Latest news with #SueWebber
Scotsman
2 days ago
- Business
- Scotsman
ScotRail passengers travelling without tickets face minimum fares deterrent under new plans
Sign up for the latest news and analysis about Scottish transport Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Passengers who travel without a ticket face a new crackdown under ScotRail plans to combat fare dodging, The Scotsman has learned. They could be charged a minimum fare if they had not bought a ticket before boarding the train. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad A minimum fare would be introduced under ScotRail plans The move is seen as deterring passengers from claiming they had made shorter journeys than they had travelled. It is aimed ay reducing the estimated £10 million a year lost to the Scottish Government-owned operator through ticket fraud, which would cut the amount of public funding it needs. Unlike most English operators, ScotRail passengers do not face penalties for not buying a ticket before travelling. However, the proposal could mean passengers making short journeys which cost less than the minimum fare having to pay more if they did not buy a ticket before boarding their train. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The minutes of a ScotRail board meeting in January show strategy and planning director Scott Prentice said the introduction of a minimum fares scheme was among 'key initiatives' in the firm's 2025-26 draft business plan, subject to Transport Scotland approval. An industry source said minimum fares was a 'slightly softer approach' than the £100 penalty fares which can be imposed south of the Border. Another industry insider said: 'This looks like a revenue protection initiative, where a passenger with no ticket on a train or at the end of their journey is obliged to buy a 'minimum fare' ticket. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'This would probably be more expensive than many low value ScotRail tickets, such as a £3 Mount Florida to Glasgow Central single, and act as an encouragement for passengers to buy a ticket before boarding a train. It's believed to be better than a penalty fares scheme. READ MORE: The place in Scotland where 94 per cent of people travel by ScotRail 'ScotRail is right to continue to work hard on reducing ticketless travel, and needs some incentives as it's practically not easy to check that everyone has a ticket on board on short journeys and busy trains.' However, the Scottish Conservatives questioned the merits of the scheme. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Party transport spokesperson Sue Webber said: 'Hard-pressed passengers will want to see stronger action on fare dodging, but this policy might not be the silver bullet SNP ministers want it to be. 'It's simply not practical to expect smaller stations to enforce this policy, after the SNP's botched nationalisation of ScotRail.' Claire Baker, her Scottish Labour counterpart, said: 'It is not right that commuters are forced to pay more because a small minority are trying to game the system. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'The SNP should work with ScotRail to design plans to tackle fare dodging without penalising other passengers.' READ MORE: The challenge to make ScotRail peak fares abolition succeed second time round A Transport Scotland spokesperson said: 'ScotRail has a number of ways to make it easy for passengers to buy their tickets before they board - online, via the app, ticket machine or from ticket offices.
Scotsman
03-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Oasis Murrayfield: Scottish Government requested Edinburgh concerts end early to take pressure off ScotRail
August concerts coincide with busy Edinburgh Festival Sign up for the latest news and analysis about Scottish transport Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Scottish Government officials sought to have Oasis's Edinburgh gigs finishing early so fewer extra trains would be needed to get fans home, it has been revealed. However, the plea for the Murrayfield Stadium concerts to end before 10.45pm was met with a 'somewhat vociferous response' from organisers, a Freedom of Information (FOI) response showed. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Oasis performing on the opening night of their Live 25' Tour in Cardiff on July 4 |DF Concerts and venue officials rejected the call as 'any changes could/would likely impact on an artists' willingness to perform', The Scottish Sun on Sunday reported. Oasis are playing sold-out shows at Murrayfield on Friday, Saturday and the following Tuesday at a time when the Scottish capital's transport networks will be under greater pressure because of the Edinburgh festivals. But the plea came despite ScotRail managing director Joanne Maguire telling The Scotsman in February the Oasis gigs presented a 'huge opportunity' to encourage fans to travel by train more often. An official from Transport Scotland's events resilience team wrote: 'I asked if there was any consideration or scope in bringing end times forward slightly to minimise the necessity on enhanced/extended public transport. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'These events will still have challenges around audience movement — albeit it'll be less related to vulnerability and more akin to potential disorder should there be transport delays etc.' The FOI response showed the earlier finish request 'was met with a somewhat vociferous response by DF Concerts and, to a degree, SR Murrayfield'. Scottish Government-owned ScotRail is running extra trains from Haymarket after the concerts, including up to 11.22pm to Perth, 11.39pm to Dunblane, 12.02am to Dundee and 12.47am to Glasgow Queen Street. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Scottish Conservatives transport spokesperson Sue Webber said: 'Huge events like this bring thousands of people to the city and millions of pounds to the economy. I pity the lackey who had to ask the Gallaghers if they wouldn't mind cutting short their set because the SNP can't run a train service. It's also an insult to fans who paid a small fortune.'
Scotsman
31-07-2025
- Business
- Scotsman
Labour government making things more difficult for all of us
The kind of white-collar jobs on which Edinburgh relies are the ones most vulnerable to the efficiencies AI can bring, says Sue Webber (Picture: Getty Images/iStockphoto) As a city councillor, I got very tired of hearing left wing councillors arguing that Edinburgh was a wealthy city which could tolerate all sorts of charges and taxes to fund their pet projects. Sign up to our daily newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Edinburgh News, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... The result was the garden tax, low emission zones, extended residents' parking charges and above-inflation Council Tax rises culminating with this year's 8 per cent rise. Coming next year, hotels and guest houses are expected to collect the tourist tax. Recently we've also heard left wingers argue that all those families whose children attend private schools can easily afford 20 per cent VAT on their fees. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Anyone would think the magic money tree blossoms in Edinburgh, but earlier this week I attended a cross-party briefing organised by Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce which laid bare the concerns that local businesses have for the future. The most obvious is the ongoing impact of Labour's tax on jobs through higher employers' National Insurance contributions, responsible for redundancies in all sectors, and the clear message is it's going to get a lot worse later this year before it gets better. As a result, businesses are being ultra-cautious about recruitment and wage increases, and as usual the first budgets to be slashed are in marketing, which creates a vicious circle of fewer sales which only increases the pressure on employee numbers and salaries. Of course, much of this is a foreign language for too many politicians, and the Edinburgh Tourism Action Group has already flagged up the problems of foisting the tourism tax on businesses without the council carrying out the necessary preparation work businesses will need to make its introduction as smooth as possible. It will not be councillors or council officers with pound signs in their eyes who will bear the brunt of any confusion, but the businesses and their customers, and that could impact on repeat bookings next year. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Then there is the Labour Government's new Employment Rights Bill, with new rights for staff, which is causing widespread confusion and concern and is also likely to be a disincentive for recruitment because it will guarantee full employment rights for new staff from day one, even if they cannot do the job for which they have been hired. And all of this is before factors like global political instability and the technology revolution are considered. There is no more point employers worrying about what Vladimir Putin or President Xi are going to do next than the rest of us, but employers will have no choice but to meet the challenges of artificial intelligence (AI), something creative industries are already having to face, and which the Labour Government seems determined to address by making it easier for American tech giants to plunder material generated by creative industries here. But AI will impact on lawyers and software engineers too and the kind of white-collar jobs on which Edinburgh relies are the ones most vulnerable to the efficiencies AI can bring. There will, of course be opportunities too, but if anyone thinks that whatever prosperity we enjoy in Edinburgh can't disappear because it's a seat of law and government, has a spectacular castle and a big arts festival then they better think again. The old certainties are just that, old, and governments making things more difficult for businesses make things more difficult for us all. Sue Webber is a Scottish Conservative MSP for Lothian
Scotsman
30-07-2025
- Politics
- Scotsman
Teachers 'fed up being beaten up'
My friend, who is a teacher, is drained by the intensity of daily school life, says Sue Webber (Picture: Danny Lawson/PA Wire) Deterioration in school discipline has been well documented with a shocking 44,600 incidents of violence and abuse in 2024 reported to Scottish councils last year. Sign up to our daily newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Edinburgh News, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... But it's only when you speak to the teachers themselves that you appreciate just how dreadful it must be to go into your work knowing there is a high chance that some sort of assault from a pupil is a possibility. I recently I spoke to two teachers, one a friend who works as a guidance teacher, and we discussed how it feels to reach the end of term. And while for me it's always good to get a break from the hurly-burly of politics in the Holyrood chamber, I am not exhausted. But my friend is drained by the intensity of daily school life. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The other was a primary school assistant at a school in what most people would regard as a nice part of town. She had just quit because 'I got fed up being beaten up every day'. Yet, the Scottish Government's answer seems to be to carry on regardless, in denial that the removal of disruptive or violent pupils is best for everyone involved, particularly the other children. My friend was briefly a deputy head of a successful pilot programme where disruptive pupils could be given expert attention and the classmates they left behind could get on with learning in peace. The unit closed because funding was no longer available. The solutions are there, if only the SNP stopped listening to do-gooders and did the right thing. Sue Webber is a Scottish Conservative MSP for Lothian
Scotsman
24-07-2025
- Business
- Scotsman
Road closures bad for business
Anyone living in southwest Edinburgh must wonder how much more roadwork chaos it's possible to create, says Sue Webber In a recent column I argued that a system of fines was needed to bring utility companies to heel for their complete disregard for the needless disruption their road closures cause when no work is being done. Sign up to our daily newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Edinburgh News, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... As if proof was needed, just last week there was clear evidence of the impact it can have, thanks to the utterly cavalier attitude of BT Openreach, whose workers erected temporary traffic lights on Lanark Road West in Currie for cable installation. The work is supposed to take five working days and the lights went up last Wednesday, when work was carried out for two hours. No work was conducted at all on Thursday. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The section of road affected was right outside the local butcher who got in touch to let me know that he had lost valuable business, with no less than 50 fewer customers than the previous Thursday. That can't be down to the holiday season because the Trades started the week before. Yes, workers turned up on Friday, but of course the road was blocked all weekend and the last time this happened, because of work by a different utility company, the business lost thousands. It will be the same for every business on a high street affected by roadworks and the utility companies and their contractors don't give a stuff. Near Tollcross, a long stretch of Gilmore Place has been needlessly cordoned off for so long that local businesses use it as a van park. Fines and guaranteed compensation are the only way to deal with this.
