The Scotsman Bulletin Wednesday April 09 2025 #Politics

The Scotsman

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00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Video Bulletin for this Wednesday.

00:05My name's Dale Miller, I'm Deputy Editor of the Scotsman and I'm joined by our Deputy

00:09Political Editor, David Boll.

00:12And David, I've got a couple of stories that I want to talk through with you today, but

00:17firstly the front page of today's Scotsman, which leads on finances unsustainable.

00:24This is the Scottish Government as the number of elderly increases research or analysis

00:31effectively put together by the Scottish Fiscal Commission, which has said that the budget

00:39black hole or the extra deficit could be as much as $14 to $16 billion under a worst case

00:45scenario as the number of elderly are set to increase more here in Scotland than south

00:51of the border, and that is due to issues around the number of babies being born and pressure

00:58around migration as well.

00:59So it's a pretty fascinating analysis from the Commission.

01:04There is a best case scenario where the Scottish Government could end up with more money, but

01:09that seems pretty unlikely, the Commission says, based on recent trends of where things

01:15are heading.

01:15So yet another financial headache for the Scottish Government to deal with.

01:20David, you've also written about some new figures around the climate that were out, and at a time

01:28where we're trying to get our emissions down or our carbon footprint down, it didn't make

01:32for great reading for the Scottish Government.

01:35No, I mean, it's an analysis that's come out yesterday, which was for 2021.

01:41So it does feel like a long time in the past, but these things take a while for the experts

01:45to kind of dig into.

01:46But it showed that basically our carbon footprint jumped by almost 15% as we kind of lifted that

01:52lockdown.

01:53And it wasn't just compared to the year previous, where obviously we weren't going about using

01:59cars and transport and using up a lot of emissions, but it was the highest level since

02:042015.

02:05And it's just another blow to the kind of the Scottish Government's climate credentials.

02:09We've seen in recent weeks their legal climate targets for 2030 being scrapped.

02:18They don't have a climate change plan at the moment.

02:20They've delayed it a year to kind of embed these new sort of methods of targets.

02:25So they're working off a very old document.

02:28We saw last week Patrick Harvey's kind of controversial plans that would have seen Scots have to be

02:35scrapped their boilers by certain points.

02:37That's been done away with in place of more government targets.

02:42And they've missed sort of the majority of their last sort of annual targets in reducing

02:47emissions.

02:48So it's just another sort of blow.

02:50And it basically proves that that cut during the pandemic that Michael Matheson, who was the

02:57net zero secretary at the time, very much said would be sort of a culture change in the

03:02start of something different.

03:03And this kind of proves that it's all been lost and it's been kind of a waste opportunity

03:08as some of the charities reaction to this yesterday and a bit more frustration, really, given that

03:13John Swinney has made it one of his core priorities to tackle the climate crisis, that more action

03:19hasn't happened at the scale required.

03:21David, it is remarkable about how much has gone back to normal since the pandemic and the

03:27way I think we go about life.

03:30That is probably a conversation for another day.

03:32But putting your analytical hat on without incentives for homeowners to actually move to

03:39cleaner energy initiatives that will then bring the carbon footprint down.

03:44How do you see the Scottish government ever meeting some of these targets?

03:49Well, the renewable heating targets for boilers and things are extremely difficult to meet

03:55anyway.

03:56There's been a lack of progress on installing heat pumps and so forth in Scotland.

04:02I mean, they have scaled up, but not to the extent that was promised.

04:06It's worth saying that Scotland does have kind of some of the most generous grants and loans

04:11in the UK for heat pumps.

04:14But without that incentive that people need to do it, particularly there were sort of trigger

04:18points put in about when people were selling their house or a new tenancy was brought in

04:23that they would have to meet these new standards.

04:26That's kind of been done away with.

04:28So the onus is very much on the Scottish government to deliver it targets.

04:32And without funding, again, this whole scheme to decarbonise heat was estimated at $33 billion.

04:40And this was before we've had, obviously, the rise of inflation.

04:43And who knows where that's going to head now?

04:45So it is likely to be substantially more.

04:48And that money isn't coming from government.

04:50So without the incentives, it's going to be very difficult for Scotland to meet these clean

04:55heat targets.

04:56And, David, just separately to that, you've written on another subject, Douglas Ross, former

05:02Scottish Tories leader.

05:05A big initiative, one that he spoke a lot about, was his right to recovery bill.

05:09Now, I know that was to help particularly with the drugs deaths crisis, and it came out of

05:16the back of concern of just how high the ongoing drug deaths rate was.

05:22Douglas Ross is no longer heading up the Tories party, but that legislation is still sort of

05:29making its way through Holyrood in the various stages.

05:33But there's some criticism around it and whether it will actually achieve what it's set out to.

05:38Yeah.

05:38So it's his members bill on sort of a right to recovery for those addicted to alcohol harm

05:43and drug harm.

05:44And I think a lot of the groups that have responded to this and raised concerns understand that

05:51he's coming from a good place and they're all kind of on the same page about what they

05:54want to achieve.

05:56But they're worried his members bills is quite narrow in the fact that it would instill a

06:02right to recovery for those that are sort of clinically addicted, which actually makes

06:07up quite a small proportion of people who are sort of dependent on substance abuse.

06:12And there are concerns that it would have unintended consequences to those people.

06:17They would be kind of deprioritized in some of the treatment.

06:20And also the fact to embed a right to treatment without the funding or the actual capacity there

06:27is maybe not going to be that helpful.

06:29And it kind of stigmatizes some of the people that are needing that support.

06:34But obviously it comes, as you said, at a time when Scotland is still the drugs death

06:38capital of Europe.

06:39We've got the highest alcohol deaths in, I think it's 15 years.

06:43So I think there's some good intention there from Douglas Ross.

06:47But I think some of the medical experts and groups are a bit concerned about how this would

06:51be implemented and maybe some of the unintended consequences.

06:55And he'll need a lot of support from other parties, including probably the Scottish Government

07:00to get this member's bill through.

07:02So it's maybe a bit unlikely that it will at this stage.

07:06We don't know.

07:07He said he's open to lots of amendments and he'll look at them fairly to see if he can

07:12get this through.

07:12I think he wants it just to be delivered in the best way possible or at all, to be honest.

07:17So I think he's open to conversations with anyone who's got concerns about it.

07:21You can read both those stories at scotsman.com.

07:25If you ever can't find our political coverage, there is a politics tab in the navigation bar

07:30at the top of the site where you'll read some of David's work and that from his colleagues

07:36across Westminster and Holyrood as well.

07:39Please follow us on all social media channels and pick up a copy of the paper tomorrow where

07:44we'll have all the latest on tariffs.

07:46It continues with global tariffs coming into effect against countries like China from the

07:52US, China facing a tariff of some 104%.

07:56You'll find out what the reaction is from the markets and political leaders to that in tomorrow's

08:02Scotsman.

08:03Thanks to you, David.

08:04Thanks to everyone else for joining us.

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