Scotsman Politics: FMQs unpicked with Dale and Alistair - Thursday November 28 2024 - video Dailymotion

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Scotsman Politics: FMQs unpicked with Dale and Alistair - Thursday November 28 2024

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

00:04We're here to unwrap and unpick First Minister's questions.

00:08My name's Dale Miller.

00:09I'm Deputy Editor of the Scotsman,

00:11and I'm joined by our political editor, Alastair Grant,

00:14who's coming live to us from Holyrood.

00:16Alastair, it was an eventful session,

00:19both inside the chamber and outside as well.

00:22Let's address the buildup first.

00:23There were two big protest demonstrations

00:26outside of your buildup to outback kills.

00:29Yeah, there's two protests going on.

00:30One of them's by a trade union, Unite.

00:33It's about Grangemouth, the potential job losses

00:36at Grangemouth, the closure of the oil refinery.

00:38And the second one is by NFU Scotland, the farmers' union,

00:42protesting the way farmers were treated in the UK budget,

00:45the way they were treated more widely by the government.

00:47Specifically, they are annoyed

00:49about the inheritance tax changes

00:51that were announced as part of the UK budget

00:53by Chancellor Rachel Reeves.

00:55So they've been outside Parliament.

00:56I think they had a tractor with them

00:58when the Grangemouth protests came past.

01:00I could see it outside our Holyrood office

01:03just in front of the Scottish Parliament.

01:05As you can see, they had a brass band.

01:06They had lots of banners.

01:08They had massive kind of unison balloons.

01:11And so it's, yeah, it's really colourful protests.

01:14And they voted to pick today

01:16because it's First Minister's Questions,

01:18and they want to cause an impact.

01:19Aren't we, Matt?

01:21Now, Alastair, I suspect that tractor

01:22will be getting an LEZ fine,

01:24but that's probably a side note

01:26to the actual protests as well.

01:28We know how effective those images were

01:30coming from London last week

01:32when there were similar protests.

01:34So that's one to watch,

01:35and the UK Labor government

01:37won't give any ground on their position there.

01:39Alastair, First Minister's Questions

01:42actually opened with an interjection

01:44from Alastair Johnston,

01:46the presiding officer over Winterfield Banks.

01:49Oh, Kirsten.

01:50Yeah, so this is a leak, actually,

01:52in the press today on the action

01:56the Scottish government's going to take

01:57to alleviate the winter fuel payment cut

02:00that was announced by the UK Labor government,

02:02by Keir Starmer.

02:03He got a lot of heat over this over the summer.

02:06People will probably remember.

02:07And it's emerged that the Scottish government

02:09is going to partially reverse that cut in Scotland

02:13to make about almost a million more pensioners

02:15eligible for the Scottish devolved version

02:18of that payment.

02:20Although I think it will effectively mean

02:22that those pensioners who are not

02:24in receipt of pension credit will get less money,

02:26and we'll get a few details of that

02:28in a statement this afternoon.

02:29Alastair Johnston, the presiding officer,

02:31very annoyed that this has been leaked to the press.

02:33John Swinney was talking to journalists yesterday

02:35and was making a big song and dance

02:37over the fact that he can't give the details away

02:39before the statement is made in Parliament.

02:41MSPs have to hear it first.

02:43He can't tell the media about it beforehand.

02:45And then, obviously, it's come out in the press.

02:48And this has happened a couple of times in the past,

02:49and Alastair Johnston always gets annoyed about it,

02:52always says she's going to launch an investigation.

02:55I'm not sure how thorough these investigations are.

02:57I'm sure they are very thorough,

02:58but they never really seem to go anywhere.

03:00But yeah, so she was annoyed that it's come out in the media

03:03before the statement has officially been made in Holyrood.

03:07And Alastair, it's interesting that these announcements

03:10that are being made this afternoon,

03:11officially, the Scottish Parliament,

03:13on the back of Labor, Scottish Labor, that is,

03:16themselves proposing that they would take

03:18a different approach with the winter fuel payment

03:20separate to the UK Labor government.

03:22So a lot of politics at play there.

03:24You'll be able to read the full details

03:26of what's in that announcement at scottsman.com.

03:30Alastair, just on the actual chamber itself,

03:32there's a slightly different topic from Russell Finlay

03:35that they challenged John Swinney over.

03:37Yeah, I mean, in a way, it's a favourite topic.

03:40Russell Finlay's, it's crime,

03:42it's the criminal justice system.

03:43It's a topic that he's very comfortable with,

03:45very comfortable with raising.

03:46He was obviously formerly a crime journalist,

03:49something he knows a lot about.

03:50He was raising a couple of specific cases

03:52in Parliament today,

03:53one of them the case of Denise Clare,

03:55who was raped by the footballer David Goodwillie.

04:00She, at the moment, is trying to get funding,

04:03legal aid funding, to take a private prosecution

04:06through the criminal courts.

04:08John Swinney was effectively saying that.

04:11She has asked the Scottish government about this,

04:12and John Swinney was saying the Scottish government

04:14was taking too long to respond to that request.

04:17He was sort of apologising for that.

04:20Russell Finlay also raising a kind of wider point

04:22of the early release of prisoners

04:24that we've seen in a couple of batches recently,

04:27and specifically raising concerns over the fact

04:29there's not a so-called governor's veto

04:32in the latest plans the Scottish government has

04:35to release prisoners early.

04:37The governor's veto was in place

04:39in a previous early release batch

04:40and allowed prison governors to step in

04:43and stop prisoners being released.

04:45Prison governors' property were going to be a danger

04:48to the public, shouldn't be released.

04:50This time round, John Swinney is saying

04:52that, baked into the plans,

04:54they're not going to include those people

04:55who have been, for example, convicted of a serious assault

04:59or domestic violence.

05:00So there's no need to have that in place,

05:02but Russell Finlay raising concerns about that

05:05and just unhappy with the process more widely.

05:10Obviously, Russell Finlay raising an issue

05:12very close to his heart in terms of criminal justice.

05:14Anna Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader,

05:16was raising something that Scottish Labour

05:18loves to raise in Holyrood,

05:19and that is the state of the NHS,

05:22the state of the health system.

05:23Specifically, he was referencing a report

05:25that was out yesterday at the Institute of Fiscal Studies,

05:30which was essentially looking at the rate of recovery

05:35of the NHS in England and Scotland after COVID,

05:38taking waiting lists, all those kind of things into account.

05:41And they found that Scotland's recovery is slower

05:44than England's.

05:45Anna Sarwar raising concerns around that.

05:48John Swinney was asked about this yesterday as well

05:50when I was at the dinner with him by journalists.

05:53He was basically saying that the Scottish government

05:56has ploughed money into the NHS,

05:58and Scotland also has specific issues that it's dealing with.

06:02Yet, to be more, to be a little bit in general about it,

06:05those issues are that the Scottish population

06:06is proportionally more unhealthy

06:08than the English population.

06:09That's something the NHS in Scotland has to deal with.

06:12But very much two issues that the two party leaders

06:14are quite comfortable with.

06:16I thought that, just finally,

06:17the other interesting thing that came out of SMQs

06:19was a question by an SMP backbencher, actually,

06:22Kenny Gibson, I think, on the national insurance rise

06:27that was announced by the UK Labour government

06:28as part of the Chancellor Richard Rees' budget.

06:31And Kenny Gibson effectively setting up John Swinney

06:35to make a political point that the money

06:37that the UK government is going to give

06:40to the Scottish government in compensation

06:42for the impact of that rise on the public sector in Scotland

06:45will leave, in the words of John Swinney,

06:47Scotland short-changed by more than 400 million pounds.

06:51So that money's going to have to come from somewhere,

06:53sets up what could potentially be quite a difficult part

06:56of the Scottish budget next week

06:58when it's unveiled in Hollyrood on Wednesday, December 4th.

07:02Just six days now to go until that budget,

07:04which is going to frame a lot of the debates

07:07throughout next week.

07:08Alistair, thank you very much for joining us.

07:11You can read all the latest across what's happening

07:13in the world of Scottish politics at scottsman.com.

07:17Thanks for joining us and go out and buy a copy

07:20of the playbook tomorrow if you need it very fast.

Scotsman Politics: FMQs unpicked with Dale and Alistair - Thursday November 28 2024

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