TODAY (Wednesday) Claire Baker, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, will use a speech to the Scottish Parliament to raise the ‘misery faced by commuters everyday’ on the Fife Circle.

The Scottish Labour politician will use a transport debate to call for ScotRail to be stripped of its franchise agreement and for it to be taken back into public ownership.

The call follows statistics released to Ms Baker, which show the peak time services in the Kingdom are still facing significant delays and cancellations.

Despite promises made by ScotRail during a Facebook Live chat with Claire Baker earlier this year, problems still exist in the Fife Circle with people using Cardenden, Lochgelly and Cowdenbeath stations affected.

Over a hundred peak time Fife Circle services heading to Edinburgh in the morning, and coming from Edinburgh in the evening, were cancelled between April and September this year.

Services that were not cancelled often fell below ScotRail’s punctuality target; when a train arrives within 5 minutes of its schedule time. 46% of the 17:41 Edinburgh to Inverness service in June was over 5 minutes late to Kirkcaldy.

It has since been revealed the SNP Government have agreed with ScotRail that its performance benchmark for punctuality can be waived until June 2019, allowing the franchise to continue to deliver late running services without facing any penalty.

Speaking ahead of the debate, Claire Baker MSP said: “The poor performance of ScotRail in Fife is one of the biggest complaints that I hear about in my role as an MSP. My inbox is regularly full of emails from frustrated commuters who are facing another delay or cancellation.

“If they receive the service they are meant to and their train does turn up, on time or otherwise, they often then have to squeeze on and stand as there are not enough coaches. That they have to deal with spiralling high ticket prices, despite not see any improvement to the service is simply unacceptable.

“That is why, earlier this year, I put constituents concerns directly to ScotRail, live on Facebook. Commuters deserve answers and they deserve solutions. Yet over six months on from that grilling and still problems persist in Fife".

The Kelty born MSP added: “As a regular user of the service to get to Parliament during the week, I know only too well the misery faced by commuters every day. Action needs to be taken.

“Instead, we have the SNP Government doing a secret backroom deal with ScotRail that allows them to continually deliver late running services and not face any consequences. Giving ScotRail a licence to fail is not the answer. With ScotRail continuing to breach their contract, we cannot just be content in continually letting them off the hook.

“It is commuters that continue to suffer and Fife deserves better. That is why this Wednesday I will be calling for, and voting for, the Government to use the upcoming break in the franchise agreement and put Scotland’s railways back in to the hands of the public and the passengers that use it.”

Last week Cowdenbeath MSP Annabelle Ewing pressed for improvements on the Fife Circle.