This week is climate week. The Climate Change Committee tells us that we urgently need to decarbonise transport and get people out of cars and planes and on to buses, trains and their own feet and wheels. The Scottish Government’s pilot to abolish peak rail fares, which was championed by the Scottish Greens in Government, ends this week, which will hike up the prices of train fares for many workers and students who do not have any choice about when they travel. Is that the right message for the Scottish Government to send in climate week?

The Government has invested in the pilot exercise. It was due to run for a six-month period; we extended it for a further six months. There has therefore been a year-long pilot to determine whether it was an effective way to deliver modal shift—which I agree with Lorna Slater must happen—within the resources that we have available. Unfortunately, the pilot showed that not enough difference had been made to the patterns of travel for the investment that was required. We would need to find £40 million to continue with that exercise.

I have gone through the enormous challenges that we face in the public finances on several occasions with Parliament—indeed, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government did so a few weeks ago. However much we wish to take forward the peak fares pilot, we simply do not have the resources to enable that to be the case for the scale of impact that the pilot identified.

We have put in place other measures to discount fares to encourage more travel by train and we will continue with those measures.

The First Minister is in luck, because I have a suggestion for how he could raise that money. Oxfam has reported that £21.5 million a year—enough to abolish peak fares for good—could be raised through a tax on private jets, assuming that it was embedded in the air departure tax, which is legislation that Parliament passed seven years ago but has not acted on. We all understand the need to ensure an exemption to the air departure tax for our island communities. Will the First Minister work with the United Kingdom Government to urgently introduce that tax so that commuters can once again have fair prices on our trains?

Lorna Slater makes a very interesting and welcome suggestion. She has provided a complete explanation of the point, because she recognises—as I do—the importance of securing an exemption from air departure tax for the Highlands and Islands. I am glad that there is a point of agreement there. As for taxing private jets, I would be very much in the spirit of doing that.

As Lorna Slater and all members of Parliament will realise, we must agree on the terms of a budget. The finance secretary and I will be happy to engage with all willing partners around the Parliament, including my friends in the Green Party and in all parts of the parliamentary chamber, on agreeing budget measures as we secure common ground. [ Interruption .]

Thank you, members!

In the spirit of collaboration, for which I am absolutely renowned, I will happily take forward those issues with the UK Government, with which I am enjoying such collaborative and co-operative discussions just now, although it could go further on some other questions.