A campaign to provide free bus travel to asylum seekers in Scotland is gaining momentum, although Minister for Transport Fiona Hyslop told a debate in the Scottish Parliament on 26 October that rollout of such a measure faces practical and financial challenges.
Its provision was advocated in a report published two days earlier by the cross-party Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee. The Committee previously heard that the cost of bus travel creates difficulties for asylum seekers in accessing immigration advice, although pilot schemes to provide it free of charge have taken place in Scotland.
The report notes that the concession “would make a huge difference” to asylum seekers, although Minister for Equalities, Migration and Refugees Emma Roddick previously told the Committee that asylum seekers who are under 22 or over 60 can already access the existing concessionary scheme in Scotland.
Noted in the report is that Ms Roddick says the Scottish Government is exploring how best to provide the free bus travel, with a pilot in Glasgow to provide information on likely costs.
The Committee wants any adoption of free travel to form an extension of the existing national concessionary scheme in Scotland, although on 26 October Ms Hyslop said that amending it will require secondary legislation.
“We should weigh up the merit of local schemes for those asylum seekers who currently do not qualify,” she continues.
“That is why I am interested in the work that has been undertaken in local pilots in Aberdeen, Falkirk and Glasgow, which [have] shown clear evidence of the benefits that access to free bus travel can offer asylum seekers. I am carefully considering those conclusions in weighing up how to proceed.”
Ms Hyslop told the Scottish Parliament that the annual cost of extending free bus travel to currently ineligible asylum seekers is estimated at between £1.3 million and £3.2 million per annum. Such variation is in play because of uncertainty around take-up, and whether more asylum seekers could be dispersed to Scotland.
“The budgetary pressures in this financial year are such that there is currently no funding to support [this] proposal, although other issues to be worked through would, in any case, be unlikely to be resolved in the same period,” she adds.
The campaign for free bus travel to be provided to asylum seekers in Scotland was launched around two years ago by Paul Sweeney MSP and the VOICES network. Mr Sweeney claims that it has attracted “widespread support.”
Ms Hyslop notes that similar work is understood to be in hand in Northern Ireland and Wales. The Scottish Government is thus liaising with the Northern Ireland Executive and the Welsh Government on “shared interests in this matter.”
