...As the hapless Minister presiding over this mess is chauffeured about in style
WITH dire warnings of chaos on the railways and roads, commuters will be dreading the journey to work.
But although she is in charge of keeping Scotland moving, Transport Secretary Jenny Gilruth need not be too worried about her own travel arrangements.
For the 38-year-old can rely on the services of a chauffeur-driven Ministerial limo – at taxpayers’ expense.
Earlier this month, the Minister, who lives in Fife, was pictured arriving at a railway engineering centre at Cadder, near Glasgow, in the back of a Tesla electric car.
Although Ministers are entitled to use the Scottish Government’s fleet of limos for official business, critics warned that the use of chauffeur-driven vehicles shows how out of touch they are.
Yesterday Scottish Conservative transport spokesman Graham Simpson said: ‘While Jenny Gilruth can be chauffeured wherever she needs to go in a Ministerial car, ordinary Scots don’t have that luxury.
‘Perhaps if Jenny Gilruth had any experience of the cancellations and delays that plagued ScotRail even before these latest cuts, she would understand the fury of Scots who rely on these services.’
Between February 2020 and October 2021, Ms Gilruth – appointed Transport Secretary in January after serving as Minister for Culture, Europe and International Development – used her chauffeur-driven limo 59 times for Ministerial engagements, official records show.
In the same period, she only travelled by train three times – and never on a ScotRail service. Of the three train journeys, one was an ‘executive ticket’ from Edinburgh to London on June 6, 2021, at a cost of £185.25.
Meanwhile, Ms Gilruth was chauffeured 12 times in August and 14 times in October.
Last night a spokesman for Ms Gilruth said she ‘travels to and from Parliament by train every week’ and added that the Covid pandemic had reduced her train use in 2020 and last year.