sanctions against free travel card holders here.

Professor John Robertson OBA

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Only minutes after BBC Breakfast‘s report on the plans to introduce free bus passes for young folk in England, days after we heard they will copy Scotland drink driving limits, and their mention that since 2022, everyone (their emphasis) in Scotland from 5 to 22 is entitled to free bus travel, Reporting Scotland had an oven-ready piece to undermine it.

The story is not current, not ‘the’ news today and not even on their own website, so why has it been brought back for broadcast at this precise time?

It’s almost certainly a feed from Scottish Labour via their pals in the media.

Who have the ‘calls’ come from? Scottish Labour?

Edinburgh City Council [Labour] has called on the Scottish Government to remove free bus passes for young people who are guilty of anti-social behaviour on city transport.

https://news.stv.tv/east-central/call-to-remove-free-bus-passes-from-under-22s-as-anti-social-behaviour-in-edinburgh-surges

The Guardian, often Anglocentric in this way, does not mention the Scottish scheme.

Scottish Labour’s previous attempt to cast doubt on this Scottish Government initiative was equally flawed.

Labour MSP humiliated as SNP’s ‘complicated’ free bus pass scheme for the young is easily understood by up to 93%!

In a January 2023 piece by Labour pal Rachel Watson of the Sun rag, we read the shocking fact that thousands of kids who have not applied for the SNP free bus pass have not received one because, allegedly, they’re too ‘thick’ to complete the application form.

Did Neil Bibby MSP have a look at the form and get a headache?

Anyhow, Bibby, with great comic phrasing said:

Thanks to mismanagement, the scheme was overly complicated. Too many young people are paying the price for the SNP’s incompetence. Bus services are being cut across the country, leading to many young people asking what is the point of a free bus pass if there are no buses to use it on. The SNP should explain why uptake is so low.

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/10102952/scots-missing-out-free-bus-pass-scheme/

Working at pace, someone, submitted a Freedom of Information request to the Scottish government to ask what percentage of eligible kids applied.

Assuming it was a Labour aide, they’re going to be disappointed by some of the data published yesterday:

Edinburgh – 75 065, 93.3%, of Edinburgh youth have the pass.

Inverclyde – 89.7%

Dundee – 82.1%

Across Scotland for the key 16-21 year-olds – 80%https://www.gov.scot/publications/young-persons-under-22s-free-bus-travel-scheme-foi-release/

Makes you wonder how many Labour/Lib Dem/Tory FoIs disappoint so much they never see the light of Reporting Scotland?

Finally, I’m aware of no reliable data on anti-social behaviour on the buses but that it is increasing there as it decreases everywhere else is counter-intuitive.

Anti-social offences in Scotland fell from 208 in 2014/2015 to 88 in 2023/2024, a massive 58% fall in only 10 years. The most worrying form – threatening and abusive behaviour – fell from 116 cases to 79, in the same period, a 32% fall.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/recorded-crime-scotland-2023-24/documents/