Later this month, on the 31st January 2022, all young people under 22 years old in Scotland will be able to benefit from free bus travel for the first time.

This will be an absolute gamechanger for young people and their families, and I can’t wait for young people across Fife to take advantage of this great opportunity, when COVID restrictions allow.

For now, those young people who use the bus for essential travel are encouraged to come forward first. To access free bus travel, all young people will need a new National Entitlement Card or an upgraded Young Scot Card.

If you’re over 16, you can apply for the card yourself; for those under 16, you’ll need your parent or guardian to apply on your behalf. To apply, head online to getyournec.scot or contact Fife Council directly.

I’d love to hear more from my constituents in Fife about their experience of applying for a new card or making the most of free bus travel. If you’d like to share your experience with me, you can email me on mail to: mark.ruskell.msp@parliament.scot.

Ensuring that all communities across Scotland – whether town, village, or city – have affordable, accessible, and reliable public transport is a key priority for me and my Scottish Green colleagues in Holyrood.

When we invest in public transport, we invest in our communities – creating opportunities and supporting services that are vital to our wellbeing. Put simply, public transport is just far too important to simply be left to the market. And with Greens in government, we are putting public transport – run in the public interest - at the heart of our recovery.

The introduction of free bus travel for Under 22s is an important first step, and I’m delighted that we’ve been able to take such a vital Green policy from the drawing board to reality. But we’re not stopping there.

We’ve got great plans in the works around the creation of a Community Bus Fund – which will help councils and communities plan for how they can run their own bus services. And our cooperation agreement with the SNP secured a further £5bn investment in decarbonising and improving our railways.

Change won’t happen overnight – but we’re making progress. This is exactly the sort of ambitious and transformative change that the Scottish Greens are in Parliament to secure.

This positive news couldn’t be in starker contrast to the further revelations of corruption, lies and coverup coming out of Westminster last week. After months of dodging the question, the Prime Minister finally admitted that he did in fact attend a party at Downing Street during lockdown.

Mr Johnson’s late and feeble apology at PMQs simply won’t cut it. Whilst people across Fife and the rest of the UK made immense sacrifices to safeguard the vulnerable and protect our public services, Mr Johnson decided he was above the rules.

We all deserve so much better than this. No more excuses: Boris Johnson must go, and go now.