Scotsman Politics: FMQs Roundup Thursday March 06 2025 #FMQs

The Scotsman

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00:00Hello, I'm Jane Bradley, Assistant Editor of the Scotsman, and I'm here for our weekly

00:06First Minister's Questions roundup with Political Editor Alistair Grant. Hi, Alistair.

00:11Hello, how's it going?

00:13Good, thank you. How are you?

00:15Yeah, not too bad, not too bad.

00:17Good, good. So you have just come out of FMQs. So, yeah, I mean, can you just give us a sort

00:24of brief roundup as to what's been happening today?

00:27Yeah, so I think actually before we get into talking about First Minister's Questions,

00:31it's worth touching on a piece that Ian Blackford, the former SNP Westminster leader, wrote for

00:36Today's Times, essentially suggesting that the SNP should move away from its position

00:41backing unilateral nuclear disarmament. So he was saying that he still wants rid of nuclear

00:47weapons, he still does not support nuclear weapons, but he was sort of suggesting they

00:51go down the route of multilateral nuclear disarmament, which is arguing that you come

00:54up with these agreements in which countries agree to disarm together, rather than Scotland

00:58or the UK just deciding unilaterally to disarm its nuclear weapons.

01:03Now, the SNP has a longstanding policy against nuclear weapons, a longstanding policy of

01:08unilateral nuclear disarmament. It obviously does not want Trident on the Clyde, it doesn't

01:14want Trident to be renewed, doesn't want the billions of pounds that are spent on Trident

01:18to be spent in that way. And First Minister John Swinney has been talking about this even

01:22recently in defending the SNP's position, because obviously questions are being asked

01:26about it, given the global volatility around the situation in Ukraine, given the aggression

01:32of Russia on the global stage. So it's very much become a kind of live issue, and it's

01:36very interesting that someone with Ian Blackford's stature in the party, who is obviously not

01:41an MP anymore, he was an MP up until the last general election in July last year, but he's

01:46still a very well-known figure in the party, he's still a party bigwig, if you want to

01:51put it that way. He's someone who's still a household name, still very much associated

01:55with the SNP. And I think it's interesting that he was raising this issue. And we stopped

02:00John Swinney after First Minister's questions, a bunch of journalists kind of doorstepped

02:04him as he came out of the chamber, asking him about this. And John Swinney was sort

02:07of saying that he could see the argument that Ian Blackford was making, but he takes a different

02:12view and still backs unilateral disarmament. So I think it's just sort of interesting

02:16that this debate is happening within the SNP at the moment, even if it's not a debate

02:21the leadership particularly wants to have. But moving on to First Minister's questions,

02:26I thought probably the kind of most newsworthy thing, to be honest, was the Scottish Conservative

02:32leader, Russell Findlay, raising his plans, which we have covered in the last couple of

02:36days, this kind of idea he has that people should be able to leave school lower than

02:41the age of 16 at the moment. So 16 is the legal age for leaving school. I think it's

02:45been that way since 1972, or certainly the early 1970s. Longstanding policy in line with

02:51much of the other countries within the OECD. But Russell Findlay effectively suggesting

02:56that school doesn't work for everyone, the academic route doesn't work for everyone.

03:01We obviously want those people to go into employment, worthy, worthwhile employment,

03:07and the apprenticeship route works for a lot of people. And Russell Findlay effectively

03:11suggesting that some of those people could leave school at perhaps as low as the age

03:15of 14. He's not saying that they would leave education, they would go into either further

03:20education, such as colleges, or they would go into apprenticeships. Now it's proved to

03:25be quite a controversial idea. I think notably we've got a story on the Scotsman's website

03:29at the moment that people should check out from the Plumbing and Heating Federation,

03:34the kind of trade body for plumbing, and they're extremely dismissive of this idea. I think

03:40they call it irresponsible and reckless, effectively pointing out that people of the age of 14

03:45and 15 cannot go into some of the training that they would need to do within the plumbing

03:50and heating industry. So I think it's extremely interesting that they are so critical of it.

03:54And John Swinney today as well, just saying it's not an idea that he thinks has any

03:58credence either. So on the one hand, Russell Findlay is arguing that he's trying to put

04:03forward ideas, he's trying to put forward ways to tackle some of the problems within

04:08the education system that we know about. But on the other hand, it's not getting a

04:13positive perception from the opposition, or from the government anyway.

04:18Yeah, I mean, it's quite a controversial policy. And as you say, it has come across

04:21quite a lot of criticism from many, many different sides. And the plumbing trade body

04:27saying that they don't think it's a good idea, that is particularly interesting. I think

04:30they raised that, you know, it's 14 year olds are still children, and you know, a child

04:34cannot be doing these things, as you said. So that's, yeah, a difficult position.

04:39Did Russell Findlay address that particular aspect at all in Parliament today?

04:45He didn't go into that much detail on it. I mean, I think as far as the Conservatives

04:48are concerned, there's ways that you could do this. I think a lot of business figures

04:53have come out in the last couple of days. Jim McCall, I think was one of them. A couple

04:57of others, I think were in the Daily Mail today, backing the idea, you know, suggesting

05:02that there is something to it. I think, as I say, everyone accepts that there are problems

05:06within the education system. It doesn't work for everyone. The idea that everyone

05:10has to go down the academic route to be successful is clearly not true. There's lots

05:14of other routes in life. And to try and open those routes out to people, to make it

05:18easier for people to leave school and go into apprenticeships, is something that I think

05:22is backed across the political parties in Holyrood. But on this particular point of,

05:26like you say, children, effectively, 14 and 15 year olds, being able to make that kind

05:30of decision and leave school at that point is an extremely controversial idea.

05:34And I think as the Plumbing and Heating Federation pointed out, if I'm correct

05:38in saying this, that they still require people to have mathematics to a certain

05:42level. The idea that people would be kind of moving away from that, I think,

05:46is something that would cause a degree of controversy.

05:50Yeah, absolutely. And staying on the subject of the Scottish Conservatives,

05:54there's obviously been talk today about two potential council defections

05:58to reform. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

06:02Yes, this is the latest in the kind of line of defections from the Conservatives

06:06to reform that we're seeing from councillors. I think they've got

06:10around half a dozen now, reform councillors, or maybe this takes them up to eight

06:14or something like that. Still, you know, single figures, but it's

06:18a worry for the Scottish Conservatives. I think you can really see that in Holyrood

06:22and the rhetoric coming from the Scottish Tories.

06:26Russell Findlay, I think, was asked about it after First Minister's questions.

06:30My colleague Rachel Aimery was speaking to him about it with other journalists.

06:34And I think the point that they always make is that any vote for reform in Scotland

06:38can only benefit the SNP. That's the argument that the Scottish Conservatives would use

06:42because it eats into the unionist vote. And the Scottish Conservatives see themselves

06:46as the best choice for those people who want to combat the SNP

06:50but are not going to be voting Labour.

06:54So anything that divides that chunk of voters is bad for the Scottish Conservatives.

06:58And I think you can really see that, as I say, in some of their rhetoric,

07:02some of the speeches that Russell Findlay's been giving, the talk of the

07:06left-wing Holyrood bubble, the fact that he's standing up for common sense Scotland.

07:10You could say that some of these are slightly populist arguments,

07:14so certainly arguments are aimed, perhaps, at some of those voters who are tempted by

07:19reform, who feel fed up with the Holyrood system, fed up with what they would see

07:23as the political elites in Scotland. So I think it is a source of concern

07:27for the Scottish Tories. I think one thing I would say that came out from

07:31Richard Tice's visit to Scotland this morning is that when he was asked

07:35about the names of these councillors that had defected, he didn't appear to know

07:39their full names. And the suggestion was, I think he was even asked what councillors they were from,

07:43and he seemed to try and avoid that question too. So I think there's huge questions about

07:47reform in Scotland, what they actually stand for, what their policy

07:51platform is in Scotland. They don't have a separate leadership north of the border.

07:55They effectively have a councillor called Thomas Kerr, who defected

07:59a few weeks ago, who's become a de facto spokesman in Scotland in some ways.

08:03I think there's just huge questions over what reform actually means

08:07north of the border.

08:09Thank you very much Alistair, all very interesting.

08:13You can read more about this on the Scotsman website, or follow us

08:17on our social media, and if you're out and about today, please do pick up a paper.

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