The bus operator has threatened to fight the scheme in ‘every court in the land’
A major bus operator has threatened to go to “every court in the land” to fight John Swinney’s plan to bring Scotland’s bus network under public control.
McGill’s also defended comparing the First Minister to the dictators Idi Amin and Robert Mugabe.
In his speech to the SNP conference in Aberdeen on Saturday, Mr Swinney pledged to “bring the bus network back into public control” by 2031.
He said this would be achieved through franchising and regulation, and also announced a further expansion of the £2 bus fare rollout to Aberdeen and the north east.
Bus fares have previously been capped at £2 in the Highlands and islands and the west of Scotland.
McGill's, the largest independent bus operator in Scotland, said it would fight the franchising plans “tooth and nail”.
Its co-owner Sandy Easdale previously compared Mr Swinney to Amin and Mugabe.
READ MORE: Swinney pledge to bring buses under public control condemned as 'theft'
Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland’s Sunday Show, Ralph Roberts, chair of McGill's Group, defended these comments.
“You can understand the owners’ discomfort here when they have invested lots of money into a private company to grow it and make it as good as they possibly can, only to have the government confiscate it, take it away and put it up for auction,” he said.
“You can understand why they draw that parallel.”
Edinburgh has a publicly-owned bus operator in the form of Lothian Buses, which is the largest municipal bus company in the UK.
Meanwhile, Strathclyde Partnership for Transport is currently developing a Manchester-style bus franchising model, which would allow it to control fares, routes and ticketing, but it was estimated in 2024 that this could take seven years to set up.
Mr Roberts criticised the “complete lack of dialogue” from the government, adding: “You can understand why the owners want to refer to African dictators because that’s how it feels from their perspective.”
He said the consultations in Strathclyde were a “sham”.
Asked if he anticipated legal action, Mr Roberts said: “100 per cent. The owners feel incensed by this. There has been no dialogue with government at all in any of this, and that’s one of the things that makes this so incendiary.”
He added: “The fact remains that if a multinational comes in and underbids us in the areas where we operate, and we end up having to cease trading and walk away - with all of the investment and everything that we’ve done stored up in the value of the business - with nothing, then you can understand why the owners are saying that they will absolutely go to every court in the land and beyond.”
Another major Scottish operator told The Scotsman: "We knew this would be coming in the long term because the SNP seems to be hopping on the bandwagon by following everything that [Andy] Burnham is doing, but the timing came as a huge surprise."
Jenny Gilruth, the Deputy First Minister, said the Scottish government was “protecting” Scots who have faced a series of route closures over recent years.
She also said it would be “remiss” of her “not to mention” that Sandy Easdale and his brother James are Labour donors.
“Fundamentally, we’re trying to protect our people, and across the country just now we see a number of routes having been removed,” she said.
Ms Gilruth said the Scottish government was already providing significant investment in buses, including free travel for under 22s and over 60s.
She said: “Of course we work with bus operators like McGill’s and others to hear their views. We’ve always done that in terms of how we’ve rolled out our approach to the under 22s, and of course to the £2 bus cap.”
She said the current private bus model was “a legacy of Thatcher’s time when she took away that opportunity for there to be direct intervention from the state around about a number of bus routes”.