SNP cancel bus fund after spending less than 6% - Rennie

Scottish Liberal Democrat Willie Rennie MSP has today questioned connectivity minister Jim Fairlie on revelations that the SNP government spent less than 6% of a now-cancelled fund to improve bus services.

The Bus Partnership fund was launched in 2020 with £500 million of ‘long-term’ funding for bus priority measures on local and trunk roads. This was intended to improve services by reducing the impact of congestion.

However, the 2024-25 Scottish Government budget cancelled funding for the scheme, and bus industry body CPT wrote to the government revealing that ‘only about £26.9 million has been allocated to partnerships’.

Questioning Jim Fairlie today in Holyrood, Mr Rennie raised declining bus ridership which he said had fallen by a hundred million journeys per year a decade after the SNP came into power.

Speaking in the chamber, Mr Rennie said:

“When the SNP came to power, there were almost half a billion journeys on the buses every year. Over the following decade it dropped by a hundred million before dropping further since the pandemic. So, for the years before the autumn statement why did the government fail to spend the budget that was designed to reverse that decline?”

He later added:

“The SNP would have spent £50 million a year if they were serious about this fund. But they only spent half of that over four years, with the final year cancelled. This is typical of the SNP- flashy announcements to signal that they care but incapable of delivering.

“If SNP ministers could deliver funding as well as excuses, they could have spent the fund three times over.”