14/08/2012 Newsnight Scotland

at Work. We will have to leave it there. Thank you.

Tonight on Newsnight Scotland: Who should pay for our railways? A

4% rise in tickets will not be particularly welcome to travellers,

but should taxpayers be paying so much of the bill?

And the bids are in for Scotland's two local television channels for

Glasgow and Edinburgh. Who will watch these channels and what are

they for? Good evening. We may have got off

more lightly than travellers in England, but fare rises of 4% will

be hard to take for commuters facing wage freezes. The government

here decided to cap the fare rises and shoulder more of the costs of

the rail network. Is it the right decision to subsidise largely

middle-class rail users with taxpayers' money? We'll discuss

that with the transport minister in a moment. First, Laura Bicker

You could be forgiven for thinking that at will railways are now a

rich man's toy. Fares are on the up and if you are the regular

traveller, the extra costs could add up to hundreds of pounds a year.

In Scotland, rises will be capped at 1%, but with inflation, ticket

prices will increase by 4.2 %. Still less than England where

prices will go up by 6.2 %. Fares up the border are subsidised by the

government by up to 75 %. So what are we paying for? Someone needs to

paid to maintain and improve our rail network. Should it be

passengers of government? The government wants us to take the

train and leave the car at home because it is more environmentally

friendly, but they need to give her Braille franchisees money to

improve the network. That is why they have reached this compromise.

And the sum rail fares will be increased. The cost of the season

ticket on the busy shuttle service between Edinburgh and Glasgow will

not be affected. Passengers will not be told yet how prices will

change on their specific routes, but those who travel across the

border will be subject to the Higher English writers. There have

been improvements in the roads and motorists are not paying for it.

Why should rail travellers be punished? Meanwhile in Glasgow, the

RMT union staged protests outside Central Station, worried that

higher fares are just a way for companies to make higher profits.

They are also worried about the possible change of ownership to the

West Coast main line. In a moment I'll speak to the

Transport Minister Keith Brown, but first the leader of the Scottish

Greens Patrick Harvie is here. What is your problem with this?

problem with this is that it is not just a one-off increase, it is the

latest in a relentless series of increases in rail travel. We have

to recognise we have some of the most expensive rail services in the

world and that is why many people are priced out of using that option.

People have been giving me feedback online today and they say they have

already decided to go back to their car because prices are so high. It

is �100 more to get a year's season ticket between Glasgow and

Edinburgh to get a season ticket for the entire German rail network.

Given where we are, if the government had decided not to put

prices up by inflation or more, it would have had to have found the

money from somewhere. What is your suggestion for where they should

find that money? It goes beyond this increased. We need a systemic

change. We need at replacing the current franchise and also looking

at how long it will be before we can change the law in Scotland to

allow a public sector operator. We need to look at the option of

taking whale back into public ownership and rail and bosses need

to be seen as public services and not market commodities. But they

are. Three-quarters of a rail ticket in Scotland are subsidised.

Why should taxpayers who don't use the railway have to pay? It is

going in the wrong direction. Just as with the UK, we are seeing the

burden shifted onto ticket prices. In England, 60 % is paid by the

people who buy the tickets and in Scotland it is 25 %. That is

something we should be proud of, but we will not achieve the quality

and a affordability -- affordability that we need. The

market will only deliver for the people who can afford to pay it. It

will not deliver for society as a whole. There is a common good to be

gained from a good public trust or system. Keith Brown de Transport

Minister is here. Is it a good policy to nationalise the railways?

It is not. We can't even change it on a franchise arrangement. Under

the independent Scotland agreement, would it be possible. We have

asked... Hahnermann it, you would not be up to do their if Scotland

were at independent? With the European regulations, you could not

nationalised the railway in the way it was nationalised before. Even

with that franchises, it is an expensive way to put your services.

We have asked for changes, but they had been refused a -- have been

refused. Soap, Glasgow and Edinburgh ticket travel is

expensive? They will not go up. What about other fares. -- fares?

It is up to beat commercial operator. We are talking about

introducing reductions in affairs. We have done that in Stranraer.

are telling me that on the busiest line in Scotland, you have no

control over prices? The peak tickets are regulated, the offbeat

ones aren't. You have no control over the fuel increase, yet you

could have decided not to port rail fares up, which you do have control

over. If we can encourage more people to use services, thereby

increasing the revenue, we can bring down the prices. But why do

you welcome changes that reduced the costs for motorists and then

when you can, impose price increases on people who use the

railway? We have no control over inflation. Why don't you use CPI it

rather than RPI? It is the UK's Government's decision to use that.

But you are still proud that prices are going up by a lesser amount

So the likelihood is you're not putting up prices by less than the

government is? Yes, we are. But if they don't do that... But they are

doing that this year. The latest they have said is it is going up by

6.2%. But if they can find savings, as they did last year, to not put

prices up so much, because of the state of the economy, and the

burden on season-ticket holders, why can you not find money to do

the same a? We have announced it will be 6.2%, it will be 4.2% next

year... It is unusual for them, they have changed it, they have

gone back to RPI plus three. It was supposed to be, by George can --

George Osborne council did. The point is, people who were stuck by

what you are announced, there is no way you can try and save money.

First of all, we have to trouble -- cover inflation, otherwise we start

to have less money for railways. The other 1% helps us invest in the

railways. It looks like a virgin is going to lose the contract for the

West Coast railway. Do you have a view on that? Bergin provided a

very good service, but we're not involved in that franchise, we will

have to wait and see. Thank you. Is British television about to see a

radical change? Well perhaps, after a number of groups expressed an

interest in running local television services across the UK -

including in Glasgow and Edinburgh. It's Jeremy Hunt's big idea - the

Culture Secretary saying it's just the thing to breathe new life into

local democracy. We'll look at whether the whole thing has any

chance of working in a moment - but first here's our local government

correspondent Jamie McIvor. It will be local TV news, but not

as we have known it. Local news for cities or communities, not large TV

regions. Perhaps a bit like this service in Edinburgh. For the first

time, we have reduced the cost of running a local TV station to below

the cost of running a local newspaper. So places to have local

newspapers should be able to afford a local TV service as well. And he

certainly has drummed up interest. There are four applications for the

Glasgow -- licence, another four for Edinburgh. One of the bids

involves a Stevie. We are happy there are four bidders, but I'm

sceptical of the incoming from organised -- existing stations, or

consortia from across the UK. Local control of local broadcasting is

unlikely to be achieved if it is in the hands of a consortium based

across at the Hall of the UK. is scepticism about whether local

TV will prove commercially viable. Once the stations are up and

running they would be to on their keep from advertising or other

commercial income. They could be heading away, with a high Channel

number on Freeview. But it would once have something approaching

viable wide-ranging local TV, then let it go? Otherwise known as ITV,

in the old days. When Scotland had three separate stations, each

producing far more venues. The big regional companies in England

served viewers in their own theories, then championed them to

the rest of the UK. Ofcom will now have to decide between the

competing applicants for Glasgow and Edinburgh. The winners should

be known in the autumn and they could be on the air next year.

I am joined by the professor of cultural policy in class the

university. Can this work? There a rock of questions about whether it

can work. It will get a �40 billion subsidy to kick it off in the first

instance. It is coming straight out of the TV licence fee, so when

Jeremy Hunt had his brave idea, he thought this could be commercially

viable. It is actually going to start with a public subsidy. So the

question is whether the business models can be made to work, for

sustainability and for the long term, people need to have deep

pockets. It is really quite problematic. But clearly, there

are... STV are involved here, but there are some national media

consortia in London, the London Evening Standard? They think they

can make some money out of this? Yes, they clearly do. And maybe

they can. We will have to wait and see. When Scotland was initially

looked at in terms of where the stations might go, Glasgow was seen

as the only viable area initially. Edinburgh was a later addition. Am

I not right in thinking that this kind of thing is very big in

America? You yes, Jeremy Hunt basically said that if they can

have it in Birmingham, Alabama, why can we not have it in Birmingham,

UK? But the market place is actually quite different there, and

the way television has evolved there is different. So it will have

to force its way into quite a crowded market place in the UK,

where we are right in a recession as well, which is not exactly the

best time to try and find funding. Apart from the initial funding,

they will have to finance themselves how? By advertising or

other means. The question that Dave Rushton raised about local control

is an apt one. It seems to have been constructed for those with

deep pockets to get into the market place, I think. So there is no

requirement, and no controls in place, which means that local

companies are local people running these things? Well, the bids are in,

and we will have to see how the decisions are made. That is quite

an open question. But it is not restricted to local interests of by

any means. Is there some idea of making television in a different

way, or simply that it is more local? I think the idea is that

there would be some kind of energising of local communities

through television, certainly his initial idea was straight out of

"big society" thinking, and a social cohesion concept. Whether

that is actually going to be the way things pan out is another one.

All sorts of organisations including the BBC, have messed

about with some of this stuff before. It has never really taken

off, has it? I think it is questionable whether there is a

demand for it. We will wait and see, because once this gets launched,

presumably at the start of 2013 or thereabouts, the market place will

be the place it is tested. Thank you. Time for a quick look at

There is a picture of the couple who one the lottery on the front

After a dry start, it will turn increasingly wet from the south-

west, some heavy rain and strong winds as well. Some heavy rain

slicing through the Midlands, to what East Anglia and the south-east.

Maybe a roll of thunder. It will not rain all day long, we will get

some afternoon sunshine in the West Country and Devon and Cornwall.

Temperatures doing pretty well in the sunshine. Some very wet weather

for parts of Wales and Northern Ireland, Met Office warnings have

been issued for an inch or so of rain, more than that in some places.

Nasty conditions for the time of year. Further north across Scotland,

for much of the day it will be dry. Looking further ahead, it stays

pretty disturbed through Thursday, some blustery showers in the West,

but further east, a bright -- plenty of bright and breezy weather,

which is good news for the Test match which starts at Lord's on