S5M-22731

That the Parliament believes that it is essential for rail passenger and rail worker safety that Scotland’s railway infrastructure is properly renewed and maintained; is therefore concerned at reports that the publicly-owned rail infrastructure manager, Network Rail, is carrying  hundreds of vacancies in Scotland while private rail infrastructure companies contracted to Network Rail, such as Babcock Rail, SPL Powerlines, AMCO and Story Plant are implementing and planning redundancies; is alarmed that these reported rail infrastructure redundancies and unfilled vacancies will adversely impact on the quality of the rail network and passenger safety; is further concerned that reported redundancies being introduced by some of the private contractors could be used as a mechanism to introduce new employment models such as zero-hour contracts, which it considers are less safe and less fair; believes that it is wholly unacceptable that this is taking place on publicly-procured contracts; further believes that this breaches the Scottish Government's Fair Work principles, and calls on the Scottish Government to protect rail safety, services and skills by urgently intervening to prevent job losses in the rail infrastructure sector and ensure that all vacancies are filled.