FMQs November 21 2024: Fergus Ewing asks a question on the A9

FMQs November 21 2024: Fergus Ewing asks a question on the A9 61

Transcript

00:00On Tuesday this week, yet another person lost his life in an incident on the A9, and three

00:09more people had to be taken to hospital. The Road Safety Foundation has produced evidence

00:15that people are three times more likely to lose their lives in an incident on a single-track,

00:23single-carriageway road than on a dualled carriageway road, and are a staggering 10

00:27times more likely to lose their life on a single-track road as opposed to a motorway.

00:33That means that people in the Highlands, in the north of Scotland, and families in the

00:36Highlands are 10 times—10 times—more likely to lose somebody to a road death than in the

00:43central belt. Therefore, will the First Minister bring forward proposals for the swifter dualling

00:51of the A9 so that fewer people die? Will he uptemper the promise that I made to the

00:57cross-party delegation of MSPs that I led and met him in June, when he said that he

01:01would give serious consideration to the matter a full five months ago?

01:12I recognise the seriousness and significance of the issue. The incident to which Mr Ewing

01:17refers took place in my parliamentary constituency, just to the south of Balnewig. The Government

01:23has, of course, invested in a number of stretches of A9 dualling already. When I was travelling

01:29on the A9 on Monday, I saw the beginnings of the work that is under way in the next

01:35stretch to be dualled, which is the Moyt to Matton stretch of the road. As I indicated

01:41to Parliament in June, the Government will keep the programme under review to identify

01:46whether there is any way that we can move at a faster rate. Officials are in the process

01:50of considering the implications of resequencing or accelerating completion of the A9 dualling

01:56programme, and the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Infrastructure and Connectivity has asked

01:59that a report on the findings of that work be published when that is complete.

02:04I take this opportunity to extend my sympathies to the family of the individual who lost their

02:09life on the A9 on Tuesday, and to all those who were affected by the incident.