Iain Gray: SNP should get off the sidelines and help Edinburgh deliver a modern tram system we can all be proud of

In THE face of Edinburgh’s tram fiasco, the best the First Minister’s spin doctors have been able to do is to scatter blame. It ranges from the last Scottish Parliament for refusing to cancel the scheme, to me for supporting it when enterprise minister.

This misses the point. Almost ten years ago, I believed we could make Edinburgh a modern capital with a modern transport system in a modern, prosperous Scotland. I am embarrassed we have failed so spectacularly to live up to that vision.

It is not just the trams. By now we should also have embedded Edinburgh airport in the heart of our rail network. However, the rail link was killed off by the SNP in 2007 as they removed investment from our capital to use in transport projects elsewhere.

As for the trams, although the SNP bowed to the will of the parliament and did not kill them off, they ordered Transport Scotland to withdraw. It was then left in the hands of the new SNP/Liberal Democrat council, who signed the now notorious contract with Bilfinger.

Since then we have lurched from chaos into farce, with John Swinney threatening this week to kill the Haymarket option by withholding £72 million of funding. Instead of holding a gun to the council’s head, the Scottish Government should now get on board and find a solution with Edinburgh.

Firstly, they should guarantee the £72m for the St Andrew Square line. Then they should work with the council to deliver that – not retreat to the sidelines. In the SNP manifesto they promised additional funding to any council which received less than 85 per cent of the average in revenue support – like Edinburgh.

Assurances to Edinburgh that the SNP will follow through on this would provide more than the £15m needed annually to cover the borrowing required to take the tram line to the city centre. This is a government’s job – to step in and solve problems – not shift the blame.

Meanwhile, nothing has happened with those other transport projects. The A9 remains undualled, the A96 and A75 unimproved. The final stage of the M8 and Aberdeen bypass have not started yet. The Glasgow Airport Rail Link went the same way as Edinburgh’s.

Ten years ago we aspired to a 21st-century transport infrastructure for our capital, but today find it has not improved, and the dynamism has been drained from Edinburgh.

I do not understand how a First Minister, whose self-proclaimed belief in Scotland knows no bounds, can stand back for four years and watch the shambles of our capital’s major infrastructure project with nothing more to say than “I told you so”.

The Scottish Government should now take responsibility for the trams project and demonstrate that we can deliver. We can’t avoid asking who is to blame, but let’s also ask who is going to fix it. l Iain Gray, MSP, is Labour’s leader at Holyrood.