Sketch: Sue Webber promises her sister a train

Sue Webber is delighted that the first members’ debate back after summer recess is on an issue “close to my heart”. Now, usually when people say that they are talking about some health charity for a condition that has touched their lives in some way. But for Webber, that issue is trains.

More specifically, trains to the town of Winchburgh… where her sister lives. People come into politics to do many things: broker world peace, alleviate poverty, boost the economy. For Webber there is the promise to her sister that Winchburgh should have a rail link.

Her sis had moved to the town before she was an MSP. It is, she says, “not a dreary estate but an exciting new place to live”. Sounds idyllic. The only downside, it seems, is that there is no train station yet.

So when she was elected to the parliament in 2021, Webber says she “vowed to do all that I could to deliver a station”. Did she make that vow to the people of the Lothians or just to her sister?

Her use of a toilet-related metaphor reveals her real opinion on the SNP minister

Either way, she’s yet to make good on it. And for that, she blames the Scottish Government of course. A train station could be built for the small sum of £10m – a “fraction” of Edinburgh’s tram budget or the price tag for the long delayed ferries stuck at a shipyard in Inverclyde (you didn’t expect a transport debate without the Tories mentioning that, did you?) – but those pesky ministers are unwilling to unleash the cash.

Webber is a smooth operator though and, knowing you catch more flies with honey, she offers some faint praise to Jim Fairlie. He has responded “positively” since becoming connectivity minister and the “blockages might be dissolving”. Her use of a toilet-related metaphor reveals her real opinion on the SNP minister but at least she tried to make it sound polite.

The SNP backbencher deployed to defend the Scottish Government is Gordon Macdonald. He says that £10m figure Webber mentioned was “pre-Brexit and pre-Covid” – his party’s second and third favourite excuses for things not being better than they are.

And sure enough, in his next breath their top-tier excuse is deployed. “The developer is seeking funding from the public sector, but at a time when the Scottish Government has had its capital budget cut in real terms by Westminster.” Ding, ding, ding! The UK Government! That’s a full house!

Anyway, Macdonald continues, Fiona Hyslop – the local MSP and the actual transport secretary – has been championing the project for well over a decade. So there, Sue Webber.

The connectivity minister responsible for ensuring good connectivity across Scotland takes no responsibility for connecting the Scottish town

Graham Simpson, the Conservative transport-lover-in-chief, insists the evening’s debate is not about “who’s been campaigning hardest” for the train station. It is about “bad planning”. A train station should have been “planned and agreed at the start” of Winchburgh’s glow-up from small village to commuter town, he argues.

Unfortunately, that did not happen, but Simpson goes on to say, “there is hope”. And that hope is in the form of Jim Fairlie. That’s two Tory MSPs who have praised him – probably not the endorsement he’d typically want.

Foysol Choudhury is less impressed by Fairlie because he’s been dingied. He’s quizzed three successive transport ministers about the non-existent train station, but his “requests to meet the minister have been denied”. Poor guy.

Fairlie stands up to tell the chamber that building a train station is harder than they think. But also, importantly, it wasn’t the Scottish Government’s fault.

“What was never clear to me was how the narrative has developed that somehow the failure of a station being built over the past two decades is either Transport Scotland’s or Scottish ministers’ fault or responsibility,” he insists. The connectivity minister responsible for ensuring good connectivity across Scotland takes no responsibility for connecting the Scottish town.

He’s had enough of the “political posturing”, he says, before then blaming the (Labour-led) local authority for not placing obligations on developers.

But thanks to the “hard work” of Fiona Hyslop, his direct line manager, the area has seen an upgrade to the M9 junction. So, the government will take credit for that, thank you very much.

Simpson isn’t sure where this debate is going, so he intervenes. “Is he confident that the station will happen? I am not pinning him down to any dates, but does he think that, as a result of the work that he appears to have led, we might actually see some progress?”

Fairlie says the government “absolutely support” the building of the station. And so, his message to stakeholders is to “please continue”. Just without any Scottish Government help.

Sue’s sister will have to wait just a little bit longer.