NICOLA Sturgeon has described ScotRail delays as “unacceptable” as it was indicated around 5000 trains services or cancelled each year.
Scottish Conservative deputy leader Jackson Carlaw raised the issue of the performance of the railway operator at First Minister’s Questions in a week in which hundreds of train services have been cancelled.
The First Minister said not all the cancellations were ScotRail’s fault but a number of delays which were their responsibility were “significant and unacceptable”. She said ScotRail caused 144 cancellations on Monday and there were thought to be around 40 axed services yesterday.
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Carlaw said people want to know why the Scottish Government is “failing to deliver” on rail services.
He said new official figures showed that since 2011 there have in fact been more than 35,000 cancellations or partial cancellations caused entirely by ScotRail, which amounted to some 5,000 a year. A partial cancellation is when a train service runs for only part of its route.
He added: “Punctuality on our train service is reaching its worst point for 12 years, hundreds of trains cancelled and shortages of staff because people are being trained to use the new class of trains which are also delayed, causing another 100 services to be cut last month.
“Doesn’t the First Minister think train passengers across Scotland are owed an apology?”
The First Minister agreed, and said: “We’ve seen a significant and unacceptable number of delays that are clearly the responsibility of ScotRail. I can report to Parliament that cancellations of this type have fallen as the week has progressed from around 144 on Monday to an estimated 40 today. Progress is being made but it is not good enough, we expect, indeed we demand, better from the rail operator and the Transport Secretary continues to work closely with them to ensure that we continue to see improvements in the days to come.”
She also said deaths on the railway had also led to knock-on impacts on services, and she added that the sympathies of the Parliament are with the families of those involved.
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Later, at the same session of FMQs, the First Minister defended her government’s record on education, saying there are now as many primary school teachers as there were when she was a child.
She made the point after Labour leader Richard Leonard cited the comments of two teachers, who he said were SNP members and independence supporters, who said there was “a crisis where schools are under-staffed”.
Leonard said a teacher in North Lanarkshire called Esther wrote in the Scottish Educational Journal: “Despite what you have said yourself on many occasions, it is becoming clear that education is not a priority for this Government.”
There are 3,000 fewer teachers than when the SNP came to power, Leonard said.
But the First Minister responded that the number of primary school teachers was at the highest level since she was at primary school in 1980.
Scottish Government statistics last week indicated schools employed the full-time equivalent (FTE) of 51,138 teachers. The total of 24,899 FTE primary teachers is the highest since 1980, the Government said.
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