The Scotsman Politics FMQs Review - December 07 2023 - video Dailymotion

The Scotsman

The Scotsman Politics FMQs Review - December 07 2023

Transcript

00:00 (upbeat music)

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

00:10 We're here to wrap up First Minister's Questions.

00:12 My name's Dale Miller, I'm Head of News at Scotsman,

00:15 and I'm joined by our political editor, Alistair Grant.

00:19 Alistair, the PISA results were out

00:22 around education on Tuesday.

00:24 They made for pretty grim reading for the Scottish government

00:27 and it looks like it led things to that.

00:30 - Yeah, so these are obviously the PISA education results

00:34 run by the OECD, a kind of international comparison

00:38 of the performance of 15 year olds around the world.

00:41 And as you say, made for quite grim reading in Scotland,

00:45 showing long-term decline across maths, science, reading,

00:49 and unsurprisingly, it came up at First Minister's Questions.

00:52 I think it actually was the first time

00:54 that I can remember in quite a long time

00:56 that all three party leaders who were asking questions

00:59 went on the same topic.

01:00 So the Tories, Labour, the Liberal Democrats,

01:03 all raising education, all having a go at Humza Yousaf

01:07 over the SNP's stewardship of education.

01:12 And I think it was quite interesting

01:13 that Humza Yousaf was essentially accepting

01:16 that this was a poor set of results

01:18 and that the Scottish government is accepting that,

01:20 is going to do something about it.

01:22 He said there'll be a statement

01:23 from the Education Secretary, Jenny Gilruth,

01:26 next week about this.

01:28 But I think, you know, quite strong language

01:30 used by the opposition politicians.

01:32 So you had Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader,

01:34 calling this a national disgrace.

01:36 You had Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader,

01:39 accusing the SNP effectively

01:41 of destroying Scottish education.

01:43 And we obviously have this narrative in Scotland,

01:45 whether it's true or not,

01:47 that Scottish education is world-leading.

01:49 It's something we're hugely proud of,

01:51 and we have been proud of for hundreds of years.

01:54 It's been a story we tell ourselves about what Scotland is.

01:58 And these results throw that into question,

02:00 you know, showing long-term decline.

02:02 And Douglas Ross also linking that decline

02:04 to the curriculum for excellence

02:07 and the impact that's had on Scottish education

02:10 and calling for that to be scrapped.

02:12 And as I say, I think it's interesting

02:14 that Humza Yousaf was accepting

02:16 that these results are not good.

02:18 But on the other hand,

02:19 he was also launching quite a robust defence

02:21 of Scottish government education policy,

02:24 pointing to exam pass rates,

02:27 pointing to the number of people

02:28 going to university in Scotland,

02:30 the number of people going to so-called positive destinations,

02:33 you know, education or employment after they leave school.

02:36 So, you know, very much trying to defend

02:39 the Scottish government's records

02:40 and also pointing out that this is just one set of results,

02:43 you know, albeit international results.

02:46 But there's other indicators

02:47 that the Scottish government obviously uses as well.

02:49 But I think there's no two ways about it.

02:51 This is an extremely difficult First Minister's questions

02:54 for Humza Yousaf.

02:54 As I say, unusual to have all three party leaders

02:59 going on the same topic.

03:00 - Now, listen, can you see any options

03:02 for the Scottish government?

03:03 Because they made the decision a number of weeks now

03:06 to delay some plans, reforms to the education system.

03:10 They had their summits on school violence.

03:13 They've identified that as the issue

03:15 that they need to deal with first

03:16 before they make more wider structural changes.

03:19 But it feels like these results are all to do

03:22 with wider structural changes.

03:23 So where can they go?

03:25 - I don't think there are no quick fixes.

03:27 You know, Humza Yousaf obviously quite keen

03:29 to highlight the effect of COVID.

03:31 And obviously that hasn't had an effect.

03:33 We've seen declines globally in education standards.

03:36 But it's not the full story

03:37 because when the decline started,

03:40 obviously predates COVID.

03:42 And we've also got, you know, the situation now

03:44 where we look to our neighbours in England

03:46 and children there seem to be performing better

03:48 across maths, science, reading.

03:50 Albeit, I think Wales is performing worse than Scotland.

03:54 But I think that there's just no quick fixes.

03:56 And I thought it was interesting if you kind of read

03:58 some of the commentary around the OECD's report

04:01 and some of the kind of issues experts,

04:03 including from the PISA, kind of OECD themselves

04:06 have highlighted.

04:07 And there's things like the use of smartphones

04:10 in classrooms, these kind of the impact of technology,

04:13 even the impact of, I think the kind of parental involvement

04:17 in the education system in Scotland

04:19 was highlighted as a source of concern.

04:21 So there's obviously huge structural issues,

04:23 no quick fixes, but there will be calls, you know,

04:26 from across the Holyrood Chamber, as we saw today,

04:29 to do something about this.

04:30 Everyone or many people in Scotland

04:32 obviously have an investment in this.

04:34 It's their children going to these schools.

04:36 And the state of the Scottish education system

04:39 is something that the Scottish government

04:40 will be extremely concerned about.

04:43 - Just lastly, there's gonna be

04:44 an emergency cabinet meeting tonight

04:46 where the Scottish budget, which is just around the corner,

04:49 is gonna be discussed.

04:50 You wrote a bit about a couple of things

04:53 that are being considered, need to be considered

04:57 ahead of that meeting and the plans around the budget.

04:59 You can read that at scotsman.com.

05:02 Just very quickly, what are the keys here?

05:05 What do they have to work out between now and December 19th?

05:09 - Yeah, so this is a special cabinet meeting

05:11 being held tonight.

05:12 Obviously, cabinet is usually held on a Tuesday.

05:14 It's extremely unusual to have more than one

05:16 cabinet meeting in a week.

05:17 It shows the level of concern

05:19 in the Scottish government about this.

05:20 I mean, some of the key areas I was highlighting

05:22 are things like income tax,

05:24 what they're gonna do about income tax.

05:26 There's been lots of rumors and reporting

05:27 about potentially introducing a new income tax band

05:31 for higher earners.

05:32 I think that's very much up in the air.

05:34 I think one of the problems with that

05:35 is that you have to then factor in

05:37 a potential electoral backlash.

05:39 It would obviously be controversial

05:40 among some sections of the media.

05:43 We've got a general election probably happening next year,

05:46 so that will be a source of concern.

05:48 I think you've got the council tax freeze.

05:50 That was a decision that Humza Yousaf announced

05:52 at the S&P conference in October.

05:55 He said that would be fully funded,

05:56 so councils wouldn't suffer financially for that.

05:59 But they've not defined what fully funded means,

06:01 so we need to have some answers around that.

06:04 What does that mean in cash terms for councils,

06:06 and will they be happy with it?

06:08 I'm gonna say probably not.

06:10 We've got other areas like businesses.

06:12 We obviously had the UK Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt,

06:16 was introducing some tax breaks for businesses down south.

06:20 One of them in particular

06:21 for hospitality leisure businesses,

06:24 he's extending for another year.

06:26 The Scottish government last year chose not to pass that on

06:28 to businesses in Scotland.

06:30 There's lots of pressure now,

06:32 considering some of the pressures

06:33 businesses themselves are under to pass it on this year.

06:38 And I think if they don't,

06:38 there'll be a lot of anger among the business community.

06:40 And of course, Humza Yousaf, as First Minister,

06:42 has tried to improve relationships with the business sector.

06:46 So that's just a few of the areas,

06:48 but there's so many different things.

06:49 I mean, public sector funding,

06:50 I should probably just touch on very quickly as well.

06:52 We've had dire warnings from councils

06:54 that they're at risk of bankruptcy

06:55 if they don't get the funding they need.

06:57 We've had dire warnings from Police Scotland

06:59 about potentially losing thousands of officers,

07:02 kind of affecting how they can respond to incidents

07:06 if they don't get the funding they need.

07:08 We've had Shona Robison, the Deputy First Minister,

07:10 saying that the public sector will need to shrink.

07:13 It's just extremely grim.

07:15 And of course, the Scottish government

07:16 has to deliver a balanced budget.

07:18 They have to balance the books.

07:20 They can't have a one billion pound black hole.

07:22 That exists in theory at the moment,

07:24 but it can't exist in practice.

07:25 So yeah, extremely difficult decisions need to be made.

07:29 - Alistair, the big red,

07:31 if we were talking about cheerier things

07:33 in the lead up to Christmas,

07:35 but that is the start of Play's Raid,

07:37 all the latest from FNQs at scotsman.com.

07:41 We ran a blog throughout,

07:43 so you can catch up on all the exchanges

07:45 around the PISA results.

07:47 And if you want all your politics,

07:49 go to the navigation bar on the homepage,

07:51 look for the politics tab,

07:53 you'll get all the very latest there.

07:55 Thanks very much for joining us, everyone.

07:57 (upbeat music)

08:01 (upbeat music)

08:03 [MUSIC]

The Scotsman Politics FMQs Review - December 07 2023

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