Scotsman Bulletin, Tuesday July 16

The Scotsman

Deputy Editor Alan Young is joined by Political Correspondent Rachel Amery

Transcript

00:00Hello, welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Bulletin for Tuesday. I'm Alan Young, I am Deputy Editor

00:11of the Scotsman. I'm joined today by our political correspondent Rachel Emery to take a look

00:15at what's on the agenda. Hi Rachel. Good morning. Let's have a look at the front page first

00:22off. We lead today on figures which have been released for Edinburgh's low emission zone.

00:31This started, or began, sorry, at the start of June and the figures show that almost twice as

00:39many motorists were found in Edinburgh than they were in Glasgow in the first month of operation

00:47there. That has been described by the Scottish Conservatives as astonishing. City transport

00:53leaders are obviously fully supportive of this and say they're already seeing changes in driver

01:00behaviour. Just to put that in context though, that's 6,000 fines, a huge amount of money going

01:07into the council's coffers there. Pictured at the top of the page, the tiger who came to tea

01:14Indeed, Tiger Woods arrives ahead of the open kicking off Rob Troon later in the week and we

01:21also cover the Donald Trump latest in the wing column there. He of course appeared overnight at

01:29the Republican convention with a bandaged ear following the assassination attempt. So that's

01:36you up to date. Rachel, looking ahead, despite the fact Scottish Parliament's in recess, it's a

01:46big week for politics. All eyes on London tomorrow for the state opening of Parliament and then we

01:53will get the King's speech and this is really eagerly anticipated. Yes, so as you said,

02:01nothing's happening in Holyrood just now because it's on recess but that doesn't mean that things

02:04are not all heating up down in Westminster. So tomorrow King Charles III will go to Westminster

02:10for the King's speech. Basically he'll be setting out what Sir Keir Starmer's government is going

02:15to do for the next year. There's a lot of pomp and ceremony that goes along with this and there's a

02:20lot of fancy outfits that get worn and lots of strange traditions that get done as well. Behind

02:26all of that there's a lot of serious politics getting announced tomorrow. What we're looking

02:31for in the King's speech, particularly for Scotland, is probably GB Energy. Now during the election

02:36campaign Labour were very, this is a big policy for Labour, saying that they were going to introduce

02:41this publicly owned energy company and it's going to be headquartered in Scotland. But they wouldn't

02:46be pressed on whereabouts in Scotland it could be. There's been plenty of suggestions put forward and

02:51none have been confirmed. So perhaps we might get some more details to what GB Energy might look like,

02:56when it might get set up and potentially even whereabouts in Scotland it will be headquartered

03:01as well. So that's probably the main thing for people in Scotland that are wanting to see what's

03:05in this speech is going to look out for. Lots of other things to look out for too. Labour's new

03:11deal for working people, so things such as ending fire and rehire, getting genuine living wages,

03:16for example, banning zero-hours contracts. That's also going to be detailed in the King's speech

03:21tomorrow. Also the devolution powers, we're expecting the Labour government to try and

03:26devolve more powers to local communities. We'll need to wait and see as to how much that will

03:30affect the Scottish government as well. So plenty for people in Scotland to look out for in this

03:35King's speech and things that might have quite a big impact on them. Along with GB Energy, I guess

03:41oil and gas is a huge issue. We had reports last week quickly denied that Ed Miliband, the

03:49Energy Secretary, had ordered an immediate halt on new North Sea drilling. Do you think we're

03:55likely to see any clarity on the Labour position around that tomorrow? I think given what happened

04:01at the end of last week with Ed Miliband, we might very well do. This obviously caused quite an upset

04:06very quickly. I think Labour are now sort of seeing some of the sort of challenges that they

04:09might face now that they're actually in government with what they're able to say and what they're not

04:13able to say. So as you said, it was very quickly shut down, this report about stopping oil and gas.

04:20This is on the back of, of course, in their election manifesto saying that they would

04:23be against issuing new exploration licences in the North Sea. So it'll be interesting to

04:28see if we get any more detail on exploration licences, on drilling, on all these kinds of

04:32things that are going to affect the oil and gas industry in the North East of Scotland. So

04:35interesting to see if anything comes up on that. Indeed, we'll be very closely watched. Thanks very

04:41much for that. Rachael, please keep an eye on scotsman.com throughout the day for all the very

04:45latest news and analysis. If you can, do subscribe and watch and read absolutely everything we do.

04:51And if you're out and about today, as ever, please do pick up a copy of the paper from me

04:57and from Rachael. It's bye for now. Goodbye.

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