward, Mr Rumbles. In the recent stage 3 debates that we've just had in the chamber, the Presiding Officer was quite strong in his view that we were speaking too long—some members, particularly speaking too long on stage 3 debate—because he said that this should have ample time to be debated properly at stage 2. If we are curtailed in what we're trying to do on stage 2 and what we're curtailed in what we're trying to do at stage 3, then I worry about how we are doing our job. I absolutely always would agree with the Presiding Officer. I am just asking people to be mindful that there are time limits that we have to do, and we have had quite a full debate on this. So, Mr Finlay, it's up to you if you want to take it, but the Cabinet Secretary still needs to come in and summarise the points, as does Murdo Fraser. I'll perhaps leave it to the member, given the time constraints that there may be. As Mr Fraser has outlined, we have been working closely with the UK counterparts to regulate the private parking industry and ensure that its practices are transparent, consistent and, most of all, fair to everyone. I welcome the detail that Mr Fraser has provided in highlighting the importance of consistency and fairness to residents, motorists and landowners who are trying to effectively manage car parking that can be used for everyone. We are working closely with the UK Government on this matter and a range of stakeholders on the development of a statutory code of practice, which will specify in detail how private car parks are to be managed. Those amendments complement that work, as they ensure that, while we are using legislative tools to ensure best practice across the car parking industry, we are also ensuring that the industry can operate effectively, fairly and consistently across the UK. Amendment 268A from Paul McNeill seeks to amend amendment 268 to require that parking notices are served on drivers for the purposes of meeting one of the conditions that are required for the right to recover unpaid parking charges from the keeper can only be served by public bodies, thereby attempting to render the keeper liability provisions promoted by Murdo Fraser in operable. Keeper liability is not a new concept to Scott's law. Keeper liability is already used in Scotland by 21 local authorities who have decriminalised parking enforcement powers and who issue penalty charge notices to motorists who contravene on-street parking legislation. However, the private parking industry is largely governed by contract law and under contract law, the vehicle's driver is responsible for any parking charges that may arise if they contravene any of the terms of conditions of that parking contract. Currently, private car park operators can charge for parking, but only those operators who are members of an accredited trade association can obtain vehicle keeper information from the DVLA for parking enforcement purposes. The keeper liability amendments put forward by Murdo Fraser will tackle a misconception, held by many motorists in Scotland in thinking that parking charge notices issued by private parking operators are not legally enforceable and can therefore be ignored. The amendment is technically deficient, as the amendment lodged by Murdo Fraser does not apply to public roads. Local authorities or state-controlled parking places or any land subject to statutory control apply to private land. On the issue of keeper liability, I wonder if the minister was fully satisfied with the drafting of the legislation and the one that I specifically mentioned in my opening speech where the phrase stipulates where the driver cannot conveniently be contacted. I wonder if amendment 2661 is my contention that there is the issue of keeper liability, but there is the drafting of those amendments that seem to go further than the Road Traffic Act 172 of the Road Traffic Act because it says that if a driver cannot conveniently be contacted, I wonder if the minister was sufficiently content with the drafting of the legislation and how that would be interpreted because, as I said previously, conveniently can mean a whole lot of things. I do not think that Police Scotland, for example, would use that term in relation to keeper liability. We are confident that they are correct, but I am more than happy to take away the specific point that the member raises to offer further clarification. We are confident that they are correct because it is about the resilience of the keeper of the property, so I am more than happy to take that away and check the point that the member raised most specifically. Amendment 319 by Paul McNeill seeks to introduce a prohibition on the recovery of unpaid parking charges by private companies. It does this by adding a new provision to the bill preventing recovery of unpaid parking charges by a person not acting in the course of employment by a public body. Amendment 319 goes on to define public body for the purposes of this part of the bill. The effect of the amendment would be to prevent private car park operators from recovering unpaid car park charges, which is exactly the opposite of what Murdo Fraser is looking to do with his amendments. Furthermore, amendment 319 would effectively... I am happy to give way to Mr Rumbles. I wonder if you could clarify, because this is what we are deficient in not having taken evidence on this, but as I understand it, if you have a speeding offence, obviously the keeper of the vehicle is contacted and in law you are required to identify the driver if you know who that driver is because there are a couple of rather high profile cases where that has been through the courts. Why is there a need to change to keep a liability? I used my own example. I was in Edinburgh. My car is in Aberdeenshire. The driver of that car overstayed in a car park, and therefore I got the penalty, but I was not obliged to say who that driver was. Surely the way to make the law consistent is to ensure that the same laws that we have for speeding apply here. You do not move to keep a liability, but you tackle the person who is responsible for the offence. Obviously, for a road traffic offence it is a criminal law matter. The principle of keeping a liability applies in that for a part, for a speeding offence, the notice will be issued to the keeper of that vehicle. There is a legal obligation on them to then legally, under criminal law, to disclose whether it was them or if it was another party who was driving the car. The difference with this is that it is civil law and it is under contract law. The vehicle entering the site has to comply with the contract law. Whoever is driving it and the keeper is then liable for that under contract law. The person that is doing it is the driver. It is the person who owns the car and it is the car that is using up that particular piece of parking space, which is why it is under contract law and it is a civil matter. Mr Rumbles and Cabinet Secretary, please, can we not have conversations in the committee? If you want to do it the formal way, Cabinet Secretary, back to you. If you want to take an intervention, by all means, do it, but please do it not by conversation. The principle difference here is that it is because it is the vehicle that is parked there, whereas the person who is driving a vehicle over a particular speed is creating a criminal offence. They are not entering into a contract for actually having their car parked in that parking space, so there is a difference and that is why it is a different arrangement. Amendment 319 would effectively modify the Scott's law of contract to render persons operating those car parts unable to enforce the terms of the parking contract that the driver has entered into. Simply put, that would enable every driver to park in a private car park without paying a fee in full knowledge that the company could never recoup any charges from them. I am certain that that is not a position that anyone in this Parliament would wish to encourage. The parking industry is undergoing change for the better and the amendments brought forward by Murdo Fraser seek to deliver consistency and fairness to operators and motorists alike. The Scottish Government supports Mr Fraser's amendments. However, I would ask Pauline McNeill not to move amendment 268A or 319, but if moved, I would urge the committee not to support them. I will try briefly to respond to some of the points that were made. First of all, I thank everyone who has contributed to the debate. It has been helpful in exposing some of the issues. Pauline McNeill made some very good points in relation to her amendments, and I agree with a lot of what she said. Pauline McNeill and Colin Smith and Mike Rumbles made the biggest complaint, if I can put it in that way, about a lack of consultation in advance of those amendments being lodged. In response to that, I will say briefly, it is up to the committee to decide if it wants to take evidence at stage 2. It is quite entitled to do that. If committee members wanted to ask for evidence to be taken, they had that option. We did, of course, have a session in this committee last year when the committee debated and voted on a legislative consent memorandum for the parking code of practice bill, so there was a discussion around those issues at that time. As I mentioned earlier, I ran a consultation on the member's bill proposal. It is not like that there has not been any public engagement from the Parliament around those issues. That process has already been gone through, albeit I appreciate not through this committee. Pauline McNeill raised the need for public oversight of private industry, and I absolutely agree with that. That is precisely what the Parking Code of Practice Act does. I think that Pauline and Colin Smith complained that the code of practice was not statutory, but that is a misunderstanding. It is a statutory code of practice. It is set down in regulation by ministers, and therefore it is statutory. Those who do not comply with that statutory code of practice, there are sanctions against them, and the ultimate sanction is that they will be deprived access to DVLA records. Without DVLA records, effectively, they will not be able to enforce their penalty notices. It is a very severe sanction that comes against them. I would say gently to Pauline McNeill. I know that it is a popular view, but the idea that trespass is not part of Scots law is not something that many Scots lawyers will recognise. If you study Scots property law, as I am sure Christine Grahame would confirm, trespass does form part of Scots law, so it does exist, but that is by the by. Mike Rumble said that he was not happy that DVLA was selling information to third parties. I absolutely agree with him, but that is precisely the ill that the Parking Code of Practice Act seeks to deal with. The Parking Code of Practice Act makes it more difficult for companies to acquire information from DVLA, and they will only be able to do so if they can demonstrate compliance with the new statutory code of practice. I think that the main issue is the change from liability to the keeper of the vehicle rather than the driver of the vehicle. I think that is the number of the whole issue. I have a technical question. I wonder if he could address it. I do not quite understand in amendment 260 paragraph 2. It says that it is immaterial for the purpose of this part whether or not the vehicle was permitted to be parked or to remain parked on the land. I am not quite sure what that means. I understand that those amendments are modelled on the Protection of Freedom Act 2012, which was passed in relation to England and Wales. Those amendments are modelled on that and take their wording from that. I understand that that wording is intended to make it clear that the bill relates to the recovery of unpaid parking charges rather than the question of consent to park on land. I do not have sufficient explanation for the member, but that is probably the best thing to do at the moment. If I could just close, convener, I think that what this debate for the last 50 minutes or so has demonstrated very helpfully is the lack of certainty that there is around the law or private parking in Scotland. Is that certainty and confusion that is at the heart of the problem? Only 25 per cent of parking notices in Scotland are currently being paid. A lot of people think that they can just put them in the bin, although they are not enforceable. In fact, they are enforceable, as the cabinet secretary said. Some people end up being taken to court. A lot of angst and suffering is caused as a result of that. What we need is greater certainty and greater clarity, and what I am proposing is part of a package of reform that will provide better certainty and clarity, both for those who are parking their vehicles and for those who are operating an industry here and those who have legitimate interests to protect their parking spaces. Can I ask you to press or withdraw your amendment then, please? I will press amendment 216. The question therefore is amendment 216 to be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. There is a division. Those in favour, please raise their hands. Those against, please raise their hands. Those who wish to abstain, please raise their hands. There are nine votes in favour. There is one vote against. There is one abstention. Therefore, amendment 260 is agreed. The question now is that amendment 261 be agreed. Are we all agreed? I have to call it. Sorry, I am jumping the gun again. Maybe it is getting cited here as we move through a list of amendments. I call amendment 261 in the name of Murdo Fraser, already debated with amendment 261. Murdo Fraser to move or not move. Therefore, the question is that amendment 261 be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. There is a division. Those in favour, please raise their hands. Those against, please raise their hands. Those who wish to abstain, please raise their hands. There are nine votes in favour. There is one vote against. There is one abstention. Therefore, amendment 261 is agreed. I call amendment 262 in the name of Murdo Fraser, already debated with amendment 260. Murdo Fraser to move or not move. If it is helpful, can I move on block? No, because of the way the voting is happening. We will have to go through them individually. Thank you for that kind offer. The question therefore is that amendment 262 be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. There is a division. Those in favour, please raise their hands. Those against, please raise their hands. Those who wish to abstain, please raise their hands. There are nine votes. Four, there is one vote against. There is one abstention. Therefore, amendment 262 is agreed. I therefore call amendment 263 in the name of Murdo Fraser, already debated with amendment 260. Murdo Fraser to move or not move. The question is that amendment 263 be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. There is a division. Those in favour, please raise their hands. Those against, please raise their hands. Those who wish to abstain, please raise their hands. There are nine votes. Four, there is one vote against. There is one abstention. Therefore, amendment 263 is agreed. I call amendment 264 in the name of Murdo Fraser, already debated with amendment 260. Murdo Fraser to move or not move. The question is that amendment 264 be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. There is a division. Those in favour, please raise their hands. Those against, please raise their hands. Those who wish to abstain, please raise their hands. There are nine votes. Four, there is one vote against. There is one abstention. Therefore, amendment 264 is agreed. I call amendment 265 in the name of Murdo Fraser, already debated with amendment 260. Murdo Fraser to move or not move. The question therefore is amendment 265 be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. There is a division. Those in favour, please raise their hands. Those against, please raise their hands. Those who wish to abstain, please raise their hands. There are nine votes. Four, there is one vote against. There is one abstention. Therefore, amendment 265 is agreed. I need to call amendment 266 in the name of Murdo Fraser, already debated with amendment 260. Murdo Fraser to move or not move. The question is that amendment 266 be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. There is a division. Those in favour, please raise their hands. Those against, please raise their hands. Those who wish to abstain, please raise their hands. There are nine votes. Four, there is one vote against. There is one abstention. Therefore, amendment 266 is agreed. I call amendment 267 in the name of Murdo Fraser, already debated with amendment 260. Murdo Fraser to move or not move. Thank you. The question therefore is amendment 267 be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. There is a division. Those in favour, please raise their hands. Those against, please raise their hands. Those who wish to abstain, please raise their hands. There are nine votes. Four, there is one vote against. There is one abstention. Therefore, amendment 267 is agreed. I call amendment 268 in the name of Murdo Fraser, already debated with amendment 260. Murdo Fraser to move or not move. I therefore call amendment 268A in the name of Pauline... Sorry? No, because that's an amendment to it. Sorry. Nothing better than when the convener is right. Mr Balford, please remember that it will be me that gives you the opportunity to speak later in the committee meeting. I therefore call amendment 268A in the name of Pauline McNeill, already debated with amendment 260. Pauline McNeill to move or not move. Not moved. Thank you. Therefore, the question is that amendment 268A be agreed. Are we all agreed? We're not agreed. There is a division. Those in favour, please raise their hands. Those against, please raise their hands. Those who wish to abstain, please raise their hand. There are nine votes. Four, there's one vote against and there's one abstention. Therefore, amendment 268A is agreed. Do you know the pattern about the voting? Would it not be possible to move them as a bloc? I'm sure it would be possible to do anything, but as a parliamentary procedure, I'm told by the clause, means that I have to go through each one. Before Christine Grahame comes in and tells me that there's a way around that, I'm going to keep pushing on with it. I'm sorry and thank you again. Call amendment 269, in the name of murder phrase already debated with amendment 260, murder phrase to move or not move. The question is that amendment 269 be agreed. Are we all agreed? We're not agreed. There's a division. Those in favour, please raise their hands. Thank you. Those against, please raise their hands. Those who wish to abstain, please raise their hand. Yes, the pattern continues. There are nine votes. Four, one vote against, one abstention. Therefore, amendment 269 is agreed. The question therefore called amendment 270, in the name of murder phrase already debated with amendment 260, murder phrase to move or not move. The question is that amendment 270 be agreed. Are we all agreed? We're not agreed. There's a division. Those in favour, please raise their hands. Those against, please raise their hands. And those who wish to abstain, please raise their hands. Sorry, there are nine votes. Four, one vote against. There's one abstention. Therefore, amendment 270 is agreed. I call amendment 271, in the name of murder phrase already debated with amendment 260, murder phrase to move or not move. The question is that amendment 271 be agreed. Are we all agreed? We're not agreed. There's a division. Those in favour, please raise their hands. Those against, please raise their hands. Those who wish to abstain, please raise their hands. There are nine votes. Four, there's one vote against. There's one abstention. Therefore, amendment 271 is agreed. I call amendment 272, in the name of murder phrase already debated with amendment 260, murder phrase to move or not move. The question is amendment 272 be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. There is a division. Those in favour, please raise their hands. Those against, please raise their hands. Those who wish to abstain, please raise their hands. There are nine votes. Four, there's one vote against. There's one abstention. Therefore, amendment 272 is agreed. Call amendment 273, in the name of murder phrase already debated with amendment 260, murder phrase to move or not move. The question is that amendment 273 be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. There's a division. Those in favour, please raise their hands. Those against, please raise their hands. Those who wish to abstain, please raise their hands. There are nine votes. Four, there's one vote against. There's one abstention. 273 amendment is agreed. I call amendment 274, in the name of murder phrase already debated with amendment 270, murder phrase to move or not move. The question is, therefore, that amendment 274 be agreed. Are we all agreed? We're not agreed. There's a division. Those in favour, please raise their hands. Those against, please raise their hands. Those who wish to abstain, please raise their hands. There's nine votes. Four, one vote against. There's one abstention. Therefore, amendment 274 is agreed. I call amendment 275, in the name of murder phrase already debated with amendment 260, murder phrase to move or not move. The question is, that amendment 275 be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. There's a division. Those in favour, please raise their hands. Those against, please raise their hands. Those who wish to abstain, please raise their hands. There are nine votes. Four, there's one vote against. There's one abstention. Therefore, amendment 275 be agreed. I call amendment 276, in the name of murder phrase already debated with amendment 260, murder phrase to move or not move. The question is, therefore, that amendment 276 be agreed. Are we all agreed? We're not agreed. There's a division. Those in favour, please raise their hands. Those against, those who wish to abstain. There are nine votes. Four, there's one vote against. There's one abstention. Therefore, amendment 276 be agreed. I call amendment 277, in the name of murder phrase already debated with amendment 260, murder phrase to move or not move. The question is, that amendment 277 be agreed. Are we all agreed? We're not agreed. There's a division. Those in favour, please raise their hands. Those against, please raise their hands. Those who wish to abstain, please raise their hands. There are nine votes. Four, there's one vote against. There's one abstention. Therefore, amendment 277 be agreed. I call amendment 278, in the name of murder phrase already debated with amendment 260, murder phrase to move or not move. The question is, that amendment 278 be agreed. Are we all agreed? We're not agreed. There's a division. Those in favour, please raise their hands. Those against, please raise their hand. Those who wish to abstain, please raise their hand. There's nine votes. Four, there's one vote against. There's one abstention. Therefore, amendment 278 be agreed. I call amendment 319, in the name of Pauline McNeill, already debated with amendment 260. Pauline McNeill, to move or not move. Not moved. Thank you. We are now moving on to the enforcement of parking regulations in the vicinity of schools. I'd like to call amendment 316, in the name of Jamie Greene, grouped with amendment 317. Jamie Greene, to move amendment 316 and speak to both amendments in the group. Jamie. Thank you, Gymru. I move the amendments in my name. I apologise to members. I've almost lost my voice. The transport bill has finished me off completely, so I'll keep my comments as brief as I can, and hopefully they'll ramp up the volume for me, so I don't have to shout. This amendment has been brought forward to try and address an issue that I think many of us deal with on a regular basis, and that's the issue around parking outside schools. I'm sure many of us will drive past schools in the morning on the way to Parliament and see the signs outside schools saying, please, do not park at the entrance or begging drivers to not park in an obstructive manner, especially on zigzag lines. Last year, when we started discussing regulations around pavement double parking, my office was contacted by Dundee City Council, who have an issue with enforcing parking outside schools. I was quite intrigued to see what the issue was, so they requested a meeting between local councils, traffic wardens and the local police, who regularly enforce traffic outside schools. We went along to see what the problem was, and what is clear is that there is a problem. There's a lot of confusion, actually, as we saw from previous amendments to the bill around who can enforce what, what powers traffic wardens have and decriminalised areas and what powers police have. The reality is that the picture is quite complex, and I'd like to think that we can try, as a committee, to deal with this using the transport bill as a vehicle to do so. At the moment, the reality is that outside many schools there are both traffic wardens and police officers trying to regulate and manage the huge volumes of traffic outside schools in the morning. There are many questions as to who can do what, and the questions include, traffic warden put a ticket on a car that is parked on a double yellow line, traffic warden put a ticket on a car that is on a yellow zigzag, which has yellow lines, traffic warden put a ticket on a yellow zigzag, which has no yellow lines or signage. Can a police officer put a ticket on a car that is committing a breach that ordinarily would be enforced by a traffic warden in a decriminalised parking area, where there is no traffic warden, regardless of whether an obstruction is deemed to be taking place or not? Can a traffic warden issue a ticket to a car that is parked on a white zigzag? I think that I'm painting a picture of some of the complexities here. What's happening at the moment is that in Dundee, for example, there are three full-time parking wardens, parking attendants and 15 part-time attendants, which is all well and good, but there are 46 schools in Dundee. What that requires is a quite complex structure of buddying up whereby, around some schools, where there are bigger problems, there are police officers enforcing cars that are parked obstructively in some parts, and traffic wardens enforcing other breaches of decriminalised parking rules. Where there are no traffic wardens, there is only the police. The police are therefore unable to issue tickets in the breaches where normally a traffic warden would apply a ticket, and equally there are errors where there is only a traffic warden but not a police officer, and they are unable to enforce those lines. I think that, again, that paints the picture of the problem here. I'm happy to. I thank the member for giving way. I mean, the picture that he paints is probably similar in Glasgow. There is no way that there are enough police or traffic wardens together to staff all the schools in Glasgow where there is a parking problem, so would he accept that the answer is not WL lines, it's not zigzag lines, it's exclusion lines round a school, because whatever signs you have, they will not be enforced. I think that the member makes a very good point. I think that you're right. The way to address this problem is not to put a police officer and the parking warden outside every school. I think that the way to do this is to actually use regulation, the powers that we have as a Parliament, and that the minister has, to create regulations that address this problem. I don't know what the answer is. It may be an exclusion zone. I've come up with another solution in my amendment here. One solution is to ask the minister to bring forward regulations to create zones around schools, which are the vicinity of a school, which will be specified, times and days when those zones can be enforced and that any carpark within that vicinity would be creating an obstruction, which therefore could be enforced by the police, for example. This might not be the answer, but it is certainly a proposal. I thank the Parliament's clerk team, who helped me to word this. It is complex, but what I would like to do is ask the Government to, by its very nature, take on board this amendment away and work with the committee and members who have an interest in this to come up with a solution. I don't think that the status quo is good enough. Quite frankly, I don't think that the status quo works. I'm of the view—and I'm sure that I'll hear from the minister—that my proposal is perhaps one way of addressing it, by either giving powers to police officers to enforce the bits of the criminalised parking outside schools that they can't do, or indeed to give parking wardens the power to enforce bits that police currently do outside schools. This is only around schools, by the way. This is not a general sweeping mixing of powers between the criminalised parking and the police, because they are two distinct areas. I think that the fact that there is such an anomaly in who can enforce what means that there is an issue. The way to solve that, as John Mason said, is not simply to staff it with more people, but to change the regulations that enforce obstructive behaviour. At the moment, it's unacceptable that schools are begging drivers saying, please don't park here. It needs to be better than that. It needs to be quite simply that drivers cannot park there and should not, and if they do, then that is enforceable by somebody or another. I don't know who that has to be in each circumstance. Of course, there are local authorities who do not have deemed criminalised parking, in which case it is up to the police. At the moment, all I know is that if there are schools where there is a police officer and a traffic warden who have to be there at the same time in the mornings and evenings to enforce this, then something isn't quite right. If they are telling me that they are not happy and that the system is not good enough, then I think that we have a duty to fix it, and that's the premise of my amendments. Thank you. Thank you, Jamie. There are two members who have indicated that they wish to speak. First of all, Mike Rumbles. Thank you, convener. I think that this is a very good amendment. I am conscious though of how I heard the cabinet secretary on a previous occasion on previous amendments in the bill saying that it was clear that what obstructions were outside schools. I am keen to agree with Jamie Greene that we could do with some clarity. I am conscious that we have just passed 20 amendments on major phrases of amendments that he was calling for clarity. I think that having passed those amendments, we will see a lot more people before the courts, but never mind. I think that, on this amendment, it requests the cabinet secretary to go out and produce regulations to make it absolutely beyond doubt that this will cause obstructions around these schools, so I think that we should support it. I heard what Jamie Greene said about maybe working with the minister for stage 3. I always think that it's better to get something like this in the bill at stage 2 and work with the minister at stage 3 to tinker with it if that's the right word I could use or to get it absolutely right beyond doubt. I think that it's worthwhile that the minister should perhaps do that. I'm conscious that I'm speaking before the minister speaks, so I don't know what his view is about this amendment, but I think that I would like to move it if Jamie decides not to move it, so I hope that he will move the amendment. Mike Collin says something. I think that what Jamie Greene brings forward is a really important issue, and it's one that certainly all of our inboxes and something that we see on an almost daily basis are very much welcome, the fact that he's brought this amendment forward, whether the amendment itself will tackle what is largely an enforcement issue, I'm not convinced, but I'd be keen to hear what local authorities would have to say on the particular proposals itself. I notice that in subsection E calls for this to be enforced by constables, while most councils in Scotland now have decriminalised parking enforcement, and I think that this exposes yet again the inconsistencies that we have. Last week, we debated the issue of enforcement of the ban on parking on cycle lanes, and we discussed the fact that the police could currently enforce such a ban, but even when parking is decriminalised, the council can't enforce the ban unless there's a TRO, and we know from the bill that the proposal is that pavement parking will be enforced by councils, even where we don't have decriminalised parking, so you have, as I've raised before, the crazy situation where a council enforcement officer, where they haven't decriminalised parking, will walk down the street and be able to tick it a car parked on the pavement, but they won't be able to tick it a car parked on WA lines right next to it. I think that the anomalies in this whole issue of decriminalising parking is not being addressed by this bill, and I think that the Government is actually ducking the issue, and I think that that's disappointing, given the fact that we've got an opportunity to try and tackle it as part of the transport bill. Thank you very much, Colin. Cabinet Secretary. Cymru, amendment 316 from Jamie Greene seeks to place the responsibility for enforcing parking at or near schools on the place rather than local authorities. I recognise that parking at or in the vicinity of schools has become a growing problem in recent years, as more people have complained about the impact that parking has on surrounding residential streets. Although I appreciate the concerns behind Jamie Greene's amendment, there are some fundamental issues with the amendment as drafted. For example, it does not offer a definition of vicinity of school by regulating this to subordinate legislation. This is something that could be very difficult to define and may vary depending on the location and the site of the school. It would also arguably be unworkable in residential areas where the majority of schools are based and could result in local residents committing offences for parking outside their homes. I say that as someone who stays next to a primary school. If the Government had included such a vague and wide-ranging power in the bill at introduction, I'd get no doubt that it would have attracted a great deal of criticism from the DPLRC committee. Furthermore, amendment 316 seeks to create a new criminal offence, which the police will be required to enforce, irrespective of whether the local authority in question has obtained decriminalised parking enforcement powers. That goes against our policy on decriminalised parking enforcement, which seeks to give local authorities full control over parking and thereby freeing up vital police resources. Finally, convener, as I explained in last week's committee session when addressing Mark Ruskell's amendment 290 and 291 on a similar issue, the traffic signs, regulations and general directions 2016 and the Road Traffic Act 1988 already make it an offence to park on a school entrance zigzag marking, enforceable by the police. Should local authorities with decriminalised parking enforcement powers wish to enforce them or prohibit parking during specified times in neighbouring streets, they can do so by including them in a traffic regulation order. That procedure for doing so enables local residents to give fair notice of parking proposals affecting their area. The amendments proposed by Jamie Greene, while meaning are unworkable in practice and would cut across the right of local authorities to effectively manage parking in their own areas. I will, however, make a commitment to write to all 21 local authorities who have decriminalised parking enforcement powers to remind them of what powers they have and what they can do to enforce parking at or near schools. However, I am more than happy to discuss the issue further with the member in greater detail to consider what further measures can be taken forward. I am happy to give way to Mr Rumbles now. I wanted to ask you a fundamental question about the regulation of parking outside of our schools across the country. You seem to be saying that, from your previous discussion of Mark Ruskell's amendment, you were saying that you wanted to get rid of some urban myths that this was already against the law and that there were powers available to councils, but would you accept that there is genuine confusion out there as to what is allowed and what is not allowed? We do not have that with many other traffic regulations that apply throughout the country. Would you, in principle, agree that it would be helpful if the Government brought forward regulations that clarified exactly what the law says and what the law allows and what the law does not allow and put them in a formal matter of government regulations? I think that there may be some confusion between clarity and enforcement. Where the matter has not been decriminalised, it is a matter for the police to enforce, so if a vehicle parks, as I mentioned, on the zigzag markings are a school, then the police can enforce that. The person is committing an offence and it can be enforced. Where it has been decriminalised, it is then a matter for the parking enforcement officers from the local authority to do so. However, if the police see a vehicle partner area that is causing an obstruction, they can still issue a notice to that person for committing an offence. The issue is about local authorities making sure that where it has been decriminalised is that they are adequately enforcing the provisions that they have put in place around schools. Even with greater clarity, I suspect that the core issue here will return to the point of enforcement of those provisions around schools and having that carried out on a consistent basis. In my view, there is already an existing level of clarity there, but I am keen to look at identifying ways in which we can potentially offer greater clarity. I suspect that that is not in regulation, and I suspect that that is more about giving local authorities more details and reinforcing that information to them. However, I suspect that, at the core of all that, it is the issue of enforcement rather than new law being required to deal with the issue. The cabinet secretary said that he will write to the 21 local authorities of decriminalised parking to remind them, effectively, of the requirement for them to enforce it, but he is not accepting the 11 local authorities that have not decriminalised parking. The responsibility for enforcement rests with Police Scotland, and it is failing to enforce parking regulations at the moment and should not be writing to all, not just the 21 local authorities that have been decriminalised parking, but to Police Scotland to remind them of their responsibilities to properly enforce parking, because, frankly, it is not being enforced at the moment. If the Government's view is that Police Scotland should no longer enforce parking, then, frankly, you should decriminalise car parking instead of leaving the anomalies that we have at the moment. That is our preferred option, but it is the choice of local authority to choose to do so or not. We cannot force a local authority to take forward a measure that it does not choose to do, but it is our preferred option and we have a process there for them to engage in if they do want to decriminalise the process. However, I can say, convener, that the nub of that is the issue of enforcement, and that has been adequately enforced. I am more than happy to take that point away and to look at whether, as I have mentioned, there are further measures that could be taken to try to ensure that local authorities are doing more alongside Police Scotland in dealing with parking issues around school, because I recognise the challenges that can occur. The other part to this is that, in dealing with enforcement, there is also a need for car users to understand the risk that they put children at by being inconsiderate and not considering the implications of their parking behaviour around schools. We can do as much as we can in terms of trying to encourage greater enforceability, but there is also a personal responsibility on car users to recognise the risks that they create for children by irresponsibly parking in areas around schools where they should not. Thank you, cabinet secretary. Jamie Greene to wind up and press and withdraw your amendment. Thank you, convener. I can just pick the cabinet secretary up on a few points. He said that he talked about the vicinity and it is difficult to define, but if you look at the comment made by John Mason around creating exclusions on that, by default it would require a definition of what the zone is. It is not impossible to say that where the perimeter of the school ends. That is residential, for example, and the example of the place where you live. It is entirely possible to set a vicinity or something. It does not need to be on the face of the bill. I am not asking it to be. You are also saying that you have a problem that we are creating an offence to cause an obstruction at school. Absolutely. That is the whole point of this. Inconsiderate driving outside schools is not just inconsiderate, it is dangerous. There should be an offence. The issue around the enforcement of zigzags at the moment, as you rightly said, is about creating a new offence over and above the provisions that are already in place for those areas where it is parking enforcement officers that carry out for local authorities. It would be wrong to give the impression that it is not an existing offence. I think that it would also be wrong to give the impression that it is currently the case that there are always traffic wardens and police officers outside schools, because where there are police officers but not traffic wardens in decriminalised areas, the police officers cannot put tickets on cars that normally a traffic warden would, is my understanding. That is not the feedback that I have had from police. Even in decriminalised areas, they can still do so. I appreciate that we have to move on. I would like to close by thanking at least members for taking my amendment seriously. I think that this is an important issue. I do not think that it is a political one. I do not think that just writing to the local authorities that have decriminalised parking is enough. Even the ones that have decriminalised parking do not have enough traffic wardens. Dundee councils have 28 traffic wardens short of policing every school every day when it has to. You could argue that that is their problem, but there clearly is a reason why they do not have enough traffic wardens. It could be budgetary reasons or otherwise. Just saying that is your problem is not good enough. Equally, there are 11 local authorities that do not have decriminalised parking where the police are not necessarily resourced to be outside every school in each of those councillors either. That would require hundreds of additional police officers to be outside schools. That is not happening either. It is not happening. I do not think that this is about enforcement. I think that it is about getting the powers in the right place so that there is, outside schools only, some interchangeability around traffic wardens and police being able to ensure that cars are not parked in a dangerous manner. I think that that is all I am asking the Government to look at. Sending a letter to councils, I do not think that that is enough, but if the minister is willing to work again with me or any other member who has an interest in this, to look at what we could do on the face of this transport bill, which addresses a whole other range of issues around parking, to make sure that there is something in here that says that we will take this issue seriously and we will get it right. I would be very happy to work with anyone who is willing to do that. I have to ask if you want to press a withdrawal of your amendment. I will withdraw. Does anyone wish to object to Jamie Greene's withdrawal of his amendment? I will press it. Okay, so we have to go straight to calling the amendment and that is the question therefore is amendment 316 be agreed. Are we all agreed? No. We are not agreed. There is a division. Those in favour, please raise their hands. Those against, please raise their hands. Those who wish—no, there is no abstention, so I was going to carry it away with previous votes. Five votes, four, six votes against, therefore amendment 316 is not agreed. We are now going to move on to the section on proposed cycle tracks and a duty to consult on access panels. I want to call amendment 259 in the name of Jeremy Balfour in a group on its own. Jeremy, can I ask you to move and speak to amendment 259? Good morning, committee, cabinet secretary. Can I start by saying that a journey is only accessible as it's least accessible part? I think that that's a really important thing to remember as we look at a few of amendments that I bring forward. We can have the most accessible paths and busses and other things, but unless the whole journey is accessible, one little bit can stop a disabled person being able to get to where they want to get. Many disabled people find their journeys interrupted at the very first days by being on the pavement. Let me make it clear that my amendment is not saying that we shouldn't have shared spaces. In fact, shared spaces can work really well, but what the amendment seeks to do is to say that there is an inconsistent design of payments and an increase of use of shared space, which means that disabled people find this difficult to get around. If I can cite an example here in Edinburgh, if you go down towards Leaf Walk from a playhouse on the left-hand side, there is a shared pathway most of that road. The only designation to show which is a cycle lane and which is for pedestrians walking is a white line. If you have a visual impairment, if you have complete blindness, if you have another disability, you can, without any thought of your own, simply walk in to the cycle path and have no warning that you have moved from the pavement walking to the cycle path itself. I have had a number of constituents and a number of people from across Scotland giving me other examples of that. There are ways around that. There can be different forms of identifying which is the cycle path and which is the area that pedestrians should walk. That can give people who use dogs or other devices to help them in regard to the disability, a much clearer understanding. Before any of those shared spaces are created, the local authority should consult with access panels so that they can be involved in their variations and designing of them. It would require local authority to consult with them. Access panels would be able to have an input, but they would not be able to stop them in any way at all. However, with their information and sharing, any areas can be made much more accessible and shared spaces can become a lot safer. To my mind, it would be good practice that that is happening in any case. Is it the case that this is not happening? It is a variant across different parts of Scotland, and I certainly know some local authorities that simply go ahead and do them without consulting with the access panels. I think that that is good practice, and it is simply pretty good practice. The cabinet secretary may come back and say that there are not access panels within every local authority. I accept that. If the principle of this was acceptable within the planning bill last week, I made some motivations to my amendments to give a wider scope beyond access panels. I appreciate that not every local authority has one, although I think that almost everyone is nearly there. For me, the principle is to say that we want shared spaces, but we want a clear designation so that disabled people and other individuals are absolutely there. I know what you say about not every local authority has an access panel, but you are making it mandatory that the roads authority must consult the access panels when they can consult. I am happy if we get this in, I am happy to clean up the word in United States 3, but I think that the principle that most local authorities do now have access panels is that they are up and running. There is a national access panel group in which they can be used as well. For me, the principle is to say that those with disabilities need to make sure that there is clear signage and clear identification of which is the cycle path and which is the area. Colin, you want to say something? I very much welcome amendment 259 by Jeremy Balfour. I am not sure who will be most upset by that comment. The issue of accessibility in a transport system in our streets has come up quite a few times in this bill. I think that the stakeholder made it clear that the state school is not good enough, and we need to use the opportunity of this bill to strengthen the laws to underpin improvements. Too often, the needs of disabled people are being overlooked in the development of cycle lanes, be it the needs of disabled cyclists or pedestrians. One issue that I raised in a previous amendment was that of floating bus stops in which cycle lanes run between bus stops and the pavement, causing a serious hazard for blind and visually impaired people. It is clear that, in the case of those being implemented, there was insufficient consultation with access panel or similar groups representing the views of disabled people. I think that amendment 259 would be a welcome addition, and it would give a clear statute underpinning to best practice, so I am more than happy to support amendment 259 from Jeremy Balfour. Christine Balfour, I was not sure whether your intervention was for— The intervention on the word must. Okay. Mike Rumbles, Mike, and then the cabinet secretary. Thanks, convener. This is simply putting good practice into law, which ensures that it is a requirement, and I think that it is a very worthwhile amendment. I take Christine Graham's point and, of course, Jeremy's response to it, that it is not perfect the amendment, but I think that, obviously, because not every local authority might have an access panel. On the basis that it is a good idea to put it in the bill and then, again, work on the actual wording for stage 3, perhaps with the minister, with the cabinet secretary, to make sure that the Government is happy with it as well, rather than just oppose it, which I hope the Government is not simply going to do. I will be supportive of it. I will get it in on stage 2, and we can come back and look at it again at stage 3 in the full Parliament. Thank you very much, my cabinet secretary. Convener, Jeremy Balfour, as amendment 259 seeks to place a duty on local authorities to consult an access panel of local residents prior to making a road or part of a road a cycle track. Whilst I fully appreciate the intention behind this amendment, local authorities are already subject to statutory duties requiring them to carry out extensive consultation prior to making cycle tracks on their roads. An order redetermining a length of road to make it a cycle track is a redetermination order under section 1522 of the Rd Scotland Act 1984, not section 1 of the proposed amendment, as it states. The procedure for making these orders is set out in the stopping up of roads and private accesses and the redetermination of public rights of passage. Procedures Scotland regulation 1986, which I am sure all the committee is familiar with. The existing consultation requires to go well beyond that set out in this proposed amendment. Where any proposal is the subject of an objection that is not withdrawn following written explanation from local authority, that proposal ultimately requires to be remitted to Scottish ministers for consideration. In addition, with respect to accessibility considerations, it should be noted that, through the whole redetermination process, both local authorities and Scottish ministers have a duty to have regard to the requirements of the Equalities Act 2010. Therefore, I do not consider that we need to impose an additional duty on local authorities as proposed in this amendment, even with the technical issues relating to the amendment itself. However, I am more than happy to engage with the member prior to stage 3 to consider whether there are further measures that we can take forward under the existing procedure that would provide greater clarity to the objectives that the member is seeking to achieve. Therefore, I would ask him not to press amendment 259, but if it is pressed, I would ask the committee to reject it. I welcome to some extent the cabinet secretary's remarks, particularly his final remarks, about perhaps working with him to see if we can find something. I think that there is a principle that local authorities have to consult, but I think that we need to move access panels to a higher level, to almost where we have community councillors, where we become statutory groups if they exist that they should be consulted with. I think that to expect access panels to know everything that is going on within their even area is asking a lot of volunteers. For example, I know that the access panel in Edinburgh did not respond to the path that I was talking about, because somebody did not know about it until too late. However, in the light of what the minister has said, I will not press this today, but I will be knocking on his door before stage 3. Does any member wish to object to amendment 259 being withdrawn? No. Therefore, it is withdrawn. The question is at this stage that sections 59 and 60 be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. I am going to suspend the committee for literally five minutes. I would ask you to be back here ready to go at 10.45. Therefore, suspend the committee. I reconvene the meeting and we are now going on to the section on roadworks. I am going to call amendment 164 in the name of the Cabinet Secretary, Group of Amendments, as shown in the grouping. Cabinet Secretary, to move amendment 164 and speak to all the amendments in the group. The amendments in this group in my name are largely minor or technical in nature. The Transport Scotland Act 2005 imposes a duty on the Scottish Road Works commissioner to make the Scottish Road's works register available for inspection. In practice, the ability to inspect the register does not make information about roadworks, which may be of interest to the general public, particularly accessible. Separately, certain information on the register may be commercially sensitive or may give rise to security considerations, and it therefore is not considered that such information should be freely available to the public. Amendment 165 therefore changes the current approach by firstly requiring the commissioner to make publicly available information on the register about the timing, duration, location and purpose of the works in roads. It is intended that this will make such information more accessible than would be the case if members of the public were simply permitted to inspect the register. The Scottish ministers will have powers to prescribe further information to which the commissioner should provide public access. Amendment 165 also requires the commissioner to make all of information on the register available to persons with authority to carry out works on inroads and to those whom the commissioner considers to have a sufficient interest in that information. That will ensure that the information that is necessary to ensure the safety of any works is available to those who need it. New section 61B of the Road Scotland Act 1984, inserted by section 60 of the bill, currently requires the use of suitable trained operatives and supervisors only wear works involved breaking up or tunneling under the road or any subsequent reinstatement. However, in practice, road authorities often undertake activities such as painting road markings, flushing blockages in road drains and filling in hot potholes with temporary material. Those activities are unlikely to include any breaking up of the road surface but may require traffic management and other safety measures on the carriageway. For safety reasons, it is considered that carrying out of any works involving traffic management on carriageways should be subject to similar requirements as to the use of trained operatives and supervisors irrespective of whether they involve breaking up the reinstatement of the road, and amendment 166 will secure that. Amendment 183 requires an application for want to exercise enforcement powers and for appeals against compliance notices to be made to sheriffs rather than to summary sheriffs, as was the case under the bill. As introduced, that follows representation made by the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service that applications of this kind may be inconsistent with the existing remit of summary sheriffs. In its stage 1 report of the bill, the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee identified an incorrect cross-reference in provision inserted into the new Roads and Streetworks Act 1991 by section 613 of the bill. I would like to thank the committee for their diligent scrutiny of the bill, and amendment 164 corrects that cross-reference. Amendments 181 and 182 are also minor amendments for moving definitions inserted by the bill into the Transport, Scotland Act 2005. Amendment 232, in Jamie Greene's name, seeks to place a duty on roadworks authorities and the Scottish Roadsworks Commissioner to set aside 5 per cent of the money raised by the issuing penalties for roadworks offences and reinfencing it for road maintenance purposes. Although that may seem like a sensible way to contribute to better maintenance, maintaining roads in practice would not achieve its purpose. The income received from issuing fixed penalties in Scotland is relatively limited. For example, Aberdeenshire Council reported receiving £2,600 in fixed penalty notices income during 2018. That amendment would result in £130 of that being set aside for road maintenance rather than the administration of the scheme. At those low levels, that would contribute almost nothing to road maintenance but would reduce the revenue available to meet the costs of the scheme, restricting the time that can be dedicated to enforcement of compliance with roadworks duties. Given the historically small levels of income raised by those penalties, I am not persuaded that the administrative burden associated with requiring the commissioner's penalties to be remitted to ministers and then redistributed to roadsworks authorities is justified by the scale and nature of the likely benefits. There is, in addition, strong evidence to suggest that fixed penalties are successful in improving compliance with roadworks duties. I am concerned that giving those penalties a revenue-raising purpose could undermine that success. The intention of amendment 325, also in the name of Jamie Greene, is to ensure that delays to certain roadworks of which advanced notice is required, specifically major roadworks and works in traffic-sensitive areas, may only be implemented with the approval of the roadworks authority and the Scottish Roadworks Commissioner. In my view, the proposal that is set out is unnecessary. There already exists an established system that is covered in considerable detail in the nationally applicable code of practice for co-ordination of roadworks, for dealing with approval for works that need to start later than indicated by a notice under section 113 of the new roads and new and streetworks act 1991. Under those processes, undertakers must seek roadworks authority approval for those delayed starts and may incur a commissioner penalty for failure to cooperate where they fail to do so. There is considerable industry buy-in to this framework, the success of which is demonstrated by the fact that no commissioner penalties have been issued on this ground because compliance levels are so high. It has achieved its objectives without placing excessive burden on the Scottish Roadworks Commissioner in relation to operational matters when this role is otherwise entirely strategic. Therefore, I cannot support amendments 3 to 0 and 3 to 1, and I would invite the member not to move them. However, if they are moved, I would ask the committee to vote against them, but I would ask the committee to agree on amendments that are in my name, in this group, and I move amendment 164. Thank you, cabinet secretary. Jamie Greene, to speak to amendment 320 and any other amendments in the group. Thank you, convener, and thank you to the cabinet secretary for the spirit in which he gave his comments to my amendments. The intentions of them, I will briefly outline 320, as he said, is to ensure that a minimum of 5 per cent of the revenues achieved from the fixed penalty notice given for failure to comply with compliance notice would be reserved solely for the purpose of improving the repair maintenance of roads. We will all understand that the issue of road surface quality is a big issue across the UK, not just in Scotland, although perhaps more so in Scotland where we have far many rural roads driven by fewer motorists. This is an issue, and local councils have had severe pressures on their ability to improve road quality. Perhaps rather than simply call for money to be spent, I perhaps saw this as an opportunity to at least seek the funding for where that money might come from. Equally, if the minister thinks that 5 per cent will not achieve very much, I should have brought the amendment forward to say that 95 per cent would have been a better figure, and maybe I can do that at stage 3. However, I think that the purpose of this is to raise awareness of the issue that, again, I am not aware of what the scale of the funds are from the fixed penalty notices. I am pleased that they are low, because it means generally that there are high levels of compliance. Nonetheless, I would like to hope—it is still a bit unclear, to be sure, where that revenue does go. I appreciate that it covers administrative costs, but if there is surplus, I am not sure where that money lies and in which budget line it might lie. If there is any surplus, I would like to think that it would go towards improving the quality of our roads in Scotland. Perhaps that is something that can be discussed at the future point. However, given the comments that I am unlikely to move at 3.20, I think that I have made the point suitably. Amendment 325 is a different issue. I have had a lot of communication, dealt with a lot of casework around roadworks. I think that we all suffer from the bain of roadworks in our respective areas. I think that where major roadworks are delayed, and I appreciate that my amendment only talks about the process by which they go through approval for delay, actually in subsection 2b talks about the delay to the start of works. I think that, in fairness to my team, that should probably have a 2C in there, which also talks about the delay to the completion of works. I think that the delay to the start is less of an issue. I think that where there is an issue is where there is a large delay to the completion of roadworks or an unannounced delay to the completion of roadworks. There are many streets where you think that the road is going to be closed for four weeks, but for whatever reason, the contractor or the undertaker has decided that this will take much longer, causing huge inconvenience. What process they go through to get permission to delay that completion is not entirely clear to the public and whether or not, unless it is for public safety reasons, the delay is not deemed to be for an appropriate reason, i.e. for some cost-saving benefit or because they are under resourced or under financed to complete the work that the commissioner or the roadworks authority could say. No, you must get that work completed within the timescale of what was originally proposed. That is what I would like to see. I still think that this is an issue. I appreciate that there is a code of practice around this. I would be mindful to go away from this committee session and look at that and see how strong it is, but it certainly is an issue that undertakers do elongate works. That is what the premise of this amendment was seeking to achieve, albeit if it has been poorly drafted. I appreciate that we have had a lot of amendments to work on on the bill. I hope that the minister, the current secretary and the team will take on board the concerns that have been raised through my amendments. Thank you, convener, and no other comments. Thank you. Cabinet Secretary, do you require to wind up? I am entirely right, Stuart. I completely overlooked you for which I am sorry. Stuart, you wanted to make a comment. Just a couple of brief comments on 3.20. I reiterate my previous opposition to the hypothecation of penalties and fines to particular purposes. They should go to the consolidated fund, and the consolidated fund should provide funding to purposes that serve a public good, quite independent of the origins of the money. It creates a perverse incentive to collect penalties and fines if it creates a body that depends on them. Furthermore, success through penalties and fines causes a reduction in the income of the body concerned. I have said it before, and that is it. I do not know what undertaker means. I think that it means statutory undertaker, rather than undertaker. Even there, there are difficulties, because not all the people who do roadworks are undertakers. An example of something that is not a statutory undertaker would be the provision of district heating pipes, because district heating is not covered by a statutory undertaker provision. In drafting terms, it is not supportable, as it currently stands.  It is still good. The question therefore that we come to is amendment 164, be agreed, are we all agreed? We are agreed. The question therefore is section 61, be agreed, are we all agreed? We are agreed. I therefore want to call amendment 320 in the name of Jamie Greene, already debated with amendment 164. Jamie Greene to move or not move. The question therefore is that section 62, be agreed, are we all agreed? I therefore call amendment 165 in the name of the Cabinet Secretary, already debated with amendment 164. Cabinet Secretary, to move formally please. Moved. Thank you. The question is that amendment 165, be agreed, are we all agreed? We are agreed. The question therefore is that section 63 and 64, be agreed, are we agreed? We are agreed. I therefore call amendment 166 in the name of the Cabinet Secretary, already debated with amendment 164. Cabinet Secretary, to move formally please. Moved. The question is that amendment 166, be agreed, are we all agreed? Yes, we are agreed. The question therefore is that section 65, be agreed, are we all agreed? I therefore call amendment 325 in the name of Jamie Greene, already debated with amendment 164. Jamie Greene to move or not move? Not moved. Thank you. The question therefore is that section 66, be agreed, are we all agreed? The question therefore is that section 67 and 68, be agreed, are we all agreed? Thank you. We are now moving on to regional transport partnerships, membership and finance. I would like to call amendment 255 in the name of Jeremy Balfour, grouped with amendment 167. Jeremy Balfour, to move amendment 255 and speak to both amendments in the group. Jeremy, go on, it's catching. Thank you. The role of regional transport partnerships is to strengthen the planning and delivery of regional transport developments so that it is better served in the needs of people and businesses. In order to ensure that regional transport strategy is fully accessible and inclusive, it is important to have the insight and expertise of disabled people who fully understand the lived experience of disability. This amendment would ensure, hopefully, a very good practice that is happening, but within statute that regional transport partnership membership is included a minimum of two disabled people on it. Thank you, Jeremy. Cabinet Secretary, can I ask you to speak to amendment 167? Amendment 255 is, I accept, I understand the aim of it and I want to thank Jeremy Balfour for bringing it forward. However, the duty that this amendment seeks to impose would represent a significant practical challenge for RTPs. In addition, work is under way through the national transport strategy review on a refresh of governance models for transport at a regional level. This has the potential to refresh and update regional transport governance, so I don't think that now is the right time for this amendment. From a practical perspective, I'm not persuaded that they're imposing a duty on Scottish ministers and RTPs to meet a quota of members with a disability is likely to be an effective way of ensuring that the interests and concerns of disabled people are represented. The committee might be aware that there is other work under way as part of the review of the national transport strategy that we will consult on in a number of ways to improve transport governance, which may in itself require further legislative change. I do agree, however, that it is necessary for the needs and views of disabled people to be represented in decision making on transport. That is why, in delivering Scotland's accessible travel framework, we have the accessibility travel steering group on RTPs, and they are represented alongside disabled groups and disabled individuals. The work of this strategic group is closer aligned to the work of the 15 public appointees who make up the mobility and access committee, half of which are disabled people. This governance design enables the full spectrum of disabilities to be considered in delivering improvements. Engagement and participation is one of the key themes identified in the framework with a focus on co-production of transport policies and practice and sharing and learning from the experiences of disabled people. In my view, the actions that are being undertaken under the plan are a more effective means of securing involvement of disabled people in transport planning and governance. For those reasons, it is my view that this amendment is not necessary or appropriate, but I would be happy to ask my officials to engage with Mr Balfour and relevant stakeholders with a view to explaining in more detail the additional steps that we are already taking to support the framework and secure the delivery of the actions and improvements that it identifies. I therefore ask Mr Balfour not to press his amendment, but if it is pressed, I would ask the committee to vote against it. The bill, as introduced, makes changes to the way in which RTPs are financed. Those changes, along with other things, permit RTPs to carry forward a surplus or a deficit. Amendment 167, in my name, is a technical provision that seeks to ensure that any deficit that is carried forward from part of the expenses or from part of the expenses of an RTP for the year following the year in which it occurred. That will require partnerships to take any deficit into account when setting an annual budget and ensure that a carry-over deficit forms part of the expenses that are required to be met by constituent councils. The local authority members of the RTPs will be able to exert control to require the RTP to utilise those reserve funds to meet the deficit when it considers appropriate to do so. Amendment 167 puts in place an S3 additional safeguard against the possibility of RTPs building up significant deficits, and I invite the committee to agree those amendments. No other members indicated that they wish to speak in this debate, so Jeremy Balfour, can I ask you to wind up and press or withdraw your amendment? I do hear what the minister says, but the RTPs have a really important role to play, and I think that we all agree on that. I think that we have been waiting a long time within the disability community to see better representation. It would be fair to say that of all the protected characteristics, the disability community feel is left behind in regard to that. We have taken steps in other ways to positively promote other characteristics, and I think that that now has to happen with disability. I hear what the cabinet secretary says, but I still think that there needs to be at least two disabled people who have lived experience who can bring their expertise to that partnership, so I will be a press amendment. Thank you very much. Therefore, the question is at this stage that amendment 255 be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. There is division. Those in favour, please raise their hands. Those against, please raise their hands. Those who wish to abstain, please raise their hands. There are four votes, four. There are six votes against. There is one abstention, therefore amendment 255 is not agreed. I would like to call amendment 326, in the name of Rachel Hamilton's group, with amendment 327. Rachel Hamilton, to move amendment 326 and speak to both amendments in the group. Thank you, convener, and thank you to the committee for allowing me to speak to those amendments. Amendment 326 would ensure that community benefit is taken into account by health boards or healthcare and social partnerships when tendering for non-emergency patient transport contracts. The definition used for community benefits comes from the procurement reform act. Before entering into a contract for the provision of non-emergency patient transport services, each health board, or as it may be, health and social care partnership, must have regard to the extent to which the contract will improve the economic, social or environmental wellbeing of the board's area. Community transport operators are well placed to help those in hospital return scenarios. For example, indeed, the chief executive of the British Red Cross said in a 2018 report in and out of hospital that home assessments carried out by transport operators as patients return home can reduce readmission rates, checking patients take the medication, checking the heating zone and making sure that food in the house will help the patient to feel more comfortable and allow them to continue the recovery. Those are all tasks that community transport operators already carry out with their passengers and would bring community benefit to the area in the form of better outcomes for patients and saving health boards' money because of fewer readmissions. If I may, I would like to provide a little bit more background to this amendment. Cuts to bus services not only affect rural communities where older people often struggle to get to their local hospital, but also affect those in urban areas. A community transport association survey recently said, and I quote, our survey said that people aged 65 and over found that almost a quarter felt that there was no form of public transport that could get them or a loved one to their hospital appointments on time. That also contributes to missed appointments, which in the borders for an example of my constituency in 2016 cost £1 million. Moreover, £15 million has been spent on taxis over the past three years, proving that demand for patient transport services is outstripping demand. I could move on to amendment 327. This amendment intends to compel health boards to work with community transport operators. Both amendments, I feel, are entirely reasonable. With the two amendments, I have placed the duty on the health boards, or in the case, maybe the health and social care partnerships. The amendment requires each board of partnership to work with community transport bodies when providing non-emergency patient transport. It also places a duty on those boards or partnerships to report on how they have complied with that duty. That provides significant opportunities for the local area and can incorporate existing services. The definition of community transport services links to the definition in the Transport Act 1985 of community bus services, but with modifications for services provided that are not necessarily buses. Those amendments are about ensuring that we have more appropriate community transport that delivers for passengers, tackles issues faced in rural areas and takes into consideration community benefit, which delivers better outcome for passengers, for IJBs and the local NHS boards. I urge the committee to support my amendments and I have moved them in my name. Thank you very much. Colin Fuller by Stuart. Thanks, convener. Amendments 326 and 327 by Rachael Hamilton look to strengthen the relationship between health boards and community transport, and that is something that I very much welcome. In recent years, we have seen the role of Government in supporting community transport being eroded. On the previous Labour-Lib Dem, the Scottish Executive used to provide direct support to community transport through the rural community transport initiative. That has always been discontinued, and the funds that were previously ring-fenced at local government level are no longer ring-fenced at a time of major cuts to council budgets. What that has meant is that they want support from local councils to community transport being reduced. At the moment, Government support for community transport consists mainly of a pretty small level of funding for the community transport association, but community transport is playing a wider role. It should be encouraged to play a wider role. It is heavily involved in my area in patient transport recently, but it does not get funding from the health board or from the health and social care partnership. That can often make it unviable. I have seen that recently in my area, where anandale and STL community transport is about to fold because of a lack of funding. That will increase costs on the local NHS, which will have to potentially pick up the patient transport that will be lost as a result of that community transport initiative folding. I very much welcome those amendments, because I think that it focuses our mind on the important role of community transport, the partnership that should be developed with the NHS and our health boards, and I think that transport will be an opportunity to enhance and support that partnership, so I am very supportive of those amendments. I have a number of technical issues with what is in front of us. My main issue across both amendments is that it does not seem to cover travel between one health board area to another. For example, for us, which is the extreme west side of Grampian health boards area, people would possibly go to Inverness rather than to Aberdeen if Dr Gray's nearest hospital is not going to provide it. When it says that the wellbeing of the boards area in 326, that is too restrictive. Similarly, in 327.1, it talks about that area again. I take an intervention at that point. We do not agree, though, that there are arrangements between boards that deal with that. I very much welcome that. Mr Finnie is, of course, correct, which is precisely why people in Forrest might well go to Inverness. It is a result of that. I am only narrowly looking at the duty that is seeking to be placed here. It is more restrictive than if you want to achieve the public policy that I think is sought than the words here. I also do not want to take too much time. I have also got a wee issue in 327 at 3B2. Cost effective is in tension with the economic, social and environmental work. I would not wish to deny the opportunity to use community transport bodies even if, in an individual instance, it might be more expensive to do so because of the broader benefits that are being described in 326. I think that there is a bit of work to do on drafting. I strongly support community partnership. In my constituency, there are three community partnerships operating in the area. I wish to support them very strongly. I am just not entirely clear that this is a good way of doing so, as we might see. John Finnie, you would indicate that you wish to speak. If any of you may, convener, it is to speak in support of those amendments and say that this is about economy of effort. This is about people working together. Certainly, as others have said, I do not think that anyone descends from the tremendous work that takes place much. If there are any specific issues around the wording, I hope that that would not dissuade people to support it. It is the principle that I would have thought that our communities want this level of engagement between the two different bodies. John Finnie Rumbles I congratulate Rachael Hamilton for bringing forward the amendments. I think that they are really important. It is important to get them on the face of the bill in stage 2. I am sure that the cabinet secretary will criticise them, as is his duty and right, where he thinks that there is a technical problem with them. However, that is the whole point about the stage 2 and the stage 3 process. Get those on the face of the bill and work with the minister in stage 3 to address any of the issues that I am sure he is about to raise. Jamie Greene I concur wholeheartedly with Mr Rumbles. It is just a shame that I have not taken that approach for some of the other amendments. However, we always have that difficult balance at stage 2, so whether we push something to vote or hope to bring it back or get it on the face of the bill with the knowledge that there may be technical issues. Members have expressed broad support for the concept of what Rachael Hamilton is trying to achieve. I also support that. If there are ways that we can tide it up, I am sure that that is not beyond the legislative team to do that. The amendments in this group are concerned with duties on health boards. I am conscious that the committee has not given consideration to the idea of conferring additional powers on health boards under this bill. Amendment 326 would place a duty on health boards seeking to enter into a contract for the provision of non-emergency patient transport services to consider the extent to which the contract would, in addition to its main purpose, improve economic, social or environmental wellbeing in that area. Although amendment 326 does not expressly state how these would be demonstrated, it is possible that health boards would consider producing a report or assessment outlining this would have to be undertaken, which might be difficult for them to do. I am aware of the importance of ensuring transport provision. Public transport and community transport doff tales with the healthcare services to ensure that patients can travel to appointments without hindrance. The arrangements will be carried out in different ways across a country every day. Amendment 326 seems to assume that it is done by—no, I want to finish what I have got to say before any other points given time. I clarify, Rachael. You will get a chance to sum up at the end, so you may be able to make your point then. Amendment 236 seems to assume that it is done by way of formal contracts in a uniform manner, yet there will be a wide variation in provision. For patients with an explicit clinical need, direct support will be available from the patient transport service of the Scottish ambulance service. Where that criteria is not met, patients without means of transport will be signposted to existing local voluntary and charitable organisations that provide such a service. It may be that a taxi is the only means of transportation. In that event, it may be possible for the patient to reclaim costs for the taxi. Given the variations in approach, the amendment seems to be misguided in how it approaches this issue. As it is unclear how any contract health boards may have in place on the narrow issue of patient transport could be demonstrated to improve such broad outcomes as economic, social or environmental wellbeing across a geographical area. Those additional considerations would constrain health boards' ability to focus those arrangements on the effective and efficient provision of patient transport. Therefore, it may become an onerous and bureaucratic undertaking for health boards with questions as to how it would actually help provision on the ground. On amendment 327, I acknowledge the important role that community transport bodies may have in the provision of transport to hospitals and other healthcare premises. We know that health boards can and do engage with community transport providers on a regular basis. However, placing a statutory duty on health boards to work with those providers in the provision of non-emergency patient transport services raises a number of significant issues. Firstly, that runs counter to the whole ethos of the Scottish Government's approach not to micromanage health boards and to allow them discretion when it comes to operational delivery of services in their area. Secondly, community transport services may be provided under contracts. To the extent that the intention or indeed the practical effect of this amendment could be to confer an advantage on community transport providers in any process for awarding such contracts, it may give rise to a breach of procurement rules. Finally, the amendment would oblige health boards to publish a report every year on how effective non-emergency patient transport services in their area have been including some financial assessment of cost effectiveness and a statement of any further actions that the board plans to take on such services. Again, a binding national duty to undertake specific actions in such an area could create undue administrative burdens on health boards. Some issues such as an assessment of cost effectiveness could be challenging to demonstrate. Indeed, the amendment does not define cost effectiveness and in this form could lead to ambiguity. Additionally, it is not clear what published in the report in regard to these matters would actually benefit the kind of transport that patients are seeking to be provided with. For those reasons, I cannot support amendment 326 and 327, however, I sympathise with Ms Hamilton's sentiments here. It has been an issue that has been raised through her engagement as we shape the national transport strategy. It is an issue that also straddles ministerial portfolios, and the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport has an interest in that matter. Therefore, I would be happy for the Government to engage with Ms Hamilton prior to stage 3 to consider those matters in further detail in order to explore whether there are further measures that could be taken forward. As such, I would ask Rachel Hamilton not to press amendment 326 and 327, but if they are pressed, I would ask the committee to vote against them. Thank you, cabinet secretary. Rachel Hamilton, can I ask you to wind up and press or withdraw your amendment, please? Thank you, convener. I just want to make the point, cabinet secretary, that transport does not currently dovetail. I was at a social isolation round table this week, specifically to discuss social isolation and loneliness in my constituency. There were community transport providers around the table, and one gave an example of a transport provider and a community transport service running in parallel, picking up almost neighbours and going to appointments almost at the same time. The current system, cabinet secretary, is not working, and it is not providing economic benefit. I do not think that the NHS is going to gripe about saving money. They need to look at saving money, but we also need to consider the overall community benefits. It is all about being patient-centred, and this is not about being patient-centred. I would ask that, because I have support today from members of the committee, I will press both of those amendments, and I would hope that I could take up your offer to work, even though I have had support today, if those amendments are successful. I think that I may not press my amendments. Well, you have to make a decision, Rachel. It is either press or withdraw. Rachel Hamilton wishes to withdraw amendment 326. Does any member of the committee wish to object? Mr Rumbles wants to object. Therefore, we will go straight on to a decision, on amendment 326. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. There is a division. Those in favour, please raise their hands. Those against