I start by apologising to the Parliament. With the Presiding Officer’s approval, I am being allowed to leave the debate 15 minutes early to attend an event that I would rather not be attending—but I have to.

I am pleased to be speaking in this afternoon’s debate about the provision of services, because the provision of services is not just the provision of things that we need so much such as education or healthcare from the national health service; it also includes the provision of other really important services across Scotland, such as transport services, which is another pet subject of mine.

Very sadly, we have heard today that somebody died on the A9 last night. I am sad to report that there has been another accident just this afternoon, at approximately 12.30 at Dalwhinnie. I have not heard whether that has resulted in a fatality, but I pray that it has not.

We would not be in this situation if the A9 had been dualled when it was said that it would be dualled. I am sure that I do not need to remind the Government that, on 6 December 2011, it announced that it would dual the roads between all of Scotland’s major cities, including the A9 and the A96. I think that Alex Neil was put on the bridge at Luncarty on 6 June 2012 to reannounce that. He did what many Governments do—he reannounced good news. The trouble is that the good news stopped there.

We have not got to the stage of the A9 being dualled. In fact, we found out only this year that it would not be dualled by 2025, which is when we were promised it would be dualled by. It was quite clear from the evidence that a previous First Minister—Nicola Sturgeon—knew in 2017 that that delivery was never going to happen. It is sad that it did not happen at that stage for the simple reason that money was available. That was before Covid and before any austerity, which the cabinet secretary believes she can blame for her failures. I do not believe that that is the case. If we had done that in 2017, none of those things would have been issues.

It is also sad that, when I quizzed Nicola Sturgeon about why that had not been done and whether she understood what Alex Salmond had said when he was First Minister, she commented that she was not sure whether he and she were in the same Cabinet. If they had been in the same team, which they claimed to be, I am sure that the A9 and the A96 would have been dualled.

That has had a knock-on effect on all the other transport services across Scotland. We can consider the buses—do not forget that we are spending nearly £300 million on concessionary bus travel across Scotland. Where does that actually get us? A person can get a bus from Thurso to Inverness and a bus back from Inverness to Thurso on the same day, but they can spend only three hours in Inverness—that is all the time that they can spend there. That is all that that allows a person to do. All the money that we are spending on concessionary bus travel is not really helpful for young people or older people coming to Inverness, because they will not have time to do anything when they get there. The question is: is the bus concessionary travel scheme working just for the central belt, or does it need to be expanded to ensure that there are sufficient buses across the Highlands so that everyone can benefit?

Let us consider the trains. We are spending approximately £1.3 billion a year on a train service that we have nationalised, and we have seen the services reduced. If I do not leave the Parliament before decision time to ensure that I get a train back to Aberdeen at 5.30—that is not why I am leaving tonight—there is a fair chance that, unless the train is delayed by 10 minutes, I will not get home until tomorrow. That is a strange position to be in.

If a person was travelling from Inverness to Edinburgh, for example, they could leave at 5 o’clock in the morning and get here for 9.30, but that would not really be in time to start work at the Parliament—I know that most MSPs start before then—and they would have to leave much earlier in the evening, before work had finished, to get back to Inverness.

I was amazed to find that, if a person wanted to go from Wick to Inverness, they would have about three hours to spend in Inverness before they had to get the next bus back. Things get more complicated than that. If a person wanted to get a train back to Wick, they would not even have time to go to a show in the evening. They would have to rely on getting a train across to Wick to go to the cinema, because all the services in Inverness do not work.

Are the trains working? Is that £1.3 billion working in the Highlands? I question that.

I have to come to the ferries. They are probably the biggest white elephant that I have ever seen in my life. We agreed to pay £97 million for them. So far, we have spent £300 million. I do not think that the Government is prepared to guarantee that the Glen Sannox will be finished and released from the shipyard at the end of next month—or maybe it is. I do not think that it can do so, because I do not think that the Glen Sannox will be ready. I think that another delay is coming down the track. Four ferries from the CalMac Ferries fleet are not servicing the islands. That is a critical loss to them.