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I will give you some examples. There are low-emission zones exemptions for blue badge holders. We have been very aware of some of the tensions in that regard, because some people need to use cars. On your point about rural and island communities, the lack of public transport availability means that more people rely on cars, so we are looking at policy measures to help with that. For example, in those areas, the approach might not be to reduce car usage but to switch to EVs. Again, I am pleased to say that we are going to be able to reintroduce our EV loans, but we are specifically restricting those to people on a reduced income and people in rural and island communities.

Those are two very practical examples to address exactly what you are saying, which is that we will have to be responsive to individual needs, that there will be more challenges and that car use reduction might not be as applicable or as achievable in rural or island areas as it is elsewhere. There will therefore need to be a greater shift to EV use and support in those areas, which is why we have the EV charging fund for rural and island areas and the specifically targeted loans to help people who want to make that shift.

I accept the recommendations of the report. That is what we do, and we take action on them. We can maybe question the rationale in the thinking.

Yes. I do think that rail should be fully devolved to the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government. As you will be aware, the UK Government is currently considering rail reform legislation for Great Britain, and I have been keeping the relevant committee—the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee—apprised of my engagement in that respect. I have been very pleased to have engaged a number of times on the issue with the new Secretary of State for Transport, Heidi Alexander.

As this is perhaps somewhat separate from what is in the audit report, to be fair, I will try to keep my comments brief, convener, but we are seeing some challenges in what could be put forward for England and Wales, which might reflect what we are operationally trying to do in Scotland under the current devolved powers by having as much integration between track and train as possible. However, what we are able to do in that respect is limited by our legal powers and locus, and if there is vertical integration in the UK, that will give us an issue unless it is properly addressed.

That said, we are constructively engaging with the UK Government to identify within its proposals a Scottish solution that would help us ensure that we had such integration. Currently, there is an alliance or co-operation agreement between Network Rail—although it is a reserved body, it is funded by us for what it provides through an agreement under CP7—and ScotRail management to get as much integration as possible.

This is a big issue, but I am sorry, convener—

The issue is whether we would have spent time during the research asking people how long their car journey would have been had they not taken the train. I am not sure that we would have gone into that detail when asking people whether they would have used their cars previously. It comes back to the point that we are trying to reduce car use.

On how car use is measured, the Department for Transport measures it. That is how we get our data. The underlying data is measured in car kilometres, and that is how we measure the global aspect year on year. However, I do not think that we asked individuals how long their car journey was and that might be the point of Audit Scotland’s criticism.

We did measure car kilometres and we can give you the evidence of the difference between those measurements because that is part of the Department for Transport’s global assessment of car kilometres. I do not know whether my officials have anything more to add on that, or whether I am correct in what I am saying about the research.

It is a combination of a number of those things. Obviously, I do not want to retrofit a decision that was made in 2020, but we are dealing with the elements of it in the here and now. I think that the target is unachievable, and I think that it is going to be unnecessary. I want to have a bit of realism and pragmatism around the issue, and I want to take people with us. That is why we will see a change.

As we have discussed, integrated ticketing is not necessarily about concrete ticketing—it will be more about the digital platform that is used, and the device. We have our advisory board and we have recommendations. Part of that involves taking along a lot of private sector operators; Gail Macgregor talked about the bus sector, which is privatised. We are trying to get everyone in the room. We are getting advice from representatives of all the different sectors, but regulations will probably be needed.

Alison Irvine might want to reflect on what will be required in that regard. However, we are making progress. Integrated ticketing is already operating on a regional basis in many parts of the country.

I am not sure. I might ask my officials about the car kilometre metric but car use—

Our evidence is the increase in public transport use.

I think that we will need to drop the target, or change it—“change” is probably the appropriate word. As I said in my opening remarks, we still want to support car use reduction. That is still an important part of what we want to do, but the figure of 20 per cent is not realistic and will need to be changed. Therefore, we will take the advice that we are expecting to receive in May from the Climate Change Committee—I have told you what the CCC has already said to the UK Government—and that will steer us.

That will not change our focus and drive to make a difference in policy terms and to work with local government, but it will make the target more realistic and therefore more achievable. We are in a different situation from the one that we were in in December 2020; we have had different experiences and demands. We can still make the difference that is needed to achieve our climate change targets. As I have set out, we are still committed to doing that and to achieving net zero by 2045. The climate change plan that will be developed following the advice in May will help us to deliver that.

My understanding is that, when it comes to the overall measurement, the Department for Transport always uses kilometres, because that is an international metric, but the issue that we have here is how we connect with people and take them with us. I genuinely believe that we need to make the target more realisable and understandable. I would prefer to talk about a 20 per cent reduction in car use generally. That will still be measured in kilometres, but we can talk about miles if people relate more to that and what it means.

We could also interpret that as saying that, if someone was commuting by car five days a week, Monday to Friday, and they voluntarily decided, as part of a behavioural change, to travel by train one day a week, we could look at that as a 20 per cent reduction in their car use for commuting. The issue is partly about how we take people with us and communicate what they can do individually, and that is where carrots and sticks come in. People have to want to volunteer to do that.

Lots of different things can be done on an individual basis. For example, a family that owns several cars taking the decision to reduce its car ownership can help with behavioural change. Lots of things can also be done with councils, which are already doing a lot of activity, particularly in cities.

I talk about a 20 per cent reduction in car use, because language matters, and I think that that will help us to take people with us in our action.