The Scotsman Politics Show: FMQs September 21 2023

The Scotsman

Transcript

00:00 (upbeat music)

00:02 - Hello, welcome to the Scotsman's Politics Show.

00:09 We're doing a round of First Minister's Questions.

00:12 My name is Neil Milley, I'm Head of News at Scotsman

00:15 and I'm joined by Deputy Political Editor, Connor Matchett.

00:19 Connor, we had Shona Robison standing in

00:22 and probably no surprise that climate led things.

00:26 - Absolutely, so as you mentioned,

00:28 Deputy First Minister Shona Robison was stood in

00:31 for Humza Yousaf who is still in New York for Climate Week.

00:36 He's been over there since Sunday,

00:38 basically meeting world leaders

00:40 and talking about all things climate,

00:42 which has come at quite a useful time

00:44 for the Scottish government,

00:45 given Rishi Sunak's announcement yesterday

00:47 that he's rowing back on a lot of net zero policies,

00:50 including the deadline for petrol cars

00:52 to be phased out, for example.

00:54 Potentially slightly surprising,

00:57 potentially slightly not.

00:58 Douglas Ross led on this,

00:59 but from a perspective of the North Sea oil and gas

01:04 rather than the broader net zero targets,

01:07 he basically accused Humza Yousaf

01:09 and the Scottish government of having turned south

01:11 on Scotland's oil and gas industry.

01:13 And Shona Robison responded in kind saying,

01:16 no one's given up on oil and gas in Scotland

01:19 and we just need to have a just transition.

01:22 It's the sort of rhetoric we've heard ad nauseum,

01:25 to be honest, between the two parties,

01:27 particularly given the background

01:28 of the general election up in the Northeast.

01:31 - Conor, talking about rhetoric

01:33 and talking about general elections

01:34 that we know are coming next year,

01:36 was this any sort of preview of what we can expect?

01:39 - It was pretty much a preview from both sides.

01:41 I mean, you had, as I mentioned,

01:43 Douglas Ross going in on North Sea oil and gas.

01:46 I think at one point he said that the SNP slogans

01:49 changed from not Scotland's oil to it's just stock oil,

01:52 obviously a reference to the campaign group,

01:55 which has caused many issues down south

01:57 and has caused a bit of a rupture

01:59 within the politics in England.

02:00 And I think as well,

02:02 if you look at what Anna Sara was going on,

02:04 he was focusing very, very hard

02:06 on basically matching two separate things

02:11 in the minds of voters,

02:12 one being SNP alleged incompetence

02:15 and the other being the fact that taxes might go up

02:17 in terms of council taxes

02:19 or taxes might go up in terms of progressive taxation

02:22 for those earning a little bit more.

02:24 And he was going, you know,

02:25 that people in a cost of living crisis

02:27 should not be paying for SNP failure.

02:30 It's that kind of classic Scottish Labour line

02:32 that we've come to know

02:33 and basically going to be what's going to be

02:36 on all of their leaflets come May

02:38 or whenever the general election next year is.

02:41 And I think that's basically

02:42 what this first minister's questions was about.

02:45 Shona Robison, to be fair to her, responded in kind.

02:49 You know, she attacked the Tories

02:50 for being anti-climate change

02:52 and anti-climate change targets,

02:53 basically saying that this made it harder

02:55 for Scotland to meet their own targets,

02:58 something that I think we'll hear developed

03:00 as an SNP attack line against the Conservatives

03:02 when we go forward.

03:03 But she also attacked Keir Starmer,

03:06 which is something we're hearing more and more of

03:08 from the SNP.

03:09 They think that Keir Starmer

03:11 does not have a particular good profile in Scotland,

03:13 that that is a weak link for Labour

03:15 and they are going to go on and on and on

03:17 about how Anas Sarwar is in the pocket of Keir Starmer.

03:21 - I wanna ask you shortly about Shona Robison

03:24 and how she performed,

03:25 but do you think this council text

03:26 is cutting through the fact that

03:28 those in the top bands could potentially be charged more?

03:32 - I think the fundamental fact of the matter

03:34 is that people who tend to have more money,

03:36 people who tend to have property

03:37 and people who tend to care about

03:40 what comes out of their pocket tend to be richer.

03:43 And I think they also tend to vote.

03:45 And I think that's what Labour are targeting.

03:47 They're targeting that middle-class Scotland

03:49 who is aspirational, who own property

03:52 or wish to own property.

03:54 Potentially they own a big house in Morningside in Edinburgh

03:58 or somewhere in Glasgow or in another central belt place

04:02 where maybe they've paid a lot of money for it

04:05 and that it sits in those higher bands of council tax.

04:07 They might not actually earn that much money

04:10 given the difference between property value

04:13 and what actual income is

04:16 compared to when their first council tax plans

04:18 were placed in 1994.

04:20 And they might well be your teachers,

04:23 your council workers, et cetera,

04:24 and they'll be being asked to pay more.

04:27 I think Anasar firmly believes this is cutting through.

04:30 And in general, ahead of an election year,

04:33 it's pretty dodgy ground for any political party

04:36 to be continually referring to putting taxes up.

04:39 And I think that's what he's banking on.

04:41 - And Conor, just lastly, summarise quickly,

04:44 how did Shona do?

04:46 - I think for her first time

04:47 since she became Deputy First Minister,

04:49 she did pretty well.

04:50 Lots of people have different views

04:53 on how effective the Deputy First Minister

04:55 is in the chamber.

04:57 I think her real test is gonna come

04:59 when she delivers the budget in December.

05:01 But she did pretty well.

05:03 She was given even, I should say,

05:06 an open goal by Douglas Ross on net zero.

05:08 Everyone knew that was gonna come up in some manner.

05:12 And she slammed that into the back of the net.

05:14 And then again, I'm not convinced

05:16 that Anasar went on the strongest ground either today,

05:19 which probably helped her out.

05:21 So overall, a pass mark, maybe a seven or eight out of 10,

05:25 certainly wasn't the vintage FMQs,

05:26 but then again, it hasn't been for many, many months.

05:29 - Conor, thanks for joining us.

05:31 You can read all the latest politics coverage,

05:34 including what comes out of the FMQs today at sportsman.com.

05:38 Just follow the politics tab

05:40 and go and buy a copy of the paper tomorrow.

05:44 - Thanks very much.

05:45 (upbeat music)

05:49 (upbeat music)

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