The Scotsman Bulletin Wednesday 17 July 2024 #KingsSpeech

The Scotsman

Scotsman deputy editor Alan Young speaks to deputy political editor David Bol about the latest in UK politics

Transcript

00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Bulletin for Wednesday. I'm Alan Young, I'm

00:14Deputy Editor of the Scotsman. I'm joined today on a big day in politics by our Deputy

00:19Political Editor, David Ball. Hi David.

00:21Morning Alan.

00:22Let's have a look at the front page first off before we get into it. And we splashed

00:28today on that news yesterday of a £14 million investment by the Scottish Government in the

00:35troubled Ferguson Marine yard. That of course is a shipyard which is still struggling to

00:40build Scotland's two over budget and long delayed ferries. There was some not so good

00:48news for Ferguson Marine however yesterday in that the contract for a new fleet of smaller

00:55ferries is going out to tender. There had been calls to award directly to the yard.

01:01You can get into all that in today's paper and online at scotsman.com. At the top of

01:09the page there we continue our build up to the open late this week in Troon and you may

01:16be able to see in the wing column there a preview of the King's speech today. That is

01:23the big event and that is what I want to speak to David about. So David, today is the

01:29state of open air parliament King's speech where he will set out the Keir Starmer's programme

01:39for government in the first parliamentary session. It's a big event because it's a brand

01:46new government obviously so we're expecting a lot of content and we're also expecting

01:50a lot of content that will be relevant to Scotland unusually this time around.

01:54Yeah that's right it's basically Keir Starmer setting out what he's going to do in the next

01:58year. It's the state opening of parliament. The speech is read out by the King but it's

02:03written by Keir Starmer and his government and we think there'll be around 35 bills

02:07and legislation that he hopes to bring forward in the next year. We won't have any surprises

02:13particularly it'll just be some of the highlights from the Labour manifesto that we've become very

02:18familiar with during the election campaign and just what they they hope to deliver in the first

02:22year. Like he said a lot of them will be relevant to Scotland. We've got those things on sort of

02:28workers rights that they've been making a big fuss about, stuff on the sort of the new mission

02:34control to sort of deliver their clean power by 2030 which is obviously key to Scotland because

02:39Scotland's going to play a big sort of part in that. We've got the new border security commands

02:45sort of plans and stuff to tackle illegal migration. So unlike ones we've seen previously

02:51where a lot of it is sort of devolved and some of it will be there's sort of big housing plans

02:55and planning shake-ups for England and more devolution for sort of English cities, there

03:01will be a lot that will affect Scotland. That's not really surprising given the importance that

03:05Keir Starmer put on Scotland during the campaign and to kind of launch his time in government.

03:12Indeed well remember obviously he was he was up here an incredible amount. It seemed like every

03:17every week during the campaign. There's a lot of focus as well on energy and oil and gas

03:25like you mentioned and GB energy. We know Labour say GB energy, we don't know exactly what it is

03:33yet I think it's fair to say but it's going to be based in somewhere in Scotland. Do you know,

03:38would we like to hear any any more detail around that? Well we've been we're hearing that we maybe

03:44won't get an announcement on the place today. It is taking some time and it does appear that

03:49they haven't really announced or decided where it's going to be yet. I know during the campaign

03:53Keir Starmer was asked repeatedly on one of those trips that you mentioned, where is this going to

03:58be? Is it going to be Aberdeen basically? And he kept saying well we haven't even decided yet. I'm

04:02sure they have like in the background but Aberdeen would be the the obvious place. Maybe

04:07Grangemouth if they want to try and put a proper future for that site. It's obviously been talked

04:14about a lot since Keir Starmer's come in but I don't think we'll get an announcement on the

04:18the location today. Maybe we will but there's some sort of speculation that that's still

04:22one for down the line. But some of the legislation as part of those energy plans sort of setting up

04:28that wealth fund we are expecting to hear a lot about. So hopefully we'll get some more detail on

04:33how that will actually look like and come through. Indeed and there is one element that you're

04:40reporting on already. It should be on scotsman.com very soon and that is the potential return

04:48of the deposit return scheme. Remember that? It's back. Yeah I remember that shambles. Yeah so

04:54Labour have come into government and I guess it's quite normal of a new government is to kind of

04:58look at things that were sort of in process and review them. And they've told me that

05:05the government is going to review the deposit return scheme. It was meant to

05:09be launched in a sort of UK-wide basis by 2025. The Conservative government delayed that to 2029

05:16just because they hadn't really done any of the groundwork. And there was lots of discussions

05:21behind the scenes from the four nations including the Scottish government and the Welsh government

05:25who were very annoyed about this sort of glass bottles being excluded from the UK government.

05:31The UK government kind of way back wanted glass included and changed their mind.

05:36And that really kind of torpedoed the whole system in Scotland. It had lots of problems anyway.

05:42But the fact that Alistair Jack who was the Scottish secretary at the time wouldn't

05:47give an exclusion to the internal market bill where everything's on a level playing field

05:50across the UK. And it basically wasn't seen as being financially viable to proceed

05:56with glass not being included. But the Welsh government in our Labour, so we kind of

06:04hope or think that maybe glass could return to the fold because the UK government are obviously

06:10going to be led a little bit by Labour. They're not going to sort of go against their colleagues.

06:15They've already talked about last year maybe working with the Welsh government to look at how

06:19they could sort of apply this across the board. So there is maybe a chance that we could see glass

06:25being included in that. But either way it's going to be reviewed and hopefully they're going to

06:30bring it forward. They are quite committed to bringing in the DRS probably a bit quicker than

06:36their predecessors wanted to. So yeah we'll just have to wait and see. But they are,

06:39they have committed to reviewing that policy and it may change quite a bit.

06:45Indeed, one to keep an eye out for. Thanks very much David. Please keep an eye on scotsman.com

06:51where we've got a live blog running on the lead up to the King's Speech and we will have a breaking

06:58analysis on what it all means for Scotland as well. If you're on the site please do subscribe

07:04if you can and then you will be able to watch and read everything that we do. And if you're out and

07:10about today please do also pick up a copy of the paper. But for me and for David, bye for now.

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