Scotsman Politics: FMQs Unpicked Thursday December 19 2024

The Scotsman

Transcript

00:00Hello and welcome to today's Scotsman Politics Show. We're coming to you live from Holyrood.

00:07You can hear the bell ringing in the background. My name's Al Miller. I'm Deputy Editor of

00:12The Scotsman and I'm joined by Political Editor Alastair Graham. We're unpicking first in

00:17the questions. It's the final one of 2024. And Alastair, we know Russell Foley with the

00:25Scottish Tories. What did they go in on the attack about to finish the year?

00:30Yeah, sorry about that bell going off there. It doesn't usually go off at this time of

00:34day, but it's because obviously this is the last FMQs before the end of the year. This

00:39is the last sitting day of Holyrood. So Holyrood is finishing very early today and people are

00:43going off to do various kind of Christmas events. But yeah, it was Russell Finlay, the

00:48Scottish Tory leader, very much going in on a kind of justice amalgamation of all sorts

00:53of different issues within the kind of justice brief. So bringing up what he was calling

00:58kind of secret plea deals. These are plea deals that are made in cases that he says

01:02victims don't have enough of a say on and often don't know what's happening. Also bringing

01:07up very specific cases, a particular miscarriage of justice, a very tragic case in West Lothian

01:13as well, involving a baby that was abused and died and asking John Swinney to either

01:18intervene or to kind of make his views known on these issues. And John Swinney very much

01:24saying that they are, you know, the independent judicial system is separate from the Scottish

01:29government. He can't make these kind of interventions. So wasn't really a lot of movement in terms

01:35of getting answers out of John Swinney there, because he would just say that this is a kind

01:40of matter for the independent justice system. Anna Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, going

01:46in on the housing emergency. This is something that we've written about a lot in the Scotsman.

01:50The Scottish government declared a housing emergency, I think, earlier on this year.

01:54It feels like a very long time ago now. We've also had, I think, 13 councils across Scotland

01:59creating their own housing emergencies. This isn't something that triggers any automatic

02:04extra cash for councils or anything like that, but it is a kind of acknowledgement of the

02:09crisis and a kind of attempt to draw attention to it and to focus minds on it. Anna Sarwar

02:17very much bringing up the fact that he was saying 10,000 children without a home going

02:21into the Christmas period, calling on John Swinney to do more. John Swinney saying that,

02:27you know, there's an acceptance that not enough houses have been built, but the Scottish government

02:31has been taking action. They have been pushing forward of housing projects, but also saying

02:36that this is in the context of austerity. And he's, again, pointing to the UK government,

02:41blaming the UK government for that overall financial climate and saying that the Scottish

02:45government is working within that overall climate of austerity. And finally, just to

02:49complete this kind of trio of different issues that First Minister's questions today, Patrick

02:54Harvey, the Scottish Greens co-leader, was criticising the Scottish government's progress

02:59on climate issues, saying it's not going fast enough, it's not going far enough, calling

03:04on the Scottish government to do more. John Swinney, again, defending the Scottish government's

03:08records. So it's very much a kind of round up FMQs today, as you might expect at the

03:13end of the year. Russell Findlay going on something that's close to his heart, justice.

03:17He's a former crime journalist. It's something he knows a lot about. He's very close to some

03:21of these cases that he raises in terms of knowing a lot about them. Anna Sarwar going

03:25on housing, the homelessness crisis, again, an issue that Labour have brought up before

03:30at First Minister's questions, something they're quite strong on. And the Greens, of course,

03:34going on climate, which is, as everyone knows, one of the main issues that party is concerned

03:39with. Alistair, I thought while John Swinney responded

03:44pretty levelly throughout, he did sort of raise his voice and go on the attack against

03:48Anna Sarwar and he brought up the WASPI women's situation. And from my point of view, it was

03:54quite an effective blow landed. What did you make of it?

03:57Yeah, I think he was just waiting for the moment that he could bring up the WASPI women's

04:00situation. Of course, this comes after Prime Minister Keir Starmer made the announcement

04:05that the UK government isn't going to provide any compensation to the WASPI women. I think,

04:08you know, not unsurprising considering the amount of money we're talking about here.

04:13I think it's £10 billion or something like that for the overall costs. It always seemed

04:18quite unlikely that the UK government would ever provide that kind of money, given the

04:23current financial climate we live in. But the difficulty for Labour here is that they

04:28made the WASPI women, those campaigners, think that they were going to take action.

04:32They posed for photographs with the campaigners. They made various statements in public about

04:37this. It's a very tricky issue for Scottish Labour. Anna Sarwar yesterday saying that

04:42he didn't agree with the fact the UK government isn't providing any compensation. I think

04:46Jackie Bailey, his deputy, today saying the same thing, that she disagrees with that decision.

04:50This is an issue that Jackie Bailey has campaigned on for quite a while now. She's been photographed

04:55several times with those campaigners. So it is a very difficult issue for them. And

04:58I think the difficulty comes in that element of hypocrisy. You're seeing one thing when

05:02you're out of power, and then when you come into power, you're doing something very different.

05:05And as far as those campaigners are concerned, there's a real sense of betrayal that the

05:10Labour Party has betrayed them. Alistair, just lastly, before we wrap up,

05:15we've written a lot about Neil Gray and those chauffeur trips. We know he made a statement

05:20in Parliament even about it. And we were running a story on the site on Wednesday that the ministerial

05:27code has been tweaked off the back of this. But there's another minister in hot water,

05:31and you've spoken to her today. Yes, this is Angela Constance,

05:35the Justice Secretary. There's a story in the front page of another paper today

05:39saying that she had taken a ministerial car to an old firm game just a matter of days ago, really,

05:47including a family member accompanying her to that game as well. Myself and a number of other

05:54journalists doorstepped her as she was leaving the Scottish Parliament chamber today, just to

05:59ask her why, essentially, she felt the need to take a ministerial car to a football match.

06:05She's obviously the Justice Secretary. You wouldn't immediately think that it sits within

06:09her portfolio, and also why she felt the need to bring a family member along with her. I mean,

06:13the criticism from opposition politicians has always been that these are jollies. You know,

06:17there's something that ministers are just doing for enjoyment, and that they're kind of using

06:22meetings of people as a fig leaf to go on what are essentially, as I say, jollies.

06:26But Angela Constance very much saying that this was something that she was there as Justice

06:30Secretary. She had meetings with football bodies about things like pyrotechnics and ongoing issues

06:36with policing of fans, and saying that sometimes ministers do bring family members along to these

06:42events, that she's not in the habit of it. She's not a football fan, but she was very much defending

06:46her decision, or at least defending the fact that she'd taken a ministerial car to this event,

06:52that she'd been there in an official capacity. I think it's important to point out that this

06:57kind of thing has gone on since the dawn of devolution. It goes on down south as well,

07:02but obviously the climate around this has changed recently. On the back of those Neil Gray

07:08incidents you referred to earlier, Neil Gray apologised because a lot of the football matches

07:13he attended were Aberdeen games. He's an Aberdeen fan. He apologised for creating the

07:18perception, I think is how he put it, that he was acting more as a fan than a minister.

07:22There was then a later story that he had taken a ministerial car to a film premiere, the film

07:27The Outrun, at its UK premiere at the Edinburgh Film Festival. Again, not very clear why the Health

07:34Secretary felt the need to be at that event. So I think it's just this perception that they are

07:39taking the public for a ride, to use a bit of a pun, that they're kind of treating people like

07:45they're idiots and essentially they're going to these things because they're fun.

07:51If you're at all interested in any of the stories that we've spoken about, the situation with the

07:56WASPI women and the row that has developed within Labor about that, or Angela Constance and

08:02ultimately what she's got to say as well, you'll be able to read those at scottsman.com.

08:07Look for the politics tab in the navigation bar that takes you to all our latest coverage.

08:12Alistair, thanks for joining us and for bringing us that comprehensive wrap.

08:16You've done a fantastic job throughout 2024 and we're looking forward to what a year before the

08:22big Scottish election brings in 2025. Thanks everyone for tuning in.

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