Scotsman Politics: Dale and Rachel review FMQs at the Scottish Parliament

The Scotsman

Scotsman Politics: Dale and Rachel review the FMQs at the Scottish Parliament

Transcript

00:00hello and welcome to the scotsman's politics show we're here to wrap up first minister's

00:05questions for another week and it came just 24 hours after chancellor rachel reeves stood up in

00:11the house of commons to deliver the spending review with some implications for scotland

00:17and i'm joined by a political correspondent rachel amory coming to us live from hollywood

00:22rachel um what rachel reeves announced yesterday got talk immediately going about tax rises

00:30that they would be unavoidable inevitable on the back of the amount of spending

00:35that had been outlined but tax also came up to open fmqs as well can you fill us in

00:42this is what the scottish conservatives chose to go on fmqs today they pointed to a scottish

00:47fiscal commission report which suggests there is an economic performance gap between scotland

00:51and the rest of the uk off of over 1 billion because at 1.1 billion they were suggesting

00:56now they were saying that because of the extra taxes that people have in scotland because of the

01:00choices the smp government has made there should be around 1.7 billion pound extra to spend on public

01:06services however the fiscal commission says only about 600 million and the conservatives basically

01:11tried to highlight this and say that there's incompetence in how the economy has been handled

01:15by this smp and saying that um billions is being wasted as has been shown by this report

01:21and now during that back and forth with russell finley the conservative party leader and he also was

01:26asked to introduce tax cuts on the back of the spending with you down in westminster so if you

01:31remember yesterday there was this chancellor rachel reeves set out her spending and her spending plans

01:36for the next few years that includes uh billions more for scotland i think it was about 52 billion is

01:41what the block grant will be by 2029 on the back of the spending review russell finley today saying that

01:47then the first minister should use that cash to introduce more tax breaks in scotland now he

01:53didn't commit to that and said he used to use the opportunity to sort of attack the fiscal rules

01:56of the uk labour government but certainly a big conversation to have about tax and economic performance

02:02today at fmqs and uh rachel there was um some slightly surprising news on the economical business

02:10front yesterday uh alexander dennis confirming that the falkirk or larbert um facility department that

02:18they've got that they might not shut it all together and move operations fully south of the border it

02:24would potentially cost hundreds of jobs here in scotland um that came up with fmqs as well yes that's

02:31what scottish labour decided to go on at fmqs today there's um job losses happening at alexander dennis

02:36and viewers can obviously look at the scotsman's website for more details on or what exactly is

02:41going on there but the scottish labour leader anna sarwa wanted to use this opportunity to sort of

02:45point out the fact that um a lot of electric buses for scotland have been bought in china

02:51not in scotland and also pointing to um andy burnham the mayor for future manchester a labour mayor of

02:57course um buying more buses in scotland from alexander dennis than the scottish government has as

03:04well and sort of trying to sort of say that if if there's such a problem here perhaps john swaney

03:09should pick up the phone to andy burnham and ask how he has managed to do it so again another chance

03:13to sort of try and highlight how things would be done differently if it was labour government

03:18and of course as always anna sour does like to sort of have pitched at the end of his

03:22his uh section of fmqs to um pitch to voters to vote labour at the next scottish parliament election

03:29and of course last year sorry last week and labour did win the hamilton by-election so of course

03:35brought that up and used that as an opportunity to say this is the momentum it's building to change

03:39the government in holiday the next year's election and say this is some of the decisions that we made

03:44differently and rachel talking about that by-election we know labour won uh smp came second but reform

03:51weren't far behind the smp now there's been a lot of debate about you know did the smp do a lot worse than

03:58expected you know how did it match up with recent polling um some interesting comments around from

04:04john curtis about labour not getting carried away with the win but uh john swinney had to answer at

04:11least one question today about his leadership um which was interesting to also yes this by-election

04:18it was kind of billed as the smps to lose and lose they did and as you as you were saying there it

04:24is a very good performance for reform uk and of course very good for scottish labour who

04:28ultimately won this election there has been mustering since then of um is john swinney the

04:33person to lead the party forward a lot of sort of anonymized briefings for example as well to various

04:38newspapers that he should perhaps step down now after fnqs he spoke to our political editor alistair

04:43grant about this when he said there would be no leadership contest in the back of this and that

04:47he is here to stay as first minister and as snp leader so he's clearly looking to continue on and

04:53bring the party into the 2026 holiday election and we know this came on the back of a small cabinet

05:00reshuffle to reintroduce marley marley mccallum who is back from maternity leave into the ranks as uh as

05:08housing secretary so some changes afoot there um and john swinging obviously with his eye on the lead up to

05:15the scottish election next year rachel thanks for bringing us up to speed you can read all the very

05:22latest on politics uh both here in scotland further abroad at scotsman.com we'll have a story shortly on

05:30those questions about taxes uh from first minister's questions from rachel you'll be able to read all

05:35about that uh rachel thanks to you and thanks to everyone else for joining us bye

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