Sandy Easdale from McGill's hits out at Transport Scotland

Sandy Easdale, from the McGill’s Group, accused Transport Scotland of unjustified criticism of the company after the government pointed out the firm had received more than £200 million from the public purse in the last five years.

The row blew up after the Tele reported earlier this week on Mr Easdale’s view that the Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) was paving the way for ‘a ferry fiasco on stilts’ by pursuing plans for a system of bus franchising in the area.

Franchising has been in place in Manchester since September of last year, and in London since the mid-1990s, but no such system has existed in Scotland since bus services were deregulated in October 1986.

Mr Easdale said government wanted to spend “huge sums of taxpayers' cash to fulfil their political fantasies rather than living in the real world”.

In response a Transport Scotland spokesperson said: "Over the last five years, McGill’s have received almost £213m in public funding, with over £134.9m from reimbursement for carrying concessionary passengers through the National Concessionary Travel Schemes, £59.2m to support bus services, and £18.6 million in capital funding to support purchase of electric vehicles.

Sandy Easdale hit out at Transport Scotland. (Image: contributed) “The Scottish Government has now delivered all the bus powers within the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 to enable local transport authorities to consider all the powers available to them, including partnership working, franchising and local authority run services which sit alongside their ability to subsidise services.

“The bus provisions in the 2019 Act empower local transport authorities with the flexible tools they need to respond to their own transport challenges and we welcome SPT’s decision to explore all available bus powers as part of their Strathclyde Regional Bus Strategy.”

Responding to Transport Scotland, Sandy Easdale told the Tele: “We’re really disappointed that McGill’s Buses is somehow being portrayed as receiving public cash for nothing in return. It is wholly untrue.

“McGill’s Group receives payments from government when it provides qualifying passengers with bus travel. It has been the political choice of the Scottish Government to provide free travel to under 22s and over 65s among others.

“Providing this service comes at a cost to McGill’s – the government states that we cannot charge these passengers, and so government pays for it instead.

Transport Scotland says the McGill's Group has received more than £200 million in public funding in the last five years. (Image: McGills Group) “Is it being suggested that McGill’s should not be paid for these trips? Would you ask a plumber to provide services and then not pay for them? If so, it would be an issue when it comes to paying our team, fuelling our vehicles and buying new buses.

“Similarly, a large part of recent payments mentioned were to keep our services running during the pandemic. This was an active decision by government to support key workers. We do not disagree with it, but we are perplexed that this would be portrayed in a negative light towards our business.

“The key point remains: has SPT got the £400m per annum needed to pay for bus franchising, and will buses run better under council control?

“‘No’ would be my answer to both those questions.”