Cuts to rail services across Scotland will go ahead when the SNP government takes over the railways in April, Douglas Ross has warned.
The Scottish Tory leader has demanded that 250 cuts to rail services should be halted in the nationalised network.
At First Minister’s Questions, the Conservative leader asked what the point of taking rail services in Scotland into public ownership in April was if the cuts to services went ahead in May.
He said: “All the SNP is doing is replacing Scotrail with SNP-rail - different owner same problems.”
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said the arms-length operation that will take over the rail services would operate in the “real world” where commuting patterns had been hit by the pandemic.
She said: “We will continue to do what Scotrail is already doing, making it sure that we have a railway that is fit for the future. It is the case that travel patterns and the numbers of passengers have changed substantially and significantly in the course of the pandemic and the pattern of real services needs to reflect that but we also need to keep that under review.”
But that did not satisfy Ross.
He said: “What is the use in nationalising services if the SNP are just going to do the exact same as Scotland? The First Minister’s just accepted she’s going to continue with the cuts that Scott real are planning.”
Ross drew comparisons with the failures to deliver new CalMac ships for the nationalised west coast ferry service.
He said: “Just what can people expect from a nationalised railway service from the same government that can’t even build a ferry from the second government that launches ferries with painted-on windows and sends contracts to Romania instead of Port Glasgow.”
Sturgeon responded that rail fares were lower in Scotland than in England as Ross went on to accuse her of introducing a “costly workplace parking tax” without any cap on what councils can charge.
Sturgeon said councils were given power to introduce charging and “to judge to what extent to use them”.
She added: ““That is empowerment. We will get on with improving public transport and meeting our net zero targets.”
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