The Scotsman Politics Show - FMQs Round-up September 14 2023 - video Dailymotion

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The Scotsman Politics Show - FMQs Round-up September 14 2023

Transcript

00:00 Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Politics Show with our roundup of First Minister's

00:12 questions. My name is Dale Miller, I'm Head of News at the Scotsman and I'm joined by

00:16 our Deputy Political Editor, Connor Matchett. Connor, as always, an interesting FMQs, but

00:22 actually some of the action involving Fergus Ewing happened in the minutes before it started.

00:28 Yes, so Fergus Ewing obviously is under threat, if you like, of becoming one of the first

00:35 SNP's to lose the whip. In recent years, certainly his long-standing opposition to much of the

00:42 SNP Green Deal and the legislation that's arisen from it has reached a tipping point.

00:48 We understand that there's likely to be a meeting of the group next week to discuss

00:52 his future. That is likely, as the Scotsman first reported back before the start of recess,

00:59 it's likely to see him receive a suspension of some sort to be confirmed exactly what

01:04 that is. That specific disciplinary measure follows his decision as a rebel to vote against

01:14 Norma Slayton and a no-confidence motion by the Parliament over the deposit return scheme

01:18 earlier this year. When an SNP MSP, or any MSP for that matter, votes against the Government

01:26 Minister in that way, it's usually grounds for them to be suspended from the party and

01:31 from the party whip for a period. So I'll have more information about that next week.

01:36 Obviously he's in the news this week as well because he voted last night against the Government

01:40 on a motion to pause the implementation and the deadline of the short-term let licensing

01:46 scheme, which was a monumental mess for the Government with five SNP MSPs voting against

01:53 the Government, of which only one did so deliberately.

01:57 And Connor, we were used to claims of breaching the ministerial code being levelled at Nicola

02:02 Sturgeon before she obviously stepped down from the role, but that same accusation being

02:07 levelled at Humza Yousaf today.

02:10 Yeah, so this goes back, and long-time readers of the Scotsman will remember that we've covered

02:15 at length the question marks over certain statistics relating to Scotland's renewable

02:22 energy potential and current production. It was demonstrated that a long-standing statistic

02:32 used by the Scottish Government for many, many years was found to be incorrect. I can't

02:36 remember exactly when, it was a good year and a bit ago at this rate. And this has continued

02:44 to Humza Yousaf's premiership. He said just before recess, something along the lines of

02:48 Scotland having the majority of renewables capacity in the UK. That's fundamentally not

02:58 true. FOI disclosures show that it took him three weeks to correct the record, during

03:04 which officials tried to come up with some sort of wheeze to get him off the hook for

03:08 having said something incorrect.

03:10 In fact, if you look at the FOI details, they knew within an hour and a half of FMQ's finishing

03:15 that the figure he claimed was correct in the chamber was in fact wrong. It took him

03:21 three weeks to correct the record. The Lib Dems have written to the First Minister asking

03:24 him to refer himself to the ministerial advisor on the ministerial code. I don't think that's

03:30 going to happen. I think we'll probably see this brushed under the carpet very quickly.

03:34 If you want to know a bit more about that story, Ray, the Scotsman website. Connor,

03:40 that wasn't actually the meat that started off FMQ's. We had questions on both police

03:45 figures or more appropriately police cuts, but also the state of the health system. Can

03:49 you talk us through it?

03:50 Yeah, so Douglas Ross kicked us off with mentioning a lot of the statistics that were in the Scotsman

03:56 front page news story today about the difficulties that the police is facing with the funding

04:01 pressures. He focused specifically on body worn cameras and the fact that the rollout

04:06 of those will not be guaranteed to be finished by the end of next year. Anas Sarwar, on the

04:11 other hand, Scottish Labour leader, focused, as he often does at FMQ's at the minute, on

04:15 the health service. And he pointed out increasing numbers of people using the private sector.

04:21 It wasn't a vintage First Minister's questions. Humza Yousaf, in response to Douglas Ross,

04:26 started shouting 'fact' at the end of every sentence and Douglas Ross responded in kind.

04:32 Humza Yousaf also continually referred to the pandemic and the fact that Scottish Labour

04:36 seemed to ignore it entirely in their questions about the health service. And to be honest,

04:41 I'm pretty sure I've witnessed that FMQ's about six times in the last six months. So

04:45 we'll likely see it again in short order.

04:47 Connor, and I wonder whether our readers on our own body worn cameras was central to Douglas's

04:52 questioning. I'm wondering whether they're more concerned about 800 staff by next April,

04:57 including potentially 600 officers actually being taken off the beat concerning times

05:03 and mid-wider budget cuts. Lastly, Fergus and Maureen, you and Rachel Omery wrote about

05:11 that this week, but it was up at questions again.

05:13 Yeah, Graham Simpson, the Scottish Conservative and spokesperson for transport brought it

05:18 up at FMQ's, asked the First Minister a very direct and straight question, which is, would

05:23 he allow the Auditor General to undertake a forensic analysis of the finances of how

05:29 about £130 million of public money was spent when the yard was in private ownership, owned

05:35 by Jim McColl and the tycoon, pro-independence tycoon who rescued the yard. Humza Yousaf,

05:41 this was asked, this was an ask which should be said by, of the Public Audit Committee,

05:45 who's continuing to look at Ferguson's, Humza Yousaf completely dodged the question,

05:51 and in a post FMQ's briefing, I've just come out of, so just a couple of minutes.

05:56 Colin, there was a bit of question dodging today. Let's see what they come up with over

06:01 coming days and weeks. Thanks very much for joining us live from Holyrood. You can read

06:06 all the latest of our politics coverage at thescotsman.com, just look for the politics

06:11 tab on the navigation bar. Thanks very much.

06:13 [END]

The Scotsman Politics Show - FMQs Round-up September 14 2023

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