NICOLA Sturgeon has blamed irresponsible hauliers for contributing to the jam that trapped hundreds of drivers on a motorway overnight in the extreme weather.
The First Minister said “far too many” heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) had been on the M80 despite the Met Office issuing a red warning because of dangerous blizzard conditions.
She stressed she was not blaming the drivers, but said some companies had been wrong to put lorries on the roads for non-essential tasks knowing the potential risk to life.
Storm Emma: Disruption to travel set to continue after severe weather warning expires
The branding on one HGV suggested it was transporting furniture.
The Met Office issue a red warning on Wednesday afternoon that lasted from 3pm that day to 10am on Thursday, and covered most of the Central Belt, Fife and Perthshire.
Police advice was also very strongly against kind of non-essential travel.
Nevertheless, around 1000 vehicles were stranded overnight on the M80 between Glasgow and Stirling, with some motorists saying they had been 18 hours on the road.
At First minister’s Questions, Labour MSP Monica Lennon said there had been eight-mile tailbacks on the motorway in her Central Scotland region, and that "hundreds of lorries were causing a lot of the problems”.
Storm Emma: Warning as train services in meltdown due to heavy snow
Ms Sturgeon said she had been watching live camera feeds from the M80 on Wednesday.
She said: “I’m going to be quit blunt here. If I can be absolutely frank, there were far too many HGVs on that road than there should have been when a red warning was in place.
“We have to be very clear in the message we are sending to companies who deliver goods with HGVs - and this is not a criticism of drivers, because driver safety is one of the issues here - during a red weather warning HGVs should not be on one of our trunk roads unless it is absolutely unavoidable.
“I saw some branded HGVs in pictures yesterday, and given the branding on them I would struggle to say that their transport was unavoidable. So that is a message that should go very strongly from this chamber to companies that use HGVs in conditions like this.”
Green MSP Patrick Harvie said no employee should be forced to make a choice between making a dangerous journey to work or being paid.
Ms Sturgeon said: “I very strongly agree with that. I call on employers to be flexible and above all else to put the safety of their workers above everything else.
“When weather warnings red or amber are issued, these are not issued for the sake of convenience, these are warnings issued for the sake of the safety of the public, and all of us have a responsibility to make sure we do what we can to make sure these warnings are heeded, and that very definitely includes employers.”
READ MORE: Scotland's 'snow angels' rally round in the face of the Beast from the East
In response to a question from Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard, Ms Sturgeon also said she would consider banning tenant evictions during the winter months.
Mr Leonard said: “Imagine facing a night on the streets in this weather? Imagine being evicted last night and facing the extreme cold?
"The campaign group Living Rent has proposed a change in the law to ban winter evictions. In France, a version of this law runs from the first of November to the 32st of March each year and cover all tenants.
“Such as measure would simply save lives in Scotland. My party will consider banning winter evictions as part of our housing reform policy. Will you commit your government to doing the same?”
Ms Sturgeon replied: “The government is considering that as a step we can take to help us tackle what we all accept is a very, very serious issue.”
Mr Leonard added that, unlike other parts of the country, in Scotland the government did not measure rough sleeping and asked her to improve the monitoring.
READ MORE: Army deployed in Edinburgh to help NHS staff
Ms Sturgeon said that based on anecdotal evidence and limited statistics, the number of rough sleepers did appear to be rising in Scotland, as it was elsewhere in the UK.
“We are open to suggestions such as the one Richard Leonard has made,” she said.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel