14th March 2023
Dear SNP leadership candidates,
Pledge for Rail
As a candidate for the SNP leadership election, I am writing to seek your support for the RMT’s ‘Pledge for Rail’. As a sustainable and low carbon form of transport, Scotland’s railway has an integral role in meeting Scotland’s climate change targets and in supporting the economy and communities.
The Scottish Government has made recent progress on rail, including bringing both ScotRail and Caledonian Sleeper into public ownership. However, RMT believes that the future First Minister must go further and significantly expand rail investment, services and staffing under public ownership in order to protect the future of Scotland’s railway, rail workers and the climate.
Therefore, I would be grateful if you could pledge your commitment to:
1. Protecting services by pledging to keep Scotrail and Sleeper Services in public ownership.
2. Protecting the climate and communities by increasing rail services beyond pre-covid levels and ensuring real terms increases in investment in rail services and infrastructure, by the 2026 Scottish parliament elections.
3. Protecting and enhancing rail safety and accessibility by increasing staffing, keeping ticket offices open and restaffing our stations.
4. Protecting our rail workers by keeping free collective bargaining for workers’ pay and conditions.
RMT believes that protecting and investing in Scotland’s railway should be a priority of the future SNP leadership and we would, of course, seek to work constructively with a Scottish Government that shares these goals.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Yours Sincerely,
Mick Lynch General Secretary